Cooler Rambling

Lanark was windy and sunlit yesterday, but the vistas were of early winter - mile upon mile of rolling hills and bare trees, punctuated here and there by solitary specimens of late turning maple, poplar, oak and tamarack trees. It was cold, and we realized (with deep sighs and resignation) that from this time onward, we will probably be attired in boots, parkas and gloves for our forest rambling. Snow is in the forecast for this evening, and our thoughts are already turning hopefully toward a few days of Indian summer, somewhere up the road.

In early September, I wrote about the Artful Builder, and that delicate vireo's nest remains suspended in its place by the trail on the western hill, if rather windblown. If the leaves had still been dancing about on the trees yesterday, I would never have noticed a second exquisite vireo's nest tucked into the fork of a cherry tree part way down the eastern hill.

Upright legions of milkweed in the fields of the Two Hundred Acre Wood have been ripening for weeks now, their warty receptacles filled to brimming with tiny silken parachutes primed for proliferation. In the last few days, they have opened, spread their wings and gone forth to multiply in vast profusion - there were blowing tufts of gossamer milkweed silk everywhere we looked yesterday.