Nut Case

Saturday, September 20, 2008


Saturday dawned clear, cloudless, calm and cool. It was 45 degrees when I left home, so I layered on a few old shirts and wore wool gloves for the first time this season. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I planned a quick trip to Hobbs Hill for breakfast. I pedaled the single speed up to the Kettle Trail near the intersection of Moose Hill Parkway and Upland Road. This wide, inviting trail had been beckoning to me for the past few weeks every time I drove over the hill. As I would drive by, I’d think of the quiet times I’d spent sitting and thinking and I yearned to go back. I wanted to enjoy a few minutes of peaceful reflection away from the worries of the world.

I pushed the bike far enough down the trail to be invisible from the street and headed down the trail. I paused at the yellow birch that drops its golden leaves before all the other trees, scattering a golden throw-rug across the footpath and noticed it was already starting to change color.

Crossing the boardwalk across the swamp that is the source of one of the headwater streams of Beaver Brook, I looked at the tall, green ferns that carpet the muck. I’m still not sure if they’re cinnamon ferns or ostrich ferns and I thought about how much easier it is to learn how to identify things in the natural world from a knowledgeable companion than it is struggling alone with a field guide. The Audubon sanctuary offered a fern walk last year, but it was canceled for lack of interest. I know a few people had signed up, but I guess they have a rather rigorous way of gauging interest.

On the other side of the swamp I went right on the Hobbs Hill Loop, heading for my usual breakfast spot. There is a flat-topped granite erratic poised on the brink of the steep easterly slope of the hill that affords nice views of a flat area in the forest below and treetops of oaks and hickories that rise from there. I like to sit there and gaze down through the forest, waiting for the small dramas that Moose Hill so often provides. While waiting for the show to begin I try to open my mind to thoughts that drift up through the trees.

On this morning the woods were quiet and still. Sunshine hitting the hillside warmed the air just enough so that gently rising currents caused fine strands of spider silk suspended between the trees - and illuminated by the same clean light - to flex and wave. I thought about how this energy from the sun flows through our world and gives us everything, really, from the water cycle, to weather, to erosion and deposition, to life itself. I pondered how fossil fuel is also solar energy that has been stored away for eons. I started thinking about how the energy we release from this storehouse of power also flows through our world, bringing us many things as well, both good and bad. I told myself to stop thinking about that. Friends and family tell me I’ve become boring and depressing with all this talk of collapse and long emergencies. They’re right, of course. No one else wonders why NASCAR drivers race on in the name of Jesus Christ while the greatest transfer of wealth in history in the form of oil money flows from America to countries that hate us. Why should these things bother me?

Just as I was starting to consider how the sun is really a giant nuclear reactor and maybe nuclear energy was really a way to tap into the energy of the cosmos without the carbon middleman, a shadow flashed across the forest floor. Working upward and backward from shadow to sunshine, I found first one, and then a small flock of blue jays high in the oak trees. Never silent for long, these birds soon started squabbling over acorns. Chipmunks started up a rhythmic clucking, a red squirrel chattered in the distance, and gray squirrels did some squabbling of their own. This was becoming the morning of the acorn eaters.

Somewhere from the little flat at the base of the hill, I heard a steady clacking of large nuts hitting limbs as they fell to the ground, thudding on the forest floor. I could see gray squirrels working high in the branches and I wondered if they were smart enough to be cutting hickory nuts loose and picking them up from the ground later. Recent battles with these critters around the house taught me not to underestimate their capabilities. I started thinking think about what would happen if some clever squirrel invented sub-prime acorn mortgages that could be securitized, chopped up and sold so he wouldn’t have to deal with all this bothersome collecting and hoarding and leave all that to squirrel litters yet to be born, but I reminded myself to stop thinking that way.

It was time to get moving, anyway, so I packed my bag and took the trail around and down the back side of Hobbs Hill and started looking for that big hickory. I didn’t find it, but noticed a concentration of deer droppings and an area of disturbed forest floor under a white oak. Red and black oaks predominate on Moose Hill but we do have a smattering of white oaks. I imagine that deer and other mast eaters seek these out for the sweeter acorns they produce. I found one on the ground, peeled off the shell and ate it. It was nutty and entirely palatable. I recalled that natives collected white oak acorns, boiled them and ground them into flour. I thought about how hard life could be without the benefits of modern civilization and wondered why we couldn’t enjoy those benefits without the accompanying burdens until I reminded myself that there were more fun things to think about, like the up-coming fall TV schedule or the brand new NFL season. If someone would just invite me to an f-ing tailgate party, I too could be a care-free shit-faced Pats fan and stop thinking about all this depressing crap that’s making me crazy.

There may be real things to worry about in this troubled world of ours. Just this week after speech by our President reassuring us that his administration was busily preventing the collapse of our entire economy, a TV commentator felt moved to refer to the leader of the free world as a “high-functioning moron.” (You can find that on YouTube.) But who am I to worry that our next Vice President seems reasonably well suited to be the leader of a community college pep squad? Clearly, there’s nothing I can do or say that would change anything, so why not accept my true role as happy idiot. Simpletons, after all, never get ulcers.

No, perhaps next time I go to Moose Hill, I should eat some mushrooms. After all, Timothy Leary wrote that the peace and wisdom of the universe can be found among those who look at sunsets, those who walk in the woods, and people who sit by the fire. That’s all I really want to do anyway. Maybe I’ll stick with things like that.

Finding the Way

Saturday, January 5, 2008

I left home at 9:30 in the morning. It’s a bit harder to get an early start on these winter days. It was 29 degrees, calm and clear. A few wisps and puffs of cloud were in the blue sky, offering just the kind of light I love when I’m in the woods. I cut through the train station and took the new bridge over Beaver Brook and hiked on the road just long enough to get to the Hobbs Hill trail. I climbed through the pine plantation before breaking out into the more open natural oak-pine forest. The crunching of my footsteps in the thawed and re-frozen snow precluded sneaking up on anything.

I stopped on Hobbs Hill for breakfast. I just sat in the sun and listened to the quiet. There were human sounds off in the distance, but the woods around me were silent. It was so quiet, the only nearby sound was the ringing in my ears. Maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s too many hours listening to power tools, but I prefer to thinks it’s just caused by everyday stress and if I could only sit here long enough it would go away.

As I sat daydreaming, the sun rose enough to shine through the space between the trunks of a double-stemmed hickory and warm my face. It shined through the naked oaks and hickories to illuminate the patient pines below, their soft deep green needles glistening in the clean light, shining all the brighter on the background of white snow.

I wanted to linger and allow friendly thoughts from the forest to creep into my mind, but I had a plan. As part of my (no doubt temporary) New Years ambition to clean up and de-clutter, I was organizing a box of bike-related maps and such when I found a misplaced topographic map a friend gave me some time ago (Thanks, George!).

Moose Hill is in the northwest corner of the Brockton, Massachusetts 7.5 x 15 minute metric quadrangle. (I’ve always wondered how mapmakers always manage to put every item of interest in the corner of a map so you have to buy four maps to cover the area you want to explore.) One thing that caught my eye on this map was the indication of a trail running from Moose Hill Parkway, over Hobbs Hill, across one of the headwater streams of Beaver Brook, over another hill, and then on to Moose Hill Street. The first part of this trail was well known to me as part of the Hobbs Hill Loop, but as far as I know, the rest of the trail may be abandoned. It was my plan to use map and compass to find this new hilltop and look for remnants of this trail.

In my youth, I spent a fair amount of time hiking and bushwhacking in the Catskill Mountains of New York with map and compass, but with the exception of one fun attempt at orienteering with my son a few years ago, it had been quite a while since I’d navigated in the woods this way. Of course, map and compass is so old school. Everybody has GPS these days, but I’m nothing if not behind the times.

Using my old Silva Ranger forester’s compass, I oriented the map and took a bearing from Hobbs Hill to this new hill and set off through the woods. Sighting through the notch in the compass cover while peeking in the mirror at the needle, I would look ahead and pick a rock or tree as my destination. All I had to do was pay attention long enough as I meandered through the landscape to allow me to get to my landmark where I would take a new sighting. My path kept intersecting deer trails and I was tempted to follow them, but I wasn’t convinced the deer were following the old hiking trail so I resisted the urge.

As I knew it would, my course took me to a brook, but what I failed to notice was that this part of the brook formed a small swamp. I thought it had been cold enough that I could cross on ice, but I was mistaken and promptly broke through, soaking my feet with black muck. This got me thinking about a Jack London story where a trapper gets wet in the arctic and has to kill his dog to cut it open so he can warm his hands inside long enough to start a life-saving fire with his only match only to have the incipient fire warm the snow on an over-hanging pine bough causing the snow to fall, snuffing out the fire. In my case, it was a dry sunny day and the temperature was on the way up and I was no more than a half mile from a road, but my imagination is like that.

My mishap did cause me to abandon my course and head upstream, looking for a place to cross where the stream was narrower. Misfortune turned to luck when I found a place to cross that was well used by deer and looked like the old trail I had been seeking. This was soon confirmed when I saw some old painted tin can lids nailed to trees. I’d seen this method of marking another old trail in town – the Massapoag Trail – and I wondered if these markers had been placed by the same person decades ago.

I saw the hill I was seeking rising through the trees, but cold feet and a late hour prompted me to save conquering it for another day. I decided to follow the creek up to the road and head for home.

Exploring with map and compass brought back many fond memories. I thought back on those days when I was young and optimistic and I had my whole life in front of me. A good chunk of that life is behind me now, but on that bright sunny January day, it felt good to have a whole new year in front of me. A tough 2007 was behind me, and I had a chance to make a fresh start in 2008. I could see good things on the trail ahead, and I had a feeling a few hours of quiet reflection on Moose Hill might just help me find the way.

Dipping into the Stream

Hobbs Hill, Saturday, August 25

Hoping to stretch my legs and get just a little exercise, I left home at about 8:00 AM and headed to Moose Hill on foot. I had hopes of hiking all the way to the summit, but my weakness seems to overshadow my ambition these days. I never made it to the summit – not even close – but I had a good morning all the same.

The air was warm and humid. The woods were dry, quiet and still as I walked the trail to Hobbs Hill. Unseen spider strands, like invisible tripwires, snapped annoyingly on my face. We’ve had very little rain recently and even the deer flies and mosquitoes were subdued. I didn’t see any but it felt like a few mosquitoes were finding my back through the weave of my damp t-shirt, so I put on an old long-sleeved shirt I threw in my backpack just for times like these.

On top of Hobbs Hill, I saw where a very tough animal, indeed, had excavated a hive of ground-nesting yellowjackets from the soil between two boulders. It was hard to imagine the wasp eggs and larvae could have been worth the vicious stings. I took this as a reminder that survival in these woods is serious business.

My plan was to have a quick breakfast on one of my favorite rocks on Hobbs and then press on up to Moose Hill itself. I found my spot on the edge of the hill, facing southeast toward the rising sun. This was not a problem because the sun was filtered by a light overcast and a summer haze. There didn’t seem to be any birds to watch, anyway, so crisp vision was not a high priority on this day when the forecast high was about 95 degrees (F).

The sandwich of natural peanut butter and jelly on leftover Shabbat challah was decadent. The coffee made with a little Peet’s house blend left over from our trip to California was soothing. The unexpected lack of bugs and an occasional puff of breeze helped keep me comfortable and I was finding myself content to sit and listen to the subtle sounds of the forest and idly dip into my thoughts as they flowed by. At about 8:45 the first cicadas of the day began to buzz.

One mental flow I keep dipping into these days are thoughts about Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and the words of poet/essayist/environmentalist Gary Snyder (Jaffy Ryder). I was channel surfing the other day and clicked by one of the self-help gurus PBS trots out when it’s fundraising time. I went back. Here was an older barefoot guy (Dr. Wayne Dyer) with a shaved head in black pajamas. Normally, I’d cruise right by a show like that. I am innately suspicious about shows aired just so a station can raise funds and the guest can sell books, but because of my recent reading about Buddhism and meditation, I paused and listened for a few minutes. Now, I’m not hunting for a new religion. I have no plans to study Buddhism or delve into the Tao Te Ching, but I’m happy to receive wisdom from any source. The one point I heard Dyer make – and this may have been the whole point of the show – was “Change your thoughts and change your life.”

I found an interview of Gary Snyder on the Web where he said he meditates a half hour every day. Now, I’ve never had any instruction in meditation at all, but from my moments of quiet reflection on Moose Hill and a few determined efforts to sit quietly and alone at home, I can see how regular meditation could change a life.

One practical function of such meditation might be to focus on things that are troubling the mind. It might take a special effort to truly discover, acknowledge and confront the problem that is causing the unease. I find that once a problem is identified, it helps to write it down. Then begins the task of finding a solution. Sometimes the solution may be simply understanding the error in the way we are thinking about something. Maybe something is bugging us and all we need to do is realize that it really has nothing to do with us, it’s none of our business, it is of no concern to us, and we should just let it go.

Some may teach that changing our thoughts is all that matters. This may be true, but it will be a long time before I’m convinced that many thoughts shouldn’t lead to positive action. It’s through our actions that we change our lives for the better and through our actions that people know us. That’s why, after I identify what it is that is troubling me, I often find peace by visualizing a plan of action to solve the problem. These plans are not just make-work to-do lists, but a means to smooth out a life and bring calm to the mind. Some of these actions may be simple, like finishing a nagging task we’ve been putting off. Others might be a bit more challenging, like fixing a broken career or wounded relationship.

So, while actions are important, maybe it’s best if they spring from a way of thinking that aims to bring peace to the mind. I like to think that peaceful minds lead to a peaceful world. Upon first meeting, it is almost customary for people to ask: “What do you do?” Perhaps a more important and interesting question might be: “What do you think about?”

At that point, my real food was gone, and I was equally satisfied with the food for thought Moose Hill Had provided. This nourishment was free and I didn’t even have to endure wasp stings to get it. I headed for home hoping I might be able to incorporate even a little of my Moose Hill dreaming into my everyday life.

Clean Light

I listened to the bird calls as I sleepily pedaled the bike up Moose Hill on Saturday morning. I heard the usual characters – cardinal, chipping sparrow, titmouse, chickadee – but I was opening my ears for new sounds from the woods. I heard a towhee; I knew they were back. But wait, was that an oriole? Was that a catbird? I was hopeful that I would see several recent arrivals from mysterious journeys.

I had a time limit, so I tried to get out of the house early and stay close to home. That usually means Hobbs Hill. I like this spot because it’s only half way up the hill and I can get there quickly. Because it’s removed from the sanctuary parking lot by a half mile or so, I’m less likely to see other people there. I find the hill itself comfortable in an innate sort of way. Its flat top with short ash and hickory trees and open understory (Thanks in large part to hungry deer.) feels a bit like an island in a sea of trees. The steep sides offer great places to sit and look down on the forest below.

As soon as I arrived at the top of the hill I caught a brief look at a thrush that reminded me of one I’d watched there last year. I hadn’t heard any wood thrush yet, so I thought this might be a hermit thrush. Another movement caught my eye, and I was treated to the sight of a pair of chickadees working to hollow out a cavity in a small ash stump. The entrance was only about three feet off the ground and the birds took turns flying into their new home and picking punky wood from the bottom of the cavity. There seemed to be a delicate balance between a tree that is rotten enough for these tiny birds to excavate and one that is strong enough to remain upright until the babies fledge.

I went to my usual rock, but the rising sun was in my face making it difficult to see small birds in tall trees, so I looked for a new spot. This was alternative rock in the Moose Hill sense, I guess, and it turned out to be a good choice. I felt like a raptor, perched on my rock and, between sips of coffee, scanning the forest below for any movement. Lifting my binoculars so my vision would be more like a hawk and less like an ageing human, I watched as a chipmunk emerged from under an old stump to shuffle the dry oak leaves.

Maybe I missed the dawn chorus, perhaps my timing was off by a few days, or maybe there are simply fewer birds around, but the woods seemed quiet. A few birds were going quietly about their business, such as the downy woodpecker and myrtle warbler that came by, but they seemed quiet and subdued; their calls more like whispers than the exuberant springtime singing I was hoping for.

It was another cool, calm, clear morning, so visibility was excellent. That made it all the more maddening to hear a few forgotten or unfamiliar bird songs but only catch fleeting glimpses as the birds move about. I’m not very good a craning my neck to study the undersides of tiny, hyperactive creatures.

With my sandwich gone and coffee intake sufficient, I decided to head back to the bike while taking time to identify just one or two interesting birds. I knew I didn’t have the time to chase after every tweet and twitter I heard, so I would try to focus on just a few. Just as I made that decision I was hearing a repetitive song, almost but not quite like the caroling of a robin. Just above where the chickadees were busy laboring, I saw a flash of brilliant red. A scarlet tanager!

With his scarlet body and starkly contrasting black wings, I can’t imagine a more exotic-looking bird in these woods. Because I was on the hill and the trees he was working in were rooted down below, he was just over my head. This was no fleeting glimpse. He sat, moved about examining tree buds and sang, offering one perfect view after the other. I worried about the challenges he and his kind faced as they migrated and wintered in the tropics.

Just then, a few yards below my feet working among the rocks of the craggy hillside I spotted one – and then another- hermit thrush. One was carrying a short, thin twig! I guess I wasn’t imagining the thrush I saw just as I arrived. This pair also offered wonderful views as they pumped their reddish tails and walked and hopped from twig to rock as if house-hunting. This spot struck me as perfect for a hermit. I imagined a cozy nest in a crack or crevice with a sheltering fern frond overhead. These two seemed united in their task and it seemed that even a hermit likes a little company once in a while.

Yet again, I was moved by the magic of Moose Hill. All I had to do was think about finding two good birds before heading for home, and I didn’t even have to leave my seat. Maybe it was the birds, maybe it was the caffeine, but as walked slowly along the trail through the sweet, fresh air back to my bike I was on a high. The sunlight filtering through the trees to illuminate the forest floor was so pure and clear that the eyes tricked the mind into thinking the thoughts were clear as well.

The flute-like song of a thrush lured me off the trail. At first I thought I was hearing my first wood thrush of the year, but the song was not quite right. I moved toward the bird and he moved toward me. I thought I saw the tail-pumping of another hermit thrush before he flew off. I knew the pleasant task of learning more about the thrushes of Moose Hill lay ahead of me.

As I arrived at my bike and prepared to head home, I wondered what it was about this place that so often makes my mind and senses feel so relaxed and alert at the same time. Part of the comfort I find in these woods comes from familiarity. By visiting many of the same places repeatedly over the past year, I find that each spot offers a history that links one visit to the next. Individual trees, rocks and even birds have stories to tell if I visit them often enough. At least, I think I hear this land telling tales. My hope is that the clear light will allow my mind to eventually understand the mysteries Moose Hill has to share.

Hidden Treasures

A short visit to Moose Hill Saturday morning and an interesting discovery got me thinking about things we take from the woods and things we leave.

I only had time for a quick breakfast visit, so I headed back to my rock on Hobbs Hill. The trail to this nice spot is only about half way up Moose Hill Parkway and since I was there not too long ago (See “Faith,” August 5, 2006.), I knew I could get there and back quickly. I parked the bike, headed down the trail, went over the boardwalk and up the trail to the hilltop. Just as I approached the summit, something unusual caught my eye. In a space under a big, flat rock was a plastic food storage container. At first I thought it was trash, or that perhaps someone had stashed a lunch there. Examining the box, I quickly realized it contained some kind of log book with a rubber stamp. It was a letterbox.

I was only vaguely aware of the sport of letterboxing. I guess it’s a little like treasure hunting or geocaching. People hide these boxes in the woods, publish clues as to their locations, and folks go hunting for them. A little web searching tells me that this hobby may be quite popular, but I knew almost nothing about it. It reminded me of the log books placed at the summits of some mountain tops in the Catskills and Adirondacks of New York that I used to sign on my hikes back in the 1970’s. Peak-bagging was a serious sport for some people who, for example, would try to climb all the Adirondack peaks over 4000 feet in elevation. They called themselves, I think, “Forty-sixers.” The letterbox also made me think that we might be making progress. Where people once left their mark in the woods by carving hearts and initials in the bark of beech trees, now they can leave a stamp and a note in a sketchbook.

I guess any sport or activity that gets people outside, exercising and into the woods in a non-consumptive, low-impact way is a good thing. It’s good for the participants and, ultimately, good for the woods if it inspires people to appreciate and protect our wild places. I imagine there are those who would be so focused on finding their treasure, letterbox or peak that they might miss the wondrous details of the forest they travel through, but I would hope most take the time to look around and absorb the beauty.

I sealed the letterbox back up and put it back under the rock. It seems it has been there for several years and many people have singed the logbook, but I missed it completely on my last visit.

I walked among the hickories on the hilltop and found my breakfast rock overlooking the little valley. The morning was cool and dry enough that there were only a few not-very-aggressive mosquitoes. Crickets provided a steady background sound, but the cicadas of my last visit were quiet. I saw one chipmunk moving silently among some rocks nearby, while another was clucking in the distance. A lone robin was picking through the brown oak leaves on the ground. The soft sounds of the forest and the quiet activities of my woodland hosts helped me to ignore the human noises of voices and machinery in the far distance.

Suddenly, a new movement caught my eye. Along the draw below my vantage point, a brown bird flew among the trees, close to the ground near where I had just seen the robin. At first, I thought it was the robin, but quickly realized it was about twice as large and must be a hawk. This silent, graceful bird landed on a low-hanging oak branch, pausing long enough to give me an obstructed view with my binoculars. Based on its habitat, small size, streaked breast and banded tail, I’m pretty sure it was an immature sharp-shinned hawk. I imagine the robin was as pleased as I was disappointed when this bird-eater moved along. I see red-tailed hawks soaring overhead in the open or sitting by the roadside all the time, but these small woodland hawks are harder to spot and identify. I love seeing them, but always wish I knew more about them.

People go to the woods for all kinds of reasons. Some might leave hidden treasures and take letterbox scorecard checkmarks. Others might leave footprints and take photos and life bird lists. On one late summer morning, I was content to leave my mark in a little log book and take away a sense of peacefulness that a few moments of quiet and solitude in the forest can provide.

Faith

After a week of extraordinarily hot weather and a major wind storm, I was up early this morning hoping to head out into the woods and take advantage of a break in the weather. Other than the weather – or maybe because of it - no subject settled on my mind this week. As I studied a Moose Hill trail map last night trying to decide where I might want to go today, I found a destination but no goal. I set out this morning for a place known as Hobbs Hill (Elevation 342’). The map showed an interesting-looking trail circling a summit that offered the potential for a breakfast spot with relatively few mosquitoes. Even though I had nothing special on my mind, I set out with faith that I would find something to write about.

I knew exactly where the trailhead was even though I had never followed the path. After only about 10 minutes of cycling, I was there. I walked the bike down the trail, flicked the kickstand, and continued on foot. The trail went downhill and soon crossed a swamp on a very impressive boardwalk. The walkway seemed like an expensive and ambitious project for a trail that seemed to get so little use, but I was glad it was there. It is a broad and beautiful swamp and I penciled it onto my mental map for future visits. Today, however, I was seeking higher ground.

On the other side of the swamp, the trail soon turned uphill through oak, white pine and huckleberries. In a short while a faint, informal trail branched off to what I took to be the top of the hill. As I climbed higher, the oaks gave way to short hickories and the Vaccinium surrendered to grass. The forest here was almost park-like with good views through the woods and scattered boulders to sit on. In the understory were a few eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana), a dwindling reminder of the pastureland this once was. In contrast to the rich, moist maple forest of last week, the soils here were rocky, thin and dry. I assumed the hickories were bitternut hickories (Carya cordifirmis), but I need to double-check on my next visit to make sure they are not shagbark hickories (Carya ovata), too small yet to be shaggy. One of the goals of my Moose Hill explorations is to refresh my fading dendrology skills. The grassy forest floor on this rocky hilltop made me wonder if I was seeing the effects of fire, or hungry deer reducing competition from woody plants.

Looking for a spot to eat breakfast, I selected a flat-topped rock on the edge of the hilltop rather than the summit itself. Almost instinctively, I wanted a vantage point where I could survey a small valley below with eyes peeled for any wildlife. In the primitive parts of my brain, was I a predator on the lookout for game, or was I probing deeper to the primordial recesses where I was prey on the lookout for carnivores that might be stalking me? If I were to observe a real-life struggle between hunter and hunted – say, a hawk pouncing on a squirrel – could I be a neutral observer, or would I have to take sides?

I sat there taking a few notes and eating my PBJ and drinking my coffee; one making me want more of the other until I didn’t have enough of either. I marveled at how quiet the woods were. After the long heat wave, everything seemed suppressed and I knew why Rachel Carson didn’t write Silent Summer. I heard a few goldfinches tootling by overhead and a blue jay squawking in the distance, but otherwise, the forest was quiet. The only birds I saw were a small flock of robins working in the leaves and grass. I wondered if these woods robins could be the same birds seen nesting in dooryards and bopping around on freshly-mown lawns, or were these characters cousins from the other side of the tracks, picking through the leaves to get at the moist earth below?

The woods were quiet, but the air was full of the drone of cicadas, their sound swelling and throbbing, and then subsiding. This reminded me that I noticed my first katydid of the summer Wednesday night, making me think that despite the oppressive heat of the moment, the season would soon be slipping away. I can still remember my mother teaching me the song of this green cricket-like insect: “Katy did, Katy didn’t,” starting in mid-summer and croaking ever more slowly as summer gave way to fall. I didn’t know about that, but this Katy sounded like someone I might like to meet.

I was enjoying the warm, but dry, morning with a gentle breeze and a blue sky above my umbrella of hickory leaves, but it was time to go. I found my way back to the main trail and followed it as it continued around the shoulders of the hill and dropped back down into the oaks and pine. I spotted a young deer streaking through the woods and then spooked what may have been its mother. I regularly see whitetails as I drive or bike by the fields, but less frequently do I see them deep in the forest where they usually move quietly and inconspicuously.

The trail took me along the edge of a mature pine plantation on a sandy slope. I heard an avian ruckus up ahead that I thought might have been prompted by my intrusion until I heard the shriek of a hawk. There were calls of more jays, a nuthatch and another unfamiliar sound. There was a sort of mewing sound and some chucks or clucks. A catbird? A towhee? Then I saw my wood thrush fly over to pose politely on some nearby dead pine branches. It was as if he had come to say goodbye; as if his flute was packed away for the season and he was making plans to head south. I’ll be sad to see him go.

No particular issues were burning in my brain this morning. No rant was raging; demanding a voice. No thoughts from the depths came welling to the surface. No moody musings were longing to be shared. I left home with faith that I would be struck by a topic. I felt sure I would stumble on a few slender threads that could be braided into a line of thought. None of these things happened. My faith went unrewarded, but as coasted down the hill on my way home, somehow, I was not disappointed.