Late Winter Thoughts

Somewhere to the south, there are wild orchids raising their heads and fields of grazing geese, but not here and certainly not for some time. I went pottering along the trail into the woods yesterday with camera in hand, wrapped up in almost every warm garment in my closet and looking like an aged yeti dragging a a toboggan laden with grain, bird nosh and apples.

Bending over to give the icy wind a smaller target and moving slowly through the deep drifts, I could hear the wind singing out across the rocks above and found myself thinking (as is often the case at this time of year) that one becomes weary of short days, snow, ice and wind.

When I looked up for a moment at a particularly treacherous bend in the trail, there in front of me was a solitary curvaceous specimen of ironwood (or hornbeam), standing among the cedars in elegant snow wrapped splendour.

The long white season which creates such wonders surely merits more respect and appreciation than my insular and rather taciturn late winter persona has been doling out in the last few weeks.