220411 the forest naked

 April 11

forest, bare and brown

the meadow runs with water

the forest runs with water

There is water everywhere. We stand on the porch and hear the loudness of a hundred small tumbling streams pouring down and down the hills. 

Though the forest has just shaken off its winter coat, there is green life already awake.

This fern, above, polypody, is green all winter and now it is awake and alive already.

The Christmas fern, below, is likewise green all winter and awake now.

 

This tiny fern (below)  is brand-new, already growing: "Brittle bladder fern".

Mosses wake up and start being alive as soon as the snow is gone.

This is a "delicate fern moss" - that's its name! fronds like tiny ferns.

Below, two kinds of ancient plant that were around when the dinosaurs ruled. They stay green all year and are among the first to green the forest floor.

*****

I climbed to the top of the mountain and looked north. There was still snow near the top although it is melted and gone from the lower forest. I was so pleased, I could not imagine what it would be like or if I could even get there, but the camp road goes all the way up. There is a hunting blind looking across the valley northwards. There is more mountain rising just east of where I was, so it wasn't quite the tip-top. I have to explore further that way, but as the public road is not far away in that direction, several hundred feet below where I was, it must crown and slope down very near there. 

The hunting blind. (sad face)

Looking north! "And what do you think he saw? The other side of the mountain." *

The camp road makes a good temporary streambed. I was lucky to find a pair of boots in perfect condition at the charity shop. In Toronto you can always find a good second-hand pair of rain boots, but here, where there are fewer people, certainly fewer with money for new ones, the shoes, boots, as well as shovels, rakes and other needful household implements usually get used until they fall apart.

    

*****

The ponds that form in the hollows seem sacred. They invite a moment of quietness. They are ephemeral, in forest time, at least: most of them will vanish and the undergrowth will hide all traces. I long to bathe in them, though most are small and will be gone before it is warm. There is a holiness in nature which, the more you notice it, the more it resonates in your body and mind. It seems to enter through skin and breath, as much as through eyes and ears, palpable as the press of wind or rain. 

This is the upper pond, just above the cow pond and another upper pond just now above this clump of trees which form Robin's island. I decided a few weeks ago that it is his island, because I saw him, a pirate, sneaking through the trees.

 

    

Pond, new from the snow-melt and rain, and then, already drained into the earth.

*****

Look: out the window. Listen: at the door. Breathe. It is there. Be well.

Mumma Yaga

* Children's song: "The bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see. And what do you think he saw...."