Jul 05 2013
A Red Eft Day
You know it’s a wetter-than-usual day when the red efts come out. They disappear when the forest is dry and seem to be everywhere after a good rain. On a particularly wet day, it is hard to keep from stepping on them. And that’s exactly the kind of day it was yesterday.
Savage forest: hot, dripping wet, incredibly humid, and overgrown. Pools of water everywhere, and the trail underfoot nearly hidden by knee-high vegetation. Mosquitos in their glory. Not for the feint of heart – for those who think the good life is all about being comfortable all the time.
The savage forest brings out the savage within. Twenty minutes into it, I was bug-bitten, sweaty, wet from the waist down, and happy. A mood like this cannot be explained. One either recoils from savagery or embraces it. There are no half measures, not when the woods get like this.
Nature isn’t just pretty flowers, rare glimpses of wildlife, picture postcard waterfalls, and rainbows. Sometimes it has an edge. Sometimes it can be downright inhospitable. Yet there is something magnificent about its endless variations. I wouldn’t want it any other way. So let the mosquitoes and red efts have their day. I will wander the woods all the same.
One response so far
One Response to “A Red Eft Day”
Red efts are the “Nemo” of the northeast woods; too cute, slow moving and not “slimy” like the rest of their salamander brethren. Kids love ’em. When she was younger, my daughter would make it her mission to rescue any efts found on a roadway. Because where you find one red eft, you find lots of flat, crunchy red efts.