Woods Wanderer

The wildflowers that grow along roads and in fallow fields are easy to ignore.  It is the warm season, after all, and we are exuberant with baseball, beaches and a vast array of other summertime activities.  But the bloom has moved now from canopied forests to open places awash in sunlight.  Now the green is punctuated with tiny splashes of yellow, pink, blue and a dozen other dazzling hues.

It’s a subtle beauty to be sure – the stuff of impromptu bouquets given to mothers by their children.  One can walk along a recreational trail for twenty minutes before really noticing them.  But see one and hundreds suddenly appear, no, thousands.  Thick patches of birdsfoot trefoil and clover at one’s feet, bright yellow and orange hawkweed here and there, tangles of dewberry, and the ubiquitous buttercup – they all vie for our attention.  Summer’s bright, happy palette is everywhere, half-hidden in timothy bent over by a steady, warm breeze.  Bladderwort hugs the trail’s gravely edges.  Cow vetch lurks in the background.  Daisies steal the show.

When I walk in the open this time of year, I marvel at nature’s diversity.  The forest is just as fecund as the field, but the field flaunts it.  The untended places drenched with high sun allow plants to go crazy.  Ferns, moss and other lifeforms may creep relentlessly across the damp forest floor, but in the meadows biomass explodes.  Feel the heat that all these plants generate on a hot day and there’s no doubt in your mind that life pulsates on this planet.  Butterflies, dragonflies and countless other insects go about their business in these roofless hothouses.  Step into it and you come out covered in pollen and seeds.  Yeah, the wild fields are like that in June.  And they will only grow more intense as the season progresses.

It is easy to be awed by snow-capped mountains, roiling seas and blazing sunsets, but the power and glory of nature lies in the tiny flowers that we hardly notice at all – the ones whose names we forget or confuse with others, the ones that can only be appreciated with a magnifying glass.  Herein lies irrefutable proof that the wild will persist no matter what.  Herein lies the true genius of the ordered chaos that is Nature.  An hourlong walk this time of year reaffirms my pantheism.  God is in all things, surely.  What other explanation can there possibly be for such overabundance?  The fields full of wildflowers echo the chorus sung by billions of stars in the night sky.  Both the universe and the world we inhabit are absolutely teeming with possibility.

Tags: fecundity, fields, summer, wild nature, wildflowers

A few days ago, while hiking Aldis Hill, I noticed that several wildflowers were on the verge of blooming.  Some them can take more than a week to open.  Bloodroot and trilliums are a good example of this.  But round-lobed hepatica, a humble member of the buttercup family, usually opens right away.  So I went looking for it yesterday despite the rain.

At Judy’s suggestion, I went to Niquette Bay State Park.  It’s a good place to hunt for wildflowers this time of year.  It’s right on Lake Champlain where Vermont’s northern climate is slightly milder.  Dog friendly, too, which is good for Matika.  Midweek, raining, and early in the morning, I was certain to have the place to myself.  That sold me on it.  I went.

I noticed trilliums right away, but they weren’t open yet.  A few Dutchman’s breeches had taken form, but they were still green.  Patches of mottled green leaves caught my eye, but the trout lilies they sport were nowhere in sight.  Not yet.  I saw spring beauty drooping and closed against the rain.  Then I found them, amid moss-covered rocks – the first wildflowers of the season pushing up through the forest duff: hepatica.

To those of us who love all things green and growing, who simply endure winter, few things are more joyous than the first wildflowers of early spring.  What a relief to see them.  A smile broke involuntarily across my face while hungry eyes fell upon their delicate petals.  A woodpecker knocked nearby, a hermit thrush sang in the distance, and insects buzzed about.  No matter.  The first wildflower of the season is what turned me.  The world is reborn!

With my wife’s old camera, a great improvement over the cheap one I’ve been using the past year, I snapped several pictures of the tiny flower.  I didn’t mind lying on the wet, muddy earth while doing so.  In fact, I rather enjoyed it.  Then I went down to the water’s edge to ponder matters great and small before moving on.  Matika chewed a stick to pieces while I sat there.  Then we both finished the hike wet, wild and happy.

Tags: happiness, signs of spring, wildflowers

A big winter storm struck northern Vermont two days ago, dumping two feet of snow.  That’s the third largest dump on record for these parts, making this the third snowiest winter.  Or something like that.  I spent the better part of yesterday shoveling and roof raking, and that was after the plow guy had cleared my driveway twice.  Yeah, a lot of white stuff.

Right now it’s sunny outside, about twelve hours before the next storm strikes.  I should grab my snowshoes and take advantage of this break in the weather.  But that’s not where my heart lies.  Last night I dreamed of a mountain stream teeming with large, wild trout.  And this morning, well, let’s just say the view out my window doesn’t match the fantasy.

Stepping outdoors for a moment to start up my wife’s car, I hear a cardinal singing loudly from atop a leafless maple.  He’s thinking the same thing I’m thinking.  And the warm morning sun assures us both that spring can’t be that far away.  But all this snow . . . egads!

Judy and I have a late-winter ritual: when the snow is deep outside, we cook and eat the last of the trout that I brought home the previous summer.  Granted, I’m mostly a catch-and-release fisherman these days, but I make sure to bring home a few of them just for this occasion.  We ate the trout a couple weeks ago.  And that’s just about the time I started yearning for the warm season.

This morning I opened the newspaper and learned that the writer/naturalist John Hay just died.  This news sent me to my bookshelves right away.  I cracked open The Immortal Wilderness where I had it bookmarked and reread this:  “Behind the world so recklessly and uncertainly claimed by politics and economics lie the magic and inexorable laws of the wilderness, known to every life.  The flower is wiser than the machine.”  My sentiments exactly.  So now I’m dreaming of wildflowers as well as trout.  Right now I don’t give a damn about the government’s budgetary problems, the health care debacle, or the price of oil.  I just want to see a brook trout and a purple trillium again.

Is this cabin fever talking?  You bet it is.  But there’s no sense stewing in it.  So I’ll strap on my snowshoes and make the best of the situation.  My dog Matika is ready to roll.  Unlike me, she lives in the moment.  She will romp in the snow as if it’s the first powder of the season.  And I will follow, somewhat reluctantly, dreaming of spring.

Tags: brook trout, cabin fever, John Hay, snow, Vermont, wildflowers

Nothing symbolizes these summer days in Vermont better than day lilies.  They are big, bright, cheery flowers, no less beautiful for being commonplace.  They grow all over the place this time of year: in front of humble homes like mine, along roads and lanes, in uncut fields with daisies, black-eyed Susans and other wildflowers, and in carefully cultivated gardens.  This morning, while walking a logging road, I even saw a patch of them in a clearing deep in the woods.  Yeah, this time of year, they seem to be everywhere.

Wild or domestic, good soil or poor, they are herbal phalanxes that shout vitality.  They are equal to any insult or injury, as anyone who has dug up their complex network of roots and rhizomes will attest.  So bring on the heat waves, bugs, droughts, torrential downpours, or anything else that summer can throw at them.  They are ready.  They are strong.

But day lilies do not last forever.  While this tight knot of plants may bloom a month or more, each individual flower lasts only a day.  Hence the name.  The bud opens in early morning, shouts floral joy into world all day long, then withers at dusk.  Surely some of them must bloom two days or longer, but I haven’t seen it.  I don’t despair, though.  There are still plenty more buds to open.  There are still plenty more days.

Yeah, day lilies are physical manifestations of the summer season that launch themselves into the world around the Summer Solstice, and then gradually fade with the gradual shortening of daylight.  Like summer heat, they seem relentless, overbearing, unending. . . but their days pass much sooner than we expect.  So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll sign off now.  The day lilies are marking time, and there is still so much I want to do this summer.

Tags: backyard nature, impermanence, summer, time, Vermont, wildflowers

I went for a hike yesterday hoping to find some spring peepers.  After all, it’s that time of year.  I know of a few small ponds right next to the Rail Trail where they thrive.  So made a beeline for them, encouraged by the appearance of a couple turtles in wetlands along the way.  But the ponds were quiet when I reached them.  None of those joyous little frogs were around.

Much to my surprise, I found purple trillium in bloom instead.  At first I thought I was imagining things.  The broad leaves of that wildflower do unfurl in mid-April, but the flowers usually remain tight-fisted until May.  Not this year.  With the season a good two weeks ahead of schedule, the trillium flowers have opened up.  Just nature’s way of saying there is no hard and fast schedule, I suppose.  Not that I’m complaining.  Spring can never come too early for me.

A bit later, I found trout lily in full bloom, along with a little patch of spring beauty.  I dropped down on my knees and stuck my nose in those tiny, candy-striped flowers.  One good whiff of spring beauty and everything changes.  Suddenly nature has unfolded in all its wonder and wild beauty, and I am a complete dope for it.  One good whiff of that intoxicating scent and an entire winter’s worth of existential angst pops like a balloon.

What was I thinking about?  I forgot.  But through the woods a flash of bright green caught my eye so I headed that direction.  On a south-facing slope, of course, more wildflowers bloomed in a sprawling patch of leeks.  I dropped to my knees for a second whiff of spring beauty but the pungent odor of wild onions overwhelmed the sweeter smell.  Amid the leeks, Dutchman’s breeches arose, along with round-lobed hepatica.  No doubt about it, spring has come early this year.

I suppose I should be concerned.  There have been enough late autumns and early springs in recent years to make even the most hardened skeptic consider climate change.  But right now, I can’t go there.  Right now, all I see are wildflowers in bloom and the beginning of another growing season.  Right now I see the forest turning green again, slowly coming back to life after a long sleep, and all I can do is rejoice like peepers reveling in the season.

Maybe next time out I’ll hear those little frogs.  But for now, the first flowers are more than enough.

Tags: renewal, springtime, wild nature, wildflowers

Earlier this week my granddaughter, Kaylee, and I found a couple crayfish in a sinkhole next to a stream.  While sitting on our porch, my wife and I spotted a yellow flicker in nearby trees – a bird I haven’t seen in years. I saw some kind of blue orchid in full bloom while hiking Jay Peak the other day.  A barred owl suddenly appeared a few yards off trail while I was hiking Aldis Hill a few weeks ago.  I saw a red fox and her two kits there once.  I want to say that such sightings are uncommon but that’s not the case.  They occur on a regular basis.  It’s just that they always catch me off guard.  Why is that?

Often I venture into the woods with binoculars or a field guide in hand, looking for the rare and beautiful.  I am usually disappointed.  Nearly every attempt I’ve made to track down large animals – bear, moose, or deer – has come to nothing.  Yet I bump into wildlife frequently enough.  I’ve never been able to see a mink on cue, but I see them every once in a while as I’m fishing.  Same goes for eagles, otters and pine martens.  I can spot a chipmunk or squirrel a few minutes after stepping into the woods, but running into a coyote is always a fluke.  It’s almost as if I see more of the wild when I’m not looking for it.

Why are these encounters so unexpected?  I’m not sure but I suspect it has something to do with the assumptions that we make.  We go about our business, immersed in a world of our own making, going in and out of buildings, negotiating a complex network of streets and roads, entertaining ourselves electronically, and it appears that existence is all about us.  Everything else is peripheral.  Everything else is, well, inconsequential – there only to meet our needs.  The whole universe revolves around us.  Isn’t it obvious?  In this context, it’s hard to imagine plants and animals having a life of their own.

We go to zoos to see animals, and gardens to see plants.  But we venture into the wild to be surprised.  Sometimes we are surprised by what we don’t find there.  Almost always something pops up that we haven’t anticipated.  Remarkably, we often miss the unexpected because our thoughts are elsewhere.  This is the curse of having so much gray matter between the ears.  Our lives are more abstract than we realize.

As a philosopher – a ponderer of things to the point of absurdity – I am more guilty than most of missing what’s right in front of me.  Consequently, when I’m in the woods I am more surprised.  The wild never ceases to amaze me.  Waterfalls, rainbows, red efts on the trail, and bizarre-looking mushrooms arising overnight – all this should be expected.  Yet I’m surprised.  Oddly enough, encounters such as these are what I live for. Go figure.

Tags: awareness, the wild, wild animals, wild birds, wildflowers

Monday morning I headed for the hills.  After crossing over a recently opened mountain pass, I drove through the Stowe Valley to the edge of Mt. Mansfield State Forest where I parked my car.  The sun was shining brightly.  My dog, Matika, grew excited, especially when I shouldered my pack and we started up the well-groomed woods road.  I wanted to stretch my legs.  With the upper reaches of the Long Trail still wet with snowmelt, this was one of the few responsible ways to hike a trail deep into the forest.

The Cotton Brook loop is either 8 or 9 miles long, depending upon where you start.  I made it a 9-miler just to push myself.  It was a stress test of sorts, with an eye towards a trek on the AT I’ve slated for August.  I hiked hard at the outset, averaging 3 mph even while stopping occasionally to check out wildflowers.  Jack-in-the-pulpit greeted me at the outset.  Foamflower, wood anenome, bellwort and bluets bloomed along the side of the trail.  A few early-season bloomers like trillium and trout lily lingered beyond their peak days.  The surrounding forest was a dozen different shades of green.  I reveled in it while breathing heavy and breaking a sweat in the chilly, early morning air.

Matika cavorted off-trail at first but settled into a steady trot once she realized that she was in for the long haul.  Four and a half miles back, we stopped at one of the two main feeder streams tumbling from the head of the Cotton Brook Valley.  There the stream ran clear despite heavy rain a couple days earlier.  I splashed some of it into my face before continuing my hike – a baptism of sorts.  I do not take clear mountain water lightly.

Around six miles, I felt dull nagging aches mounting in my hips, knees and lower back.  The higher-elevation bloom of Dutchman’s breeches and bleeding hearts distracted me somewhat, but the aches persisted even when the trail flattened out.  Suddenly a euphoric rush coursed through my body and I smiled skyward.  The endorphins had just kicked in.

Around seven miles I left the main trail and hiked down to the brook.  There Matika and I took a long break.  A few black flies buzzed us while we ate lunch but weren’t menacing enough to take seriously.  Here the mountain stream was a whitewater torrent loaded with silt, more mesmerizing than calming.  I lost myself in it for a while.

My joints had seized up during the break so it wasn’t easy getting going again.  All the same, I set a steady pace on the way out and enjoyed every minute of it.  Another wave of endorphins helped, as did the ibuprofen when it finally kicked in.  Matika stayed ten yards in front of me.  The warm spring air made it easy to daydream.  I thanked my lucky stars for living in Vermont and being able to slip into the Green Mountains this way pretty much at will.  I’m fully aware the hard hiking through the woods is luxury that few people enjoy.  At my age it isn’t easy, but the dull aches are a small price to pay.  Yeah, I’m a lucky stiff.

Tags: hiking, mountain stream, Vermont, wildflowers

After a short but intense round of writing this morning, I pulled on my hiking boots and shot out the door.  I couldn’t get to the woods fast enough.  I parked my car at the trailhead then hiked hard towards one of my favorite haunts.  There I found the objects of my desire: wildflowers of all sorts in bloom.  I found wild ginger, marsh marigolds, blue violets and various others on full display.  But the wild lilies are what really got my attention.

I dropped down on one knee next to a mixed patch of them – white and purple trilliums, trout lilies and bellwort – touching the flowers to make sure they were real.  I was astounded by their abundance. The unseasonable warmth that has graced Vermont during the past few days has brought them out a bit earlier than usual.  I enjoyed their elegance – how something so simple could be so beautiful.  I marveled at their unbroken symmetries – triads of petals and sepals convincing me that there’s a force in nature greater than myself.  Then I stepped away to continue my hike.

The daystar burned brightly overhead even as clouds gathered on the western horizon.  I smelled rain, so I turned around and hiked back to the car.  I saw two marsh hawks circling low over wetlands.  Suddenly robins appeared everywhere.  Splotches of green mottled the forested hills in the distance.  Matika panted heavily at my side, and I soaked my t-shirt with sweat as if it was summer.  I spotted more wildflowers here and there along the trail, but my head remained full of wild lilies.  Once they spring up there, it’s hard to get them out.

It makes perfect sense to me that lilies are associated with everlasting life.  That such life forms should suddenly emerge from the cold, dark earth is proof positive that chaos does not reign supreme in this world.  I find it difficult to behold wild lilies without lapsing into mysticism or waxing sentimental.

Give me a bouquet of lilies on my deathbed and I will pass away assured of something more than oblivion.  Until that day I will wander among them whenever I can, worshiping their Creator and rejoicing in the eternal renewal that is spring.  I’m a madman, I admit – mad with the simple pleasures of an infinitely varied world.  Whenever wild lilies are in bloom, nature does not disappoint.

Tags: hiking, spirituality, springtime, wildflowers

Even though I had the house all closed up yesterday morning, I could hear a cardinal singing loud and clear from its treetop perch.  I didn’t dare look out the window because I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the blue sky.  I was hellbent upon getting various literary tasks done before noon, but it seemed rather foolish to write about the natural world while it was springing back to life just beyond my walls.  What would Thoreau do?  Eventually, I stuffed a compass in my pocket, slipped on my hike boots, and headed for the hills.  No doubt my dog, Matika, wondered why it had taken me so long to do so.

After watching a big old turkey crossing the road, I stepped into the woods.  I needed to hear the high-pitched symphony of spring peepers and had in mind a beaver pond where I was sure to find them.  Just before leaving the last semblance of a trail, I spotted coltsfoot in full bloom – not all that unusual in mid-April.  But the spring beauty that I found a few minutes later took me completely by surprise.  A week early, at least.  I dropped down to my knees and snorted the flower as a drug fiend snorts cocaine.  The result was just as narcotic.

I flushed two deer from a streambed while bushwhacking through some brambles.  Matika immediately chased after them but turned around when I called her back.  Good dog (sort of).  We hopped over the stream and continued deeper into the woods, skirting the beaver pond.  Its shimmering waters were clearly visible through the naked trees, but I wanted to reach a favorite spot on the pond’s opposite shore.  That would take some doing.

My passage through the forest wasn’t very direct.  I traveled from one patch of green to another, looking for more signs of the season.  I found a few mottled trout lily leaves springing forth, then stumbled into some fresh leeks.  I chewed a leek just for the sharp sting of it to my palette.  Matika sniffed the tracks of animals that had passed this way recently.  We reached the far side of the pond sooner than expected.

A Canada goose honked as we approached the pond’s marshy shoreline.  There I sat on a fallen tree, with Matika resting by my side, long enough for the peepers to resume their trilling.  They had fallen silent during our approach but started up again once we were quiet and still.  The goose floated closer, honking continuously as if to evict us.  She eventually got her way.  Matika and I moved away after the peeper chorus had sufficiently scrambled my brains.

A few wood frogs croaked from an ephemeral pool that we passed on the way out.  They stopped as soon as I went over to inspect their haunt.  I searched for more wildflowers in bloom but found none.  No matter.  An unblinking sun burned high in the sky and all I could think was this: How lucky I am to be alive on such a beautiful day.  I drove home slowly, very slowly, irritating the other drivers on the road who had places to go and things to do.  Too bad I couldn’t have walked home.  I really shouldn’t have been behind the steering wheel of a car in my condition.

Tags: bushwhacking, Canada geese, hiking with dogs, spring peepers, springtime, wildflowers

I just spent an entire morning weeding the front yard gardens. I did this instead of going for a hike because, well, things were getting out of control. It’s a scene familiar to all gardeners: lambs quarter, dandelion, crabgrass and a host of other herbal bullies had taken over while I’d been busy doing other things. So I cleaned them out, making my little plots safe for domestic favorites. Now everything is nice and tidy again. And my neighbors are happy.

The other day my wife, Judy, asked me when I was going to do something about the backyard flower garden. I told her that that one is full of wildflowers. She retorted that it’s mostly weeds. We’ve been having this conversation for a year now, ever since I bought a bag of so-called wildflower seeds and threw them down back there. Oh, she likes the daisies and black-eyed Susans that came up, but the intruders are another matter. We’ve got some ground ivy back there, along with a bunch of yellow wood sorrel. Harebell arrived not long ago and bindweed has crept in. God only knows what’ll show up next, Judy says. That’s the whole point, I tell her. I’m intentionally letting nature take it’s course. The wild is alive and well in that corner of our yard, I proclaim. But Judy is not impressed.

I know what someone with a green thumb would do. They’d plant some ferns and bracken back there, along with domestic varieties of shade-loving flowers commonly found in the forest. Then that garden would be a simulated woodland paradise, complete with the aura of wildness. But it wouldn’t be wild. A weed-puller would have to keep the riffraff at bay, otherwise they’d overrun the joint. Leave it un-weeded and the garden would degenerate back to what it is now.

What’s the difference between a wildflower and a weed? When I wander about the forest, every flowering plant I see is a wildflower. In that setting they’re all good. But the moment one of those lovelies imposes itself in my lawn or in one of my laboriously cultivated plots, I have to deal with it. Does it stay or does it go? This is largely a matter of aesthetics. Usually they go, and order is preserved.

I have a neighbor who mows down everything in his path. His yard is a carefully manicured lawn with a few well-placed shrubs. No doubt he’s the kind of guy who thinks a golf course is the ultimate expression of natural beauty. I’m sure I’ll never run into him on a forest trail. After all, the forest is completely out of control. Why would he ever go there?

In due time my wife will get her way. The urge to control that backyard plot will eventually overwhelm any inclination I now have to let things be. Then I’ll pull out some of that pernicious sorrel and plant something pretty like bleeding hearts or columbine. Maybe even a fern or two. But when that day comes, I won’t call that plot a wildflower garden any more. I’ll call it something else. It’ll be domesticated by virtue of me taking a hand to it. That is, after all, what cultivation is all about.

Tags: gardening, the wild, wildflowers