Covid Journal, day 15: In the Woods

68 this morning, after a very warm and stormy night. It got up to 88 yesterday (31c), way too warm too early. In the Midwest there were tornadoes, not surprising with this capricious weather.

We took a walk yesterday to part of our land I haven't seen in years. Just never took the time, and it is down a pretty steep hill. With my sometimes-asthma and nowadays a tricky knee, I haven't felt like tackling it. But it was easier than I expected, and well worth the effort. On the way down the hill I was pleased to see a small stand of six or seven ironwood trees.

These trees' trunks look like muscles, and the wood gives the tree its name. It's very hard and dense. We once cut one for a mailbox post and it never rotted out. It stood for at least 30 years before it was pulled up.

This place brings back so many memories. Clyde seems to like it pretty well too.

This little place has always been a favorite spot of mine--it's quite hidden away, down in a ravine where our two tiny runs join together to form, well, a bigger run. We call it the creek even though it's really not big enough to be a creek. When we moved here this was the place I went to just sit and look and listen. I dragged a board down and made a little bridge over the creek, and another board to make a bench. In the photo below, you can see where I piled stones to support the bridge, but both boards rotted away long ago.

Sometimes we had a campfire here. About 15 or 20 years ago some of my sons set up tents here and had a fire. They wanted their children to experience camping in the woods as they had done so often when they were young. They built a campfire ring with rocks from the creek and had a nice fire, even cooking a few things over it. But the fire got so hot some of the rocks exploded! Sandstone can trap moisture between its layers, and that water got hot and pow went the rocks. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the rocks were scooted back from the fire. The rocks they used are now covered with moss and barely discernible.

In April, wild phlox covered the ground. Tall poplars loomed overhead, and across a clear area a huge sugar maple stood on a steep bank.

It is much changed today. Many of the old poplars have fallen, victims of some of the ferocious windstorms and heavy rains. The small clearing is grown into young trees, and the sugar maple no longer looks huge; it is dwarfed by the surrounding growing forest.

A hickory nut shell has grown into the moss of a fallen log.

The dogs always enjoy a walk with us. Old Otis likes taking a break too.

And of course Clyde, our other "dog", always comes along--even if the others wimp out and stay home.

A fallen giant.

The moss down here is beautiful, and everywhere.

The confluence of the two runs, both with water because of all the rain we've had.

White wild anemones climb the bank. Wildflowers were just beginning to bloom.

This tree looks like it was cut with a saw, but it actually broke off like that, probably in one of those powerful windstorms last summer.

Pretty toothwort coming into bloom.

Daisy explored up and down the creek.

Far up the hill I can see Larry's little cabin.

Even rocks decompose eventually.

This one looked for all the world like tree rings.

Here part of the same rock has turned into sandy gravel.

More fallen giants.

The view from above; I wish my camera showed perspective better. This really was a huge, tall tree, and its body now rests down a steep hill, about 50 feet long, at least.

Getting closer to the cabin,

and finally back to the house. What a glorious walk it was.

It was sad to see so many fallen trees, and yet, this is how nature is, is it not? Ever-changing, adapting, dying and being re-born. We have let much of our land go back to forest because honestly it is too steep to have ever been cleared. Surprisingly, the little clearing by the creek is still mostly clear. I will have to go back down soon, and see if the wild phlox still makes an appearance there.


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