[at-l] A Walk in the Woods (not the book)

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

I took a little 6 mile walk today. Actually 4 of the miles were on the road 
to and from the woods. The woods are a State reforestation area 2 miles 
from my home. On the way are a few houses, one of the few remaining family 
farms and a marsh that is upstream from a beaver flow.

Most of our ice and snow are gone. I've been walking all week, well that is 
to say every day, part of the day. I haven't been literally walking all 
week. Gotta be careful how you say stuff. Earlier this week there were lots 
of snow banks where the plows pushed the show back and the marshes and 
beaver ponds were still covered with spongy ice but now there are ducks 
swimming in the ponds and only traces of the spongy ice around the hummocks 
of marsh grass at the shaded edges of the march. Amazing how fast the snow 
and ice goes when there are 4-5 days of above freezing weather. Today it 
got all the way to 50*F. A veritable heat wave.

The woods road was very mucky with truck sized pools of water in low spots. 
Some of the pools still had ice on the bottom. I lingered a few times to 
take photos of young beech trees with their pale beige leaves still 
clinging to the branches. If leaves were hikers, the beech leaves would be 
thru-hikers. They definitely have the most persistence. There's something I 
like about beech trees, the grey bark, the leaves that won't let go until 
new ones push them off the limb. I took a black and white photo many years 
ago of a young beach in these same woods during winter. I scanned the 
picture into my computer and learned to use Photoshop by coloring each of 
the leaves in two shades of orangy beige, one by one. I love that picture.

The whole hike took about 2 and a quarter hours. When I got back my left 
achilles tendon was sore. I've had intermittent problems with that ever 
since I was a runner. This time is different though. It's swollen, a marble 
sized hard lump, and the area is red. I'm icing it and then I'll stretch 
it. I hope that takes care of the problem. It was a good walk.

Wishing one and all good walks.

Saunterer