Winter – Laurie Apgar Chandler

Looking and seeing in the winter woods

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust

To clarify, I’m all for seeking new landscapes! Like April in Paris, this spring, where we’ve just booked a hotel a block from Notre Dame! In our everyday world, though, there are plenty of new discoveries to be made, if we would just look for them.

The forest is still criss-crossed with animal tracks. As the snow turned thin and slushy this week, the imprints stood out in greater detail. Tiny “handprints” of red squirrels were everywhere, as were the squirrels themselves. The warmth prompted me to carry along my binoculars and to pause from time to time. The repeated call of a barred owl came from afar, but it was mostly red squirrels that I saw.

One explored an ancient log pile, dark and damp, adorned with scattered piles of demolished pine cones. He moved with fluid energy among the logs, popping out first here, then there, to scold me. Later, another bravely stood his ground atop a stone wall. Only his haunches moved, quivering with indignation, and the shiny blackness of his eye stared me down. He looked fit and well-fed, the subtle gray and rust of his sleek fur elegant in the drab and cloudy light.

Canine tracks still mystify me. The one above was repeated in a single line that roughly followed my old trail for quite a distance. Both coyotes and foxes frequent these woods.

There’s green stuff out there, too. Not just trees, but much more, if you look closely. This small native plant, whose relatives once dominated primeval swamps, is very common. Somehow, it thrives in the northern forest, surviving months of ice and snow.

Looking a bit like a miniature spruce and often called “running pine,” the club moss is neither a conifer nor a moss. Closely related to ferns, the club mosses are vascular plants, with “veins” of xylem and phloem. Their ancestors were once the most complex plants on Earth. In the Carboniferous period, 350 million years ago, club mosses well over 100 feet tall dominated the forest that was later transformed to vast deposits of coal.

This species, Lycopodium clavatum, is found in damp woodlands throughout North America. During the asexual part of its rather complex reproductive cycle, it produces spores, which are released from the plant’s erect, yellow-brown strobilus.

The spores are, for me, perhaps the most fascinating part of the story of the club moss. High in oil content, they are water resistant and flammable. Native tribes knew many medicinal uses for the spores, and, according to the Virginia Native Plant Society, medicine men tossed them on the fire during ceremonies to produce a flash of light.

In my reading, I found a host of other historical uses for the powdery spores, including flash photography, magician’s tricks, fingerprinting powder, fireworks, and treating rashes. Good incentive, perhaps, to try collecting some this year!

Upwards receives first book award!

The_New_England_Book_Festival_Logo

OK, how humble is it to say “first” book award? Honestly, though, my hopes and dreams for this book continue to grow, as more people read and share their thoughts. The volume of responses is growing and opportunities for the new year are coming in fast.

A few highlights:

Four upcoming events in the next three weeks (details on the events page)
Just invited to present at the Wilderness Paddlers Gathering in Fairlee, VT in March
Planning two events during the Adirondacks’ Celebrate Paddling month in June
And, of course, Honorable Mention in the category of Biography/Autobiography from the New England Book Festival.

The Boston-based New England Book Festival, sponsored by JM Northern Media, recognizes the best books of the holiday season in 17 categories. Winners are judged on “general excellence and the author’s passion for telling a good story” and “the potential of the work to reach a wider audience.”

To balance out the many hours devoted to the book, I continue to plan for next summer and enjoy today. A deluge of rain, amid temperatures as high as 55 degrees, has washed away much of our snow. The sight of green grass and brown leaves has been a welcome change. Sunday’s afternoon walk, on boots not snowshoes, felt free and unencumbered.

I tramped, I tromped, the trail more brown than white, looking around at the woods, rather than down at my feet. You know how it feels when you’ve just climbed up, then down, a mountain and hit the flat? The joy of simply swinging along is wonderful.

Gone, though, was the hushed white wonderland of winter. Every step was a loud crunch, either on a couple of inches of frozen remnant snow or, mostly, on frosty ground. Crunching along at a good pace, out to the edge of an old beaver pond.

There, nature had sculpted striking designs in the paper-thin sheet of ice that rimmed the pond. I walked a few feet out to sit on a log, trying not to destroy too much of the beauty, finding an inch or two of air between the ice and solid ground below. The sound of my progress was deafening, all wildlife no doubt well warned of my visit.

When I sat, though, to take in the play of the brilliant sunlight across the ice, the ruckus continued. A vigorous wind, rustling the trees in the pond, gave the ice a tortured voice. The grinding, cracking, and squealing never let up, and the cold soon nudged me to head back home to a cup of hot cocoa and my never-ending to-do list.

As my faithful readers know, I am still learning the ins and outs of social media, and recently discovered that my automatic sharing of posts somehow missed the last one. If you’d like to join me on an earlier walk, here is my January 5th post.

A moose makes BIG TRACKS

030715 deer tracks — Deer tracks for comparison

030715 moose tracks — Are these moose tracks?

030715 moose track with snowshoe — Same size as my snowshoe!

The warmer weather (upper 20’s) and sunny skies made for sparkling snow and early morning shadows to highlight tracks in the woods out back. I was out several times this weekend for 1 to 1 1/2 hours each, getting in some cardiac endurance training. These photos from Saturday morning show what I think are moose tracks. We do not often see moose here in Lincoln County. In fact, in the twelve years we have lived here, our family members have only seen one or two or three “local” moose, depending on the individual. In contrast, 20 is our record for a short Allagash paddling trip of less than a week! This afternoon I said goodbye to the snowy beauty for a week, as I am off to Virginia to visit Megan. And take advantage of her graphic design skills to spruce up this blog, I hope.

Spring awaits…

Winter world waiting for more snow tonight

I promised myself and I try to keep my promises. I would start my new blog at the beginning of March and not a moment later. So here it is, a blank journal to fill with my thoughts and adventures, a chance to share my life with you.

If you have been a recipient of this epic winter deluge of snow and frigid air, perhaps you share my joy at finding myself on the doorstep of March. Spring and longer days are assured and such wistful dreams as green grass, new leaves and gently lapping waters are drawing closer. Late this afternoon I crunched my way over the crisscrossing snowshoe trails in the woods behind my house. They are my winter creation and my tether to the outdoors in this bitter cold. As the light dimmed homeward, the calming rustle of beech leaves gave way to the heart thump of an owl’s sudden flight from above.

March also brings me ever closer to my summer journey, a solo through-paddle of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. This 740-mile trail winds its way from Old Forge, NY to Fort Kent, ME, following historic paddling routes through waters large and small, still and turbulent, all connected by good old-fashioned portages. The half in Maine I have paddled before (except for seven elusive miles) and half I have never seen. Trip planning is gaining momentum, as I shop for a boat, test new recipes, upgrade equipment, and try to picture the NY, VT, Quebec, and NH portions of the NFCT. Much more on all that later!