“What are you doing today?” Judy asked me when I sat down to eat breakfast after doing some early morning work upstairs. I laughed. She obviously had a plan for the day that included me, so I heard her out. She had errands to run in Burlington and thought a walk at Woodside Natural Area during the process would be nice. Was I interested? Of course. She had me at “natural area.”
I sat in the car doing Sudoku puzzles while Judy ran in and out of stores during what remained of the morning. Afterward we drove down Woodside Drive in Colchester and parked at the end of it. Immediately after stepping out of the car I heard a veery calling from the dense understory.
We had ventured only a few minutes down the grassy path cutting through the woods when I lifted my binoculars to a songbird on a nearby branch. I spotted an American redstart that, like all the warblers around us, flitted off before Judy could raise her camera and get a good shot. Judy took a picture of a vireo, but the warblers were too fast for her and the foliage too thick. Not that it mattered. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day in early summer and the forest all around us was lush. Walking through it while listening to songbirds was reason enough to smile.
At first we followed a path veering off to the left, rising above a wetland. Eventually it dropped down to the flood plain, though, where we got a good look at the Winooski River. With trees thick along its banks, it was hard to believe that we were in the middle of Burlington’s suburbs. We crept along the path hugging the river, passing through a thicket of ferns and Dame’s Rockets in full bloom. That’s when I started feeling giddy – happy in a way that defies description.
I call this time of year “days of heaven,” reminiscent of a movie I saw long ago that celebrates the natural world. Here in Vermont, early June is when the wild struts its stuff, mesmerizing all those who are paying attention. It is enough to be alive in a world as magnificent as this one. Simply breathing on a day like this is all the meaning one needs. Nothing else really matters.
After an unusually cool rainy spring, the past few days have come as a welcome reprieve. Finally we’re getting into sunshine with temps shooting into the 80s. That’s high summer by Vermont standards, but who’s knocking it? Put those flannel shirts away!
Green vegetation wherever you look, and a dreamy breeze. Add to that wildflowers blooming in fallow fields along with lilies, irises and other showy flowers in cultivated places and, well, it’s a glorious time of year. “Days of heaven,” I like to call it, when just walking around the neighborhood, lounging on the porch, or sitting at an open-window cafe is enough to make a person feel good about the world.
At this latitude, roughly 45 degrees, the days are delightfully long this time of year. Factor in the lingering twilight and it’s hard to stay awake for it all. People like me, who suffer through the dark days around the Winter Solstice, are energized by the approaching Summer Solstice. I become absurdly upbeat as a consequence of it. Every day, it seems, is a good day.
Soon I’ll be on the trail again, hiking for days on end as if nothing else matters. Oh sure, the bloodsucking bugs are out but I don’t care. Their bites are a small price to pay for the wonder and beauty of The Northern Forest in June. Like I said, I’m absurdly upbeat this time of year. And these long, magnificent days are too precious to waste.
I’ve heard a lot of people complain about all the rain we’ve had lately, but I don’t relate. Rain makes everything grow, makes the forest lush, and the vegetation is a more vibrant green as a consequence. I like that vibrancy. So this afternoon I went out to simply enjoy it.
I didn’t have to go very far. Stepped right out my door, in fact, and slipped into the green. My dog Matika followed, happy to get out of the house.
With no real plan in mind, I just walked. I decided to circumnavigate the quarry once I was under the forest canopy. I’ve been meaning to do that since I moved here last year. There’s no apparent trail along the backside of the quarry, so I figured it would probably be a rough bushwhack. And it was. But I was fine with that.
I wasn’t disappointed. Plenty of lush vegetation all around me, and the sketch of a trail most of the way. But Matika wasn’t in the mood for bushwhacking. First chance she got, she popped out onto a nearby road, hoping that I would follow and take one of the more beaten paths back home. And that’s exactly what I did.
I often indulge the old girl these days, knowing that her hips don’t like the extra up-and-down work that bushwhacking entails. Whatever. I got my woods fix for the day. That’s all that really mattered.
Backcountry traveler, freelance writer, and philosopher of wildness, McLaughlin has ventured into the wilds of Southeast Alaska and New York’s Adirondacks as well as the forests of northern New England. More about Walt.
