Woods Wanderer

A couple days ago, I drove over to Isle La Motte to visit the Goodsell Ridge Preserve. I haven’t been there for several years, so I had to follow directions on my cell phone to find it. But once I arrived it looked quite familiar. It’s not the kind of place one easily forgets.

The Chazy Reef is on full display at this preserve, just as it is a few miles away at Fisk Quarry that I’ve written about before. This reef was created by sea sponges that lived 480 million years ago. Plate tectonics has moved it from the tropics to Lake Champlain over that immense expanse of time.

I walked through a field and over patches of exposed rock loaded with fossils from the Ordovician Period – long before there were dinosaurs or any other land creatures. I have delved deep into natural history recently, reading dozens of books about life on this planet since it first appeared over 3.5 billion years ago. The Cambrian Explosion, 540 million years ago, is when all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures inhabited the Earth’s seas. This is as close as I can get to encountering that event while still being in Vermont.

As I walked, I could see the faint outlines of ancient creatures in the rock underfoot: cephalopods, gastropods, bryozoans, and much more. It’s a surreal experience for anyone who can grasp the reality of what has been written in stone.

I had the place all to myself on a calm, cloudless day with temps in the 50s. Late afternoon shadows cast by surrounding cedars made the fossils a little hard to see so I gravitated to sunnier spots. At first I followed the White Trail, but soon I was wandering all over the preserve, through field and forest, from one rocky outcropping to another. It felt as if I was sleepwalking through one of the natural history books I had just read.

A spider crawled over a fossil, juxtaposing the past with the present. I am just as clueless as this contemporary creature is about the nature of things – why it all came to be. All I have are the stories I tell myself, scientific or no, as I walk through time. Somehow that’s enough.

Tags: Chazy Reef, fossils, Goodsell Ridge Preserve, natural history, walking

To treat Lyme Disease, I took two powerful antibiotics for a month. That seemed to do the trick, but the friendly microbes inside me became collateral damage in the process, so I ended up with a fungal infection. Treated that next. Declaring myself well again, I went for a short, easy hike in early September up Prospect Rock. That wiped me out. That’s when I realized I wasn’t out of the woods yet – not healthy enough to do the things I usually do, that is.

Then my wife Judy suddenly tested positive for Covid. A few days later, so did I. That kept me moping around the house for a week and a half. I was tired, yes, but mine seemed like a relatively mild case. So yesterday, when I tested negative, I went for a short, easy walk in the nearby town forest.

Even though I set a deliberately slow pace, creeping along the trail like an old man, I broke a sweat after going no more than half a mile. And my whole body ached. I enjoyed being in the lush, quiet forest all the same, putting one foot in front of another. I spooked a deer. That was a pleasant surprise. But the tick I pulled from my neck wasn’t. That only reminded me how I became so worn down in the first place.

Bugs, fungi, microbes, and viruses. There are more of these life-forms in the natural world than all the birds, flowers, furry animals, and other things that we love so much. A lot more. Truth is, they are more a part of what we are and how we live than any of us care to admit. In this regard, the world we inhabit is as horrifying as it is wonderful.

The splash of color that I saw in the trees at the small pond during my walk saddened me. Autumn is here already; summer is long gone. It feels like I’ve been cheated out of the best two months of it. And I’m still not really IN the woods yet. It’ll be a few more weeks before I’m back to my old hiking self. That’s no big deal in the greater scheme of things, I suppose. Life goes on.

Tags: Covid, fall color, hiking, life-forms, Lyme disease, microbes, nature

Last May I went to Concord, Massachusetts to complete my research for a collection of 19th century American nature writing. It is my conviction that it all began with the publication in 1836 of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s little book, Nature. Similar ideas were put forth at the same time or shortly thereafter by a handful of Unitarian ministers and other free-thinking writers known collectively as the Transcendentalists – Henry David Thoreau among them, of course. Concord was ground zero for that movement.

Since then I have put together a book of various excerpts, essays, journal entries and poems from that era, along with an introduction that I’ve written. TRANSCENDENTAL NATURE: An Anthology of 19th Century American Writing on the Divine in the Natural World is now in print. The subtitle is a lengthy one, but it best describes what this book is all about. It is the ineffable quality of Nature that has moved thinkers and writers from Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Thoreau, to Walt Whitman, John Muir, and John Burroughs, to many of us living, writing, and grooving on the wild today. And yes, I think there is a distinctly American quality to this shared worldview.

At any rate, this book is now available at Amazon.com. It can also be purchased at my website, woodthrushbooks.com. Check it out.

Tags: anthology, divine nature, nature writing, Transcendentalism

Forget bears. The real scourge of the forest is the notorious deer tick, who carries the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, better known as Lyme disease. I always wear long pants tucked into my boots whenever I hike in the woods and check myself afterwards. I’ve pulled scores of ticks off my clothing through the decades, and even a few dug into my skin. Fortunately, I’ve escaped this scourge. That is, until recently.

I didn’t believe it when I first saw the rash inside my thigh. With long pants, how could a tick get in there? And I never saw the one that bit me, so I assumed that the inflamed area was due to a spider bite or something while lounging on my patio. Then I realized that a tick would also have easy access to my thigh while I’m wearing shorts. I often brushed up against the understory of the wild, wooded perimeter of my back yard while doing yard work in shorts. And I never thought to check myself afterwards. Duh!

As the rash grew larger, I was treated with a steroid then a light-duty antibiotic by urgent care providers making their best assessments about what was causing it. Then the lab report came in stating the obvious: I had contracted Lyme disease. My primary care doctor put me on a pair of heavy duty antibiotics to knock out the bacterial infection. So now, ten days later, I’m on the mend.

I read somewhere that roughly half of the deer ticks carry Lyme Disease. When I was a hiking guide back in the 90s, I warned my clients of the risk, but it was a fairly low risk in Vermont back then. Now these disease-carrying ticks are common throughout the Northeast and elsewhere. Our changing climate doesn’t help matters.

This threat has to be taken seriously. From now on, I’ll be treating my pants with an insecticide called permethrin, and I’ll be wearing those pants not just when I go in the woods, but when I do yard work as well. I don’t want to tangle again with this particular bacteria. It packs a nasty punch.

Tags: back yard nature, forest understory, hiking, Lyme disease

One of the many pleasures of late summer are the berries that grow in wild places. While hiking in higher elevations I often come upon patches of low-bush blueberries, especially along Adirondack ponds. I pick and eat them simply because I can. They are tiny explosions of wonder and joy in my mouth.

Closer to home, in my backyard in fact, there are blackberries. I often walk barefoot to the edge between my backyard lawn and the woods beyond to visit the wild blackberry bushes. There I witness how the berries are ripening from red to a dark purple. I can’t resist picking a few. Their tangy sweetness is the taste of Nature’s endless progression through the seasons.

I leave most of the berries on the vines for the deer and other wild animals passing through. I don’t need to harvest this fruit. The local farm stands provide plenty of fresh produce this time of year, and it is all delightful: berries, tomatoes, corn, melon, and much more. But what I do harvest when I visit those bushes in my backyard is wildness itself.

The naturalist John Burroughs wrote: “Life is so great a mystery that we need not invent others.” I concur. I feel it each and every day of the growing season. I feel it every time I witness a mayfly hatch, push through dense vegetation while bushwhacking, or spot a creature that I’ve never seen before. I marvel at the mechanics of the simplest life-forms, bacteria, hard at work in my gut or in a compost heap. A huge mushroom suddenly appears in my garden after a thunderstorm and I greet it with all the reverence that most people reserve for church. In early spring, I bite into the leaf of a wild leek. This time of year, I eat a wild berry, making its divine energy my own. We are all connected in this incredible, interwoven tapestry of living things.

The more I delve into the intricacies of wild nature, the more astounded I am by it all. My attitude towards Nature – the whole of it – is nothing short of being religious. Scientific inquiry only reinforces this, revealing as it does the forces that generate everything both animate and inanimate. The laws of nature explain why the berry plant puts forth such a tantalizing, seed-bearing fruit –– one that birds, herbivores, and creatures like me consume then drop elsewhere with ample fertilization. But it doesn’t explain why all this is happening in the first place. The answer is beyond comprehension. So I pick and eat a wild berry, letting the taste of it enlighten me.

Tags: divine nature, endless growth, late summer, the laws of nature, wild berries, wild nature

Every once in a while, I feel an urge to bushwhack through the woods, preferably without even a semblance of a trail. So last week I did just that. Not wanting to drive far, I went to a so-called tree farm on French Hill, where a sign invites all comers to recreate. It’s not exactly deep woods, but surprisingly wild for being only six miles away from home.

I started out on an old skidder trail overgrown with waist-high ferns and other vegetation. Ideal tick country to be sure, but I had my long pants tucked into my boots and held my arms high above the brush until I cleared it (would check myself for ticks later). Then I slipped off the trail, following a compass bearing north, feeling my way through the thick understory, catching a glimpse through the trees now and then of the beaver pond on my right.

I’ve done this hike before and know the terrain well. Basically, this bushwhack is a 2-mile circumnavigation of a sprawling beaver pond and its wetlands. My brand new hiking boots got their baptism of mud and water as I negotiated the rough terrain. An old, half-submerged stone fence enabled me to cross the wetland on the far side of the pond without getting too wet.

Once I was clear of dense alders, the forest opened up somewhat. Then mine was an easy, slow-paced tramp. The trick is to get through the woods without tripping over something and falling down. That requires patience and a keen eye – two qualities every bushwhacker must possess.

Eventually I came around to the south side of the beaver pond where I could step out for a good view. The sun shined brightly through a nearly cloudless sky. No wildlife in sight, though. I continued another quarter mile around the pond to the overgrown skidder trail then exited the woods. And that satisfied the urge for a while…

Not long after the French Hill excursion, though, I drove an hour east into the Green Mountains and did a right and proper bushwhack. I went to Basin Brook, which flows through a high valley of wild country between Laraway and Butternut Mountains. This is my number one go-to place whenever I need a deep woods fix. I drove a mile up a logging road before ditching my car and continuing on foot. Another half mile up the dirt road, I slipped into the forest on a snowmobile trail.

Upon reaching the brook, I left the snowmobile trail and bushwhacked upstream to a place where I had camped a couple years back. The stream was low, clear and inviting, but my old campsite has been washed out – presumably by last year’s heavy rain and floods. No matter. I stayed long enough to eat lunch, make an entry in my field journal, and groove on the infinite green world all around me. Then I made my way back to the snowmobile trail and hiked out.

That satisfied the bushwhacking urge for the time being. But I’ll go out again before summer’s end for sure. Next time to stay overnight and really get into it.

Tags: beaver pond, bushwhacking, deep woods solitude, Green Mountains, mountain stream

After ten days indoors, working feverishly on literary work, I needed to get out groove with the wild. With a heat advisory issued by the weather service for northern Vermont, it seemed a little reckless to go for a hike, but I did so anyway. When the wild calls, I’ve gotta go.

At midday today, temps were already in the high 80s and the humidity was downright tropical. I drank a ridiculous amount of water before leaving the house. Then I took it easy, real easy, meandering along the trail at a snail’s pace. Just a short walk, I told myself, enough to satisfy the wildness within for a little while…

There was no one else in the town forest, of course. I had the place all to myself. An ovenbird called out, and a few other songbirds let out subdued chirps. Other than that, the forest was silent and still.

Yes, the trail was muddy from the downpour yesterday, with frogs underfoot. Yes, the blood-sucking insects were out in force, having their way with me. And yes, I sweated heavily even as I crept along as slowly as I could. But it was good to immerse myself in the infinite green all the same, especially on this the Summer Solstice.

There will be longer, more challenging hikes in the mountains in the near future, I’m sure. Yet I returned to my car this afternoon quite satisfied to have gotten out today. Thunderheads approached from the West as I drove home. They are rumbling through the region, drenching everything even as I write this. Ah, summertime!

Tags: hike, summer solstice, wildness within

Once again Judy and I rented a cottage on the Maine Coast for a week, and once again I couldn’t resist the urge to walk to a small, rocky island just off Goose Rocks Beach. For days I watched a spit of the sandy beach reach towards the island at low tide, but it didn’t seem to connect. Then it did, although very briefly. So the next morning early, I timed my walk so that I’d reach the narrowing channel between beach and island right when the tide was lowest. It worked. I stepped onto the island without getting my feet wet.

The sun, just above the northeastern horizon, shined brilliantly through the cloudless sky. No breeze stirred the still waters, and temps rose quickly through the 50s and into the 60s. The beginning yet another beautiful day. I felt lucky to be alive and kicking. I ventured onto the island’s rock-strewn, uneven ground, careful as to where I stepped… all the time looking downward…

That’s when I realized that I could hardly step anywhere without stepping on some kind of life-form: periwinkles, barnacles, clams and more. These rocks, underwater during most of any given day, are covered with marine animals. I have witnessed this many times before, but can’t get used to this intertidal fecundity. I knelt down and turned over one rock after another. Beneath every rock, tiny hard-shelled aquatic animals moved about, along with translucent creatures barely visible to the naked eye. Had I remembered to bring my hand lens, I would have seen much more, I’m sure.

When I went to pick up and look under one rock, it started moving. That took me by surprise. It was a crab doing its best to look like a rock, now that it was exposed. Fortunately, I came upon it before any of the nearby shorebirds did.

Gulls, godwits, and other shorebirds were busy feeding in the shallow waters nearby, just off the island. No doubt they were finding plenty to eat. I was pretty hungry myself, so I hiked back to the cottage to consume a bowl of granola cereal. Yeah, we all have to eat. Gotta keep those inner fires stoked. Life forms come into being, eat as they mature, reproduce and die. It’s the eternal cycle of life. And nowhere is this more obvious than on a shoreline at low tide.

Tags: fecundity, intertidal zone, low tide, Maine coast, marine life

Suddenly there is the faintest hint of green in the trees. Then it unfolds slowly, very so slowly – the vibrant canopy overhead. Each day just a little greener, brighter, full of life. An awakening after a long dark winter. Nothing short of a miracle, played out over and over, year after year.

I follow a path through the woods, constantly reminding myself to watch where I’m stepping, but my eyes keep drifting up towards vernal glory. Dark clouds beyond the trees threaten rain, which is a good thing. All these rooted life forms will get yet another good drink soon and become even greener.

Not just green but the mesmerizing hue of fresh verdure unlike anything else we see the rest of the year. It only lasts a few days before the forest takes on that deeper, richer color. The forest refreshed. The color of joy. The triumph of the organic over the inorganic.

This is the eternal promise of Nature – life springing back into action after months-long dormancy. This is an irresistible force in a largely inanimate universe. This time of year, the trees shout what stone-cold materialists deny: that there is something incredible happening here on planet Earth and most likely elsewhere in the cosmos.

Life is self-perpetuating in a way that doesn’t make thermodynamic sense. It sucks energy out of the Sun. It grows; it self-organizes; it reproduces. It flaunts its leafy self despite quantum interactions, supernovas, and black holes. Or maybe because of them. Then we and the other creatures come along, adding further mystery to What-Is. And it’s all happening right here, right now, right before our eyes.

Tags: eternal nature, forest canopy, growth, life forms, springtime, tree leaves, trees

Late April is a glorious time of year here in northern Vermont. The snow and ice are gone in all but the highest elevations and the remote corners of the state, the trees are covered with catkins kicking out their pollen, the swollen buds of bushes are beginning to open, and the grass is greening everywhere, everywhere. Oh sure, there is still plenty of brown in the leafless forests and tilled fields, and the occasional snow flurry on colder days reminds us of winter’s recent passing. But the blazing sun is working its magic all the same.

We are well into the growing season now, even though it’s too early to break out the shorts and flip flops. Some people anxiously await those 75-degree days, resenting the rawness of the first half of spring. “Mud season,” some Vermonters call it contemptuously, but I am never as hopeful as I am this time of year. Every day brings a new development in the natural world, and directly ahead of us is the warmer half of the year and endless green.

In the mountains a little over a week ago, I tramped in cold mud next to a raging brook up to its banks in snowmelt. Walking along the Rail Trail the other day, I spotted wood frogs and clusters of their eggs in ephemeral pools. Spring peepers sing out every night from nearby wetlands; songbirds do the same during the day. Robins, blackbirds, and other migrators showed up weeks ago, and hummingbirds are not far away. Ants, mosquitoes, and scores of other insects are busy now. Worms appear whenever I scratch the soil with my rake. The resident chipmunk has come out of his burrow, running circles around me until I hand over some nuts. The sun is now up early in the morning – almost as early as I am. And it’s all happening at once!

But it’s the flowering plants that drive home the drama of endless renewal this time of year. In the wilder corners of my back yard, round-lobed hepatica and spring beauty are in bloom, along with the less obvious wild ginger. I kneel down before them for a closer look. In tamer places, a solitary pansy struts its stuff – an outrageous burst of yellow. The bright green leaves of columbine and bleeding hearts have already leafed out – the latter sporting clusters of pink and white flowers on the verge of opening. I can hardly believe my eyes…

Then yesterday late afternoon I stumbled upon a patch of purple trilliums on the forest floor, already in full bloom. I nearly swooned from it. What an incredible world this is! How fortunate to be alive! There is nothing more miraculous than the unfolding of spring, and no joy greater than being totally immersed in such fecundity. That’s what an unrepentant pantheist like me feels this time of year, anyhow.

Tags: fecundity, flora and fauna, migrating birds, mud season, northern Vermont, spring fever, spring wildflowers, springtime