Wonderful walk into Balsam Cove
Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2014 8am
Knowing the snow to come would be deep enough perhaps to dissuade me from walking, I walked down the hill while I still could, happy about the adventure at hand. I film as I walked, focusing on the sound of the gravel of the frozen road, the refrozen snow along the edges and some bits of ice piled up slightly where I could step on it and hear the crunch. I stopped by the stream to listen to it come out from inside the culverts. It was frozen on the edges, but just a bit. Because I had on my bonnet under my hood, I couldn't really hear it too well, but it'll probably show up on the camera.
I walked on the crunchy sounding fabric cloth toward Sumac Hill, but went over to the well and removed the dead tree branches that had crashed down onto it earlier in the season. I thought it was important the well top be accessible in case we ever need to bucket water out of it.
I walked gingerly around the edge of Jopi Tipi, making sure not to slide into or onto the ice on the pond. I plugged in the three Christmas light ends and sat looking at the snow falling outside and enjoyed the view and warmth out of the wind. I filmed an update.
I moved the green woven chair over from where it was to the other side, where I could get a better view of the pond and the lights overhead and all around me.
The pond is frozen, but there are two open spots, likely over springs. One is near the corner of the dock and the other is near the east end of the pond. The snow has blown and is only on half of the pond. I wonder how the snow will drift with this strong wind today. Perhaps the ice will still be showing, at least where it is smooth.
After enough sitting, I turned on my go pro camera on my head and turned off the ipod camera. I walked around the side of the tipi, stepping across the dead branch on the ground. The little stairway up to the lane road has been weathered enough that the stairs aren't very visible as the sand and gravel have shifted. I didn't slip, which was important!
I headed down the pond lane and before I got to Deer Blind Tipi, I veered around to the left of it and down off the lane road into the alders. I noticed a clump of well transplanted willow. I hope it grows. The yellow brown grass is broken and folded over now by the previous snow. As I walked through it, beneath the alders, I wondered how far the pond was through the alder shortcut. No sooner had I crossed through about 50 feet in the alder woods, than I saw a chair directly ahead. I thought it was out in the middle of the thick broken down yellow grass of the meadow. But no, it was right beside the frozen pond!
I was so surprised to see the pond, that at first I didn't recognize it or where I was. The alders around it have grown well. The ones on the edge lean over and touch the pond now. One day the beavers will come back and denude all of them again. I suppose I could save them if I wanted to. But that doesn't matter so much.
A white knitted mitten still lay over an alder branch where I had put it a year ago to dry. I didn't believe it could still be there, but I was very glad to see it and put it on one of my mildly cold hands. That felt better!
I changed the camera video now that I was in a different location. The pond in the center of Horseshoe Island, Serenity Dippity Pond, was half covered by ice. The constantly flowing stream along the end of it keeps it open until later in the winter, usually. It'll freeze up soon.
After looking at the little tipi, Horseshoe Island Tipi, I went back to the corner of the pond where there were a line of deer tracks pushing down the refrozen half-inch thick snow and the yellow brown grass stems beneath it. I followed them and discovered they were using my pathway, the clothwalk that goes to Iceberg Pond over to the right at the base of the steep hill, the esker. I couldn't feel the presence of the fabric, but remembered that it was in this place.
After awhile, when the clothwalk turned towards the right, towards the hill and pond, the tracks kept straight. I tried to walk on the clothwalk area, but there was too much deeb broken grass stems, so there wasn't a solid bottom. I stepped back and onto their tracks; once again it was a hard surface beneath my feet. I could follow their tracks and now see where they were heading, into the Marsh Woods I suspected.
Once I crossed into the Marsh Woods, denoted by the dead cedars standing or falling at all angles, I remembered this being the Marsh Pond, created and controlled by a large family of beavers. I expected to find myself at the edge of the dam where, when it was filled with water, a moat lay on the pond side of the dam. However, I didn't cross a moat or a dam. I guessed they had mellowed out over the years.
I stood where the deer tracks crossed a fallen tree trunk and looked around, hoping to see evidence of Balsam Cove, the most wonderful place on the entire property. Finally, after crossing the log, I discovered which configuration of trees was my cove and determined the best way to get there was to back track so as to avoid another series of broken trees and branches between me and the cove.
The deer tracks no longer led the way, nor had matted down a pathway. The ground was only a few inches beneath the lowest grass, so I didn't have a problem, except that my lime green crocks had holes all around the sides. Snow and ice bits weren't welcome inside!
There before me was my hammock! in the midst of the greenery. I ran my hand along a branch of the balsam fir, feeling the needles as they passed my grip. I put my hand to my nose and breathed deeply of the smell of Christmas. So lovely. I did it again. And again.
Eventually, full of gratitude for this beautiful oasis of fragrant greenery amidst dying and dead trees and logs, I turned to my hammock and tipped the flattened chunk of leaves out, as well as the bits left behind. Had that been only one year of leaves or two? The hammock was taut between two cedar trees. It was too stiff for me, so I worked the straps back and forth around the tree till they were much lower and the risk of being hurt if I fell were minimized.
I sat down, trusting the hammock wouldn't soil my white camouflage coat. What a lovely place. So much green. I began counting the balsam firs. Most of them were young saplings, but several were tall enough to separate this place from all the rest of the Marsh Woods. I counted 24 youngish balsam firs.
The Marsh Woods is a fen, an area where water flows beneath the ground. However, finding these trees doing so well and the canary grass doing so well, meant that this area had enough ground for these trees to survive.
Beneath the cedars holding my hammock, were holes beneath the main roots, as they are everywhere in the Marsh Woods. I don't usually venture into it unless it's frozen, as it's just too much to climb between spots of water and the many gaping holes where roots have decayed. Most trees in the Marsh Woods are growing out of stumps where the land is higher above the water below it.
I made a video of my great spot, then got up and looked around. I found deer beds between a few firs and to the side beneath another one. I always called these areas of the Marsh Woods 'rooms' as that is what they seem like to me. I had thought of camping in one of these rooms years ago, but the surface is not level enough for a tent.
I stood by the deer bed looking back towards the hammock and remembering small Daniel climbing one tree and out onto a branch where he draped himself over and napped. Willem was below sitting in a lawn chair composing, his one note completed, a B flat. Abe was exploring some stumps and Alida was doing something, too, perhaps sitting and drawing. I sat and wrote.
I looked around at the balsam firs again and recognized the area. This was the same spot where we spent that winter afternoon one year long ago. Was that the same curved branch above in that tree? I guessed the tree had grown fifteen years worth so would have been much smaller than it was now. What a nice memory. Some of these balsam firs were just knee high back then. I remember sitting between them beside Willem. I had loved that they were growing.
Eventually, I heard traffic and decided I knew which way the stream was, as the road paralleled it on the other side of the forest beyond. So I walked towards the stream and came upon the two hammocks I'd hung several winters ago. The first is inaccessible other times of the year as the ground below it is low and often hosting water.
I found my supplies in that hammock: a decomposing red plastic bag holding a clear one which held a roll of toilet paper. Good to be prepared in such distant places as this!
I dumped out the leaves and such, but the hammock was too soiled to sit or lie on with my white coat on.
I looked around and saw the other hammock. One of its trees has the Marsh Woods sign on it. That sign I put up years ago to mark the entrance to the woods from the alder woods. I went over to it, dumped out the leaves and folded the hammock in half and sat on it. This is the hammock I sat in and made a pine needle basket start years ago, too. I had that video on youtube.
Under my weight, the hammock started to rip from the straps, so I got up. I'll have to replace it next time. I entered the alder woods alongside the stream and stood for a moment to soak it in. Whenever I am ready to leave, I find the stream then follow it back to solid ground. However, this time I felt the urgent push to get home. I didn't want to get home, it was just a habit to bee-line it home at this point. So in defiance, I stood and looked at the half dozen dead cedar tree trunks spanning the stream. One of these was probably the one I had cleared enough to create a bridge across. I couldn't tell which one it was, though. I didn't need to cross it.
These alders ahead were a tangled lot of branches when I used to walk through them. They'd whip at my eyes, take off my hat and trip me at every step. They had grown, though, so now they were much taller, with more room to walk beneath them, instead of walking through the tangled tops.
They did snag me up a bit, but I persevered and made it to Horseshoe Island tipi. What a nice relief to be out of the Long Fingered Alders. I walked behind the small tipi and suggested we go inside, me and whoever is watching. But when I lifted the outer flap, the inside was so dirty, I would ruin my coat crawling in through that crack. So I didn't.
I circled Serenity Dippity Pond, finding some of those alder branches in my way. Across a bit of Canary Meadow and into the alders behind Deer Blind Tipi. I went inside and lay in the hammock between the tipi poles. It was so comfortable. It had the right amount of bounce and the right amount of curve. It was the perfect hammock.
I closed my eyes talked to my Heavenly Father and rested for awhile. After a while, I lifted the side of the tipi cover beside me and watched it snow. It's lovely to have a spot like this to watch the snow falling.
I didn't stop by Fiddlehead Pond as I walked down the pond lane and up the hill. Both cameras had run out of room or battery. It was so nice to have taken the time for such a wonderful walk. Wow, 10am! I have been gone a long time.
Knowing the snow to come would be deep enough perhaps to dissuade me from walking, I walked down the hill while I still could, happy about the adventure at hand. I film as I walked, focusing on the sound of the gravel of the frozen road, the refrozen snow along the edges and some bits of ice piled up slightly where I could step on it and hear the crunch. I stopped by the stream to listen to it come out from inside the culverts. It was frozen on the edges, but just a bit. Because I had on my bonnet under my hood, I couldn't really hear it too well, but it'll probably show up on the camera.
I walked on the crunchy sounding fabric cloth toward Sumac Hill, but went over to the well and removed the dead tree branches that had crashed down onto it earlier in the season. I thought it was important the well top be accessible in case we ever need to bucket water out of it.
I walked gingerly around the edge of Jopi Tipi, making sure not to slide into or onto the ice on the pond. I plugged in the three Christmas light ends and sat looking at the snow falling outside and enjoyed the view and warmth out of the wind. I filmed an update.
I moved the green woven chair over from where it was to the other side, where I could get a better view of the pond and the lights overhead and all around me.
The pond is frozen, but there are two open spots, likely over springs. One is near the corner of the dock and the other is near the east end of the pond. The snow has blown and is only on half of the pond. I wonder how the snow will drift with this strong wind today. Perhaps the ice will still be showing, at least where it is smooth.
After enough sitting, I turned on my go pro camera on my head and turned off the ipod camera. I walked around the side of the tipi, stepping across the dead branch on the ground. The little stairway up to the lane road has been weathered enough that the stairs aren't very visible as the sand and gravel have shifted. I didn't slip, which was important!
I headed down the pond lane and before I got to Deer Blind Tipi, I veered around to the left of it and down off the lane road into the alders. I noticed a clump of well transplanted willow. I hope it grows. The yellow brown grass is broken and folded over now by the previous snow. As I walked through it, beneath the alders, I wondered how far the pond was through the alder shortcut. No sooner had I crossed through about 50 feet in the alder woods, than I saw a chair directly ahead. I thought it was out in the middle of the thick broken down yellow grass of the meadow. But no, it was right beside the frozen pond!
I was so surprised to see the pond, that at first I didn't recognize it or where I was. The alders around it have grown well. The ones on the edge lean over and touch the pond now. One day the beavers will come back and denude all of them again. I suppose I could save them if I wanted to. But that doesn't matter so much.
A white knitted mitten still lay over an alder branch where I had put it a year ago to dry. I didn't believe it could still be there, but I was very glad to see it and put it on one of my mildly cold hands. That felt better!
I changed the camera video now that I was in a different location. The pond in the center of Horseshoe Island, Serenity Dippity Pond, was half covered by ice. The constantly flowing stream along the end of it keeps it open until later in the winter, usually. It'll freeze up soon.
After looking at the little tipi, Horseshoe Island Tipi, I went back to the corner of the pond where there were a line of deer tracks pushing down the refrozen half-inch thick snow and the yellow brown grass stems beneath it. I followed them and discovered they were using my pathway, the clothwalk that goes to Iceberg Pond over to the right at the base of the steep hill, the esker. I couldn't feel the presence of the fabric, but remembered that it was in this place.
After awhile, when the clothwalk turned towards the right, towards the hill and pond, the tracks kept straight. I tried to walk on the clothwalk area, but there was too much deeb broken grass stems, so there wasn't a solid bottom. I stepped back and onto their tracks; once again it was a hard surface beneath my feet. I could follow their tracks and now see where they were heading, into the Marsh Woods I suspected.
Once I crossed into the Marsh Woods, denoted by the dead cedars standing or falling at all angles, I remembered this being the Marsh Pond, created and controlled by a large family of beavers. I expected to find myself at the edge of the dam where, when it was filled with water, a moat lay on the pond side of the dam. However, I didn't cross a moat or a dam. I guessed they had mellowed out over the years.
I stood where the deer tracks crossed a fallen tree trunk and looked around, hoping to see evidence of Balsam Cove, the most wonderful place on the entire property. Finally, after crossing the log, I discovered which configuration of trees was my cove and determined the best way to get there was to back track so as to avoid another series of broken trees and branches between me and the cove.
The deer tracks no longer led the way, nor had matted down a pathway. The ground was only a few inches beneath the lowest grass, so I didn't have a problem, except that my lime green crocks had holes all around the sides. Snow and ice bits weren't welcome inside!
There before me was my hammock! in the midst of the greenery. I ran my hand along a branch of the balsam fir, feeling the needles as they passed my grip. I put my hand to my nose and breathed deeply of the smell of Christmas. So lovely. I did it again. And again.
Eventually, full of gratitude for this beautiful oasis of fragrant greenery amidst dying and dead trees and logs, I turned to my hammock and tipped the flattened chunk of leaves out, as well as the bits left behind. Had that been only one year of leaves or two? The hammock was taut between two cedar trees. It was too stiff for me, so I worked the straps back and forth around the tree till they were much lower and the risk of being hurt if I fell were minimized.
I sat down, trusting the hammock wouldn't soil my white camouflage coat. What a lovely place. So much green. I began counting the balsam firs. Most of them were young saplings, but several were tall enough to separate this place from all the rest of the Marsh Woods. I counted 24 youngish balsam firs.
The Marsh Woods is a fen, an area where water flows beneath the ground. However, finding these trees doing so well and the canary grass doing so well, meant that this area had enough ground for these trees to survive.
Beneath the cedars holding my hammock, were holes beneath the main roots, as they are everywhere in the Marsh Woods. I don't usually venture into it unless it's frozen, as it's just too much to climb between spots of water and the many gaping holes where roots have decayed. Most trees in the Marsh Woods are growing out of stumps where the land is higher above the water below it.
I made a video of my great spot, then got up and looked around. I found deer beds between a few firs and to the side beneath another one. I always called these areas of the Marsh Woods 'rooms' as that is what they seem like to me. I had thought of camping in one of these rooms years ago, but the surface is not level enough for a tent.
I stood by the deer bed looking back towards the hammock and remembering small Daniel climbing one tree and out onto a branch where he draped himself over and napped. Willem was below sitting in a lawn chair composing, his one note completed, a B flat. Abe was exploring some stumps and Alida was doing something, too, perhaps sitting and drawing. I sat and wrote.
I looked around at the balsam firs again and recognized the area. This was the same spot where we spent that winter afternoon one year long ago. Was that the same curved branch above in that tree? I guessed the tree had grown fifteen years worth so would have been much smaller than it was now. What a nice memory. Some of these balsam firs were just knee high back then. I remember sitting between them beside Willem. I had loved that they were growing.
Eventually, I heard traffic and decided I knew which way the stream was, as the road paralleled it on the other side of the forest beyond. So I walked towards the stream and came upon the two hammocks I'd hung several winters ago. The first is inaccessible other times of the year as the ground below it is low and often hosting water.
I found my supplies in that hammock: a decomposing red plastic bag holding a clear one which held a roll of toilet paper. Good to be prepared in such distant places as this!
I dumped out the leaves and such, but the hammock was too soiled to sit or lie on with my white coat on.
I looked around and saw the other hammock. One of its trees has the Marsh Woods sign on it. That sign I put up years ago to mark the entrance to the woods from the alder woods. I went over to it, dumped out the leaves and folded the hammock in half and sat on it. This is the hammock I sat in and made a pine needle basket start years ago, too. I had that video on youtube.
Under my weight, the hammock started to rip from the straps, so I got up. I'll have to replace it next time. I entered the alder woods alongside the stream and stood for a moment to soak it in. Whenever I am ready to leave, I find the stream then follow it back to solid ground. However, this time I felt the urgent push to get home. I didn't want to get home, it was just a habit to bee-line it home at this point. So in defiance, I stood and looked at the half dozen dead cedar tree trunks spanning the stream. One of these was probably the one I had cleared enough to create a bridge across. I couldn't tell which one it was, though. I didn't need to cross it.
These alders ahead were a tangled lot of branches when I used to walk through them. They'd whip at my eyes, take off my hat and trip me at every step. They had grown, though, so now they were much taller, with more room to walk beneath them, instead of walking through the tangled tops.
They did snag me up a bit, but I persevered and made it to Horseshoe Island tipi. What a nice relief to be out of the Long Fingered Alders. I walked behind the small tipi and suggested we go inside, me and whoever is watching. But when I lifted the outer flap, the inside was so dirty, I would ruin my coat crawling in through that crack. So I didn't.
I circled Serenity Dippity Pond, finding some of those alder branches in my way. Across a bit of Canary Meadow and into the alders behind Deer Blind Tipi. I went inside and lay in the hammock between the tipi poles. It was so comfortable. It had the right amount of bounce and the right amount of curve. It was the perfect hammock.
I closed my eyes talked to my Heavenly Father and rested for awhile. After a while, I lifted the side of the tipi cover beside me and watched it snow. It's lovely to have a spot like this to watch the snow falling.
I didn't stop by Fiddlehead Pond as I walked down the pond lane and up the hill. Both cameras had run out of room or battery. It was so nice to have taken the time for such a wonderful walk. Wow, 10am! I have been gone a long time.