Today is the first of February, snowy, brilliant, but dripping with the sound of spring wherever the sun lies warm, and calling with the heart of spring yonder where the crows are assembling. There is spring in the talk of the chickadees outside my window, and in the cheerful bluster of a red squirrel in the hickory.
~ Dallas Lore Sharp
(The Atlantic Year Book: Being a Collection of Quotations from the Atlantic Monthly)
I found this picture some time ago on Wikimedia Commons and have been saving it for pairing with a poem or a quote but, so far, nothing has turned up to inspire. However, today is my ten year blogging anniversary and the timing seems right. The picture captures the best of my childhood memories in the woods. I used to pretend those tiny hemlock cones were bushes for the landscaping around the little houses I built in my sandbox…
After about a month of doing well on medication for the radiation proctitis I suffered a setback at the end of January, leaving me frustrated and discouraged and tied to the house again. We’re trying something new and hoping things will improve soon. In the meantime I’ve pushed myself to resume my yoga for seniors, which I hadn’t done since last fall when I got so sick. And much to my surprise, I’ve taken up doing jigsaw puzzles! It seems easier than reading these days. Using a different part of my weary brain, no doubt. Watching the birds at my feeder provides hours of entertainment.
Naturally a lot has changed in ten years since I started blogging! I used to spend more time sharing images, lyrics, poetry, and quotes, and I still love a good pairing of words and pictures now and then. Now, my main joys seem to be nature walks and photography and family history research. I do hope I will be able to get back to them in the near future.
“Nay, nay,” said a nuthatch, making its way, head downward, about a bare hickory close by, “The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat. Only the superfluous has been swept away. Now we behold the naked truth. If at any time the weather is too bleak and cold for you, keep the sunny side of the trunk, for a wholesome and inspiring warmth is there, such as the summer never afforded. There are winter mornings with the sun on the oak wood-tops. While buds sleep thoughts wake.”
“Hear! hear!” screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, “winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it,” and then the speaker shifted to another tree farther off and reiterated his assertions, and his mate at a distance confirmed them; and now I heard a suppressed chuckle from a red squirrel that heard the last remark, but had kept silent and invisible all the while.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Journal, November 28, 1858)
I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Walking)
Yesterday Karma was blogging about red squirrels. Now seems as good a time as any to pull out this old blog and post it here. The picture above is one of my rare successes (in my humble opinion) photographing wildlife.
One of the things we did on our anniversary was take a walk on Beech Forest Trail at Cape Cod National Seashore. It felt so peaceful and invigorating being out in the salty fresh air and filtered sunlight… At one point a little chickadee flew very close to me and landed on a branch at eye-level, just inches from me. I put out my hand but he declined to land on it, disappointed because I had no seeds for him. But he stayed close and talked to me for a bit, posing for pictures on his little branch. Unfortunately the pictures came out blurry! However, a little farther along the trail, someone had put out a few seeds for the birds on a stump, but an adorable red squirrel was hogging that feast! He wouldn’t pose for my camera, but didn’t mind if I got close and tried to get a few shots with the “children and pets” setting. I’m now thinking perhaps the chickadee was asking me to shoo the red squirrel away from the seeds…
~ Barbara Rodgers
(Gaia Community, 12 May 2009)
But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
(Essays of Travel)
