Woods Wanderer

As I drove over French Hill, dodging frost heaves, the snow closed in around the road. Back home it was nearly gone from my yard so I wasn’t quite prepared to see so much white stuff. What a difference a few hundred feet of elevation makes! By time I reached the town forest parking lot, bare ground was the exception to the rule. Oh well. My dog Matika and I needed a good hike anyway, snow or no snow. We’d been cooped up for a over a week, thanks to a cold virus that I picked up.

At first the trail was several inches of punky snow, but eventually it opened up, becoming stretches of soft, cold mud in places, saturated by small streams overflowing with snowmelt. My boots became thoroughly soaked as I waded across one particularly wet spot. But I didn’t mind it. With temps in the 40s and the forest all to myself, it felt good to be tramping around.

Moss and ferns shouted their over-wintered green at me from rocky slopes. A grey squirrel chattered hello as Matika and I passed. A pair of crows cawed back and forth through the naked trees. Very early spring in the Vermont woods. With all the snow slowly melting away, it’s an altogether pleasant thing to behold.

I broke a sweat and coughed repeatedly as the trail slipped into a particularly deep patch of punky snow. Matika started panting heavily as well. But the big smile on her face mirrored my own. There are those who won’t be happy until the last of the snow is gone, and others who long for fresh verdure that’s still several weeks away. But it’s enough for me to hear the rush of water, smell raw earth again, and feel the give of thawing ground underfoot. Every season has its charms, even this one, when everything is cold, brown and wet. Happy spring!

Tags: early spring, mud season, seasonal change, Vermont woods

With a foot of wet, heavy snow on the ground and nowhere I had to be, I decided to stay home today. Judy’s car made it out of the driveway this morning, and my car could have done the same, but why bother? Any book orders that needed to go out could wait another day. So I declared it a snow day.

It’s good to stay out of the car every once in a while, no matter how important it is to one’s livelihood. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I drive too much. And all that motorized movement isn’t good for my well being.

I’ve stayed indoors for the most part today, reading and writing. Went outside to shovel snow for a while. Didn’t venture any farther away from the house than my mailbox, and that’s a good thing. My dog Matika would have gone for a longer walk, but I was in no mood to strap on my snowshoes. As anyone who’s done it knows, breaking trail through wet, heavy snow is hard slogging. Better at this point to wait for bare ground. That’s not far away.

The maple sap is still dripping into buckets despite the wintry look to the landscape. And songbirds are chirping excitedly nearby. I don’t need a calendar to tell me how close we are to the Vernal Equinox. The length of the day says it all. Spring is right around the corner. Oh sure, there are still a couple more snowstorms in our future here in northern Vermont, but winter’s back is broken. Soon, very soon, I’ll be tramping through cold mud while it’s raining – the world all brown and stern looking. I can’t wait.

Tags: late winter, signs of spring, snowfall, staying home

With the opening of trout season right around the corner, I have just released Walt Franklin’s new fly-fishing book under the Wood Thrush Books imprint. It’s called Streamwalker’s Journey: Fishing the Triple Divide. As the subtitle suggests, it’s a collection of essays celebrating the fly fishing life, with a focus on the triple divide of watersheds in north-central Pennsylvania and upstate New York: the Genesee River, the Allegheny River and Pine Creek.

Anyone who enjoys fly fishing, and/or the beauty of the riverine environment, will surely enjoy reading this book. Like he did in River’s Edge ten years ago, Franklin writes with skill, passion, and a touch of humor about his experiences on trout streams and in the natural world through which they pass. Only now he’s even more adept with both fly rod and pen.

Last summer I had the pleasure of meeting up with Franklin again to fly fish the West Branch of the Ausable River in New York’s Adirondacks. The Isonychia mayflies were coming off the water so we caught a few trout that day, but more importantly we grooved on the wild world around us while talking about life, literature, and the pursuit of happiness.

Later, while quaffing a couple beers in a local microbrewery, we worked up a plan for bringing out this book. I had just finished reading it a week earlier so I was excited about the prospect. We agreed that a book of this sort should come out before the first mayfly hatch of the new year. The first shipment of Streamwalker’s Journey came from my printer the day before yesterday. Just in time!

If you’re not familiar with Walt Franklin or his work, check out his blog site: Rivertop Rambles. Or you can visit his author’s page at Amazon.com. Getting a copy of Streamwalker’s Journey is easy. It’s available at both the Wood Thrush Books website and at Amazon. And if you’re anything like me, reading it will make you want to get outdoors. Thank god the spring season isn’t far away.

Tags: essays, fly fishing, nature, Pine Creek, Streamwalker's Journey, Walt Franklin