Day 5

The wind is brisk and bitter bringing tears that sting my eyes and make my nose run.  Inside wool socks and “Herman Munster Boots” my feet are warm and dry, but the rest of me wishes for another layer.  The soft, saturated soil squishes beneath my boots – even splashes sometimes.  With hands pushed deep in jacket pockets, my pace is quick because I know that once I descend the slight hill into the woods, there will be some shelter from the wind.

In cracks and nooks where the sun can’t reach, frozen patches of dirty snow remain.  The rest of the woods is brown and tan and gray… and only when I search for it can I find a bit of green from last year’s ferns, or a spiral of orange on a new turkey-tail fungus.

But there!  My first spring wildflower… such as it is…  the deep purply-red hood of a Skunk Cabbage.  I plunge a finger inside to see if it is true that the flower’s high metabolism generates noticable heat.  I imagine I feel it… but I’m not Really Certain.

I finally reach the log that serves as my chair and I sit closing my eyes and taking a few deep breaths to quiet my mind.  The wind rushes and roars above me, then quiets and starts again.  When I open my eyes, I see that the leafless trunks of the trees are waving wildly in the strong winds.  There are many blow-downs in these woods… and I wonder how it would feel to be nearby when one came crashing down…

Other than a few distant vocal crows, there seems to be no wildlife out and about.  Are the squirrels enjoying a wild ride in their round leaf nests high above?  Or are they nestled underground.  And where are all those cavity-nesting birds that played here a couple of days ago?

The walk from the woods to the car is even more bitter than the walk from the car to the woods was…  I will be happy to get home and into my jammies.

Bergman Park