Story originally printed in the Holmen Courier or online at www.holmencourier.com
Published - Tuesday, May 27, 2008
SKOL: Thoughts on spring spent in the woods
First rays of the sun warmed our backs as Gretchen and I sat on folding chairs, steaming coffee mugs in hand waiting for the show to begin. We were in our meadow near Lodi facing the sunlit leafy backdrop of hickory, elm, oak, maple, basswood and box elder trees that make up the woods edge.
Gretchen spotted the first arrival of the morning and it was a good one — a blackburnian warbler. Its bright orange throat helped us to make the identification.
We passed the binoculars back and forth, taking turns looking at the many warblers that were now moving through the trees and matching them with the images in the bird book, some of them new to us like the Cape May warbler, yellow around the neck and an orange patch on its cheek. The Cape Mays were joined by several chestnut-sided warblers marked with the red rust swoosh just below the wing and a yellow cap.
Gretchen heard the buzzing song of the blue-winged warbler. We had to turn toward a young oak in the meadow to see it sitting in the top branches. I glanced toward our tent and noticed that the sun was now high enough to melt the frost in the crushed grasses of the path except in the shadow of the tent. Our outing just ahead of the Memorial Day opening of the summer recreation season proved to be a cold one.
The coffee pot was drained and it was time to fire up the Kitchen Queen woodstove in the open-sided cooking shelter. The little backpack stove is just used for morning coffee. A pair of male scarlet tanagers, their red and black feathers glossy in the vibrant light, made us linger just a while longer to watch them before we started breakfast.
As I split wood for our fires, I remembered that there would be rum cake for breakfast dessert. We had entertained six friends at our long picnic table the night before. The moon was full and we sang for a while around the campfire after dinner of black bean stew, Sandy’s watercress salad and bread sticks baked in our Nesco stovetop oven. Mary Jean had brought her famous cup-of-rum (or more) cake and we celebrated a birthday.
“Whose birthday is it?” I asked MJ as we were lighting a ring of candles.
“Oh, you know,” she said, glancing at me. I could tell she could tell I didn’t.
She shook her head and walked to the table and put the cake down in front of Gretchen. It dawned on me then. Oh, that birthday. I hadn’t really forgotten. Honest. MJ will probably confide to her husband Ted that Dave appears to be losing it. And she might be right.
Otherwise, our camp opening weekend went smoothly. The gear in the storage box had survived the winter unmolested by mice and my replacement of the rusted section of the stovepipe should silence the critics who also scoffed at the rock on top of the pipe acting as a damper.
We broke camp after breakfast. Our routines of stowing gear are so specialized that in a just a few hours we have pretty well returned the woods and meadow to the critters. I noticed as I took down the tent that in the areas where deer have bedded there are new infestations of wild parsnip that I will have to cut on our next visit.
And there are patches of multiflora and garlic mustard to eliminate in the woods. And some giant trees have come down in storms. But although there are some problems, mainly there are carpets of wild geraniums, shooting stars and May apples, all of them in full bloom while we were there, under a towering canopy of trees. The air is fresh and the field sparrows and indigo buntings sing brightly in the morning sun.
So as we return to the carping of the presidential campaign, the anxieties about Iraq, our nation and its economy, I must remember that while there are problems, there are sustaining family and friendships, the warmth of laughter and good times, the bright promise of our freedom and the gift of memories, which we will celebrate again this weekend.
I think of all that has gone before — all the sacrifices made for family and country, all the work to build our nation — as the warm sun on our backs lighting the way as we look optimistically and hopefully into the future.
I wish you all a hopeful and thoughtful Memorial Day.
All stories copyright 2006 Holmen Courier and other attributed sources.