A Squirrel Buries Its Treasure

A squirrel gets ready for the winter ahead. Henry David Thoreau watched as the little creature carried out its work and later wrote about the scene...

It’s that time of year – autumn, the season of collecting, harvesting and preparing for winter.   The markers of the passing of the seasons are very noticeable in rural areas as humans and non-humans set about preparing for the long, dark months ahead.  The fields and barns have been a hive of activity and indoors, people begin to stock up with winter supplies.  But others too are acutely aware that the seasonal clock is ticking and in the woods, there is much to-ing and fro-ing among the small mammals.  It has been several months since I saw a red squirrel but I have spotted a couple lately while walking in the local forest.  When an opportunity arises and it is possible to observe one from a discreet vantage point, I return somewhat richer and happier for the encounter.

It was after returning from the woods and watching a squirrel going about its business that Henry David Thoreau put pen to paper and recorded the event:

 “I saw a red squirrel run along the bank under the hemlocks with a nut in its mouth.  He stopped near the foot of a hemlock, and hastily pawing a hole with its fore feet, dropped the nut, covered it up, and retreated part way up the trunk of the tree, all in a few moments.  I approached the shore to examine the deposit, and he, descending betrayed no little anxiety for his treasure and made two or three motions to recover the nut before he retreated.  Digging there, I found two pignuts joined together, with their green shells on, buried about an inch and a half in the soil, under the red hemlock leaves.  This then, is the way forests are planted.  This nut must have been brought twenty rods at least and was buried at just the right depth.  If the squirrel is killed, or neglects its deposit, a hickory springs up.”  

( H D Thoreau 

from 

The Journal of Henry David Thoreau)

Something in Mountain Air

Why we need to go to the mountains from time to time...

"There is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires.  Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences?"

(H.D. Thoreau, On Walking)

More to a Map than Meets the Eye

I love maps. 

 

Unfolding a map, laying it out on the table or floor, leaning over it and tracing the different paths, the course of rivers and streams, and identifying the other physical features builds to the anticipation of the planned walk.  Scanning a map with my eyes, knowing that the next day my footsteps will be in contact with that ground, know directly the nuances of the landscape, adds to the excitement.  Maps may stop you from getting lost but you can also get lost in a map.  They are not purely functional things but are like books, a source of idle pleasure, learning and appreciation for the wonders of the earth.  They give lessons in geography and geology, in natural and human history.

 

Maps can be perused during long winter days when the weather forces you to stay indoors and without leaving the house, you can wander about the hills and valleys, through towns and along riverbanks.  They can take you outdoors to places you have never been to envisage the scene in your imagination, invite you to remember and walk again along paths previously trod and touch the summit cairns of mountains already climbed. Maps are invitations to venture anew and to look backwards, to step outside and to turn inwards. They can be enjoyed alone or shared with others, indoors or outdoors, in winter or summer, day or night.

When I am following the paths, tracks and contours of a map,whether with my eyes or feet, I am blissfully happy.  Yes, maps do a lot, and there is much more to them than meets the eye.

 

Of course, I am not alone in my love of maps - that great walker and writer, Robert Louis Stephenson, also shared the same passion.

"I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to believe.  The names, the shapes of the woodlands, the courses of the roads and rivers, the prehistoric footsteps of man still distinctly traceable up hill and down dale, the mills, and the ruins, the ponds and the ferries, perhaps the ‘Standing Stone’ or the ‘Druidic Circle’ on the heath; here is the inextinguishable fund of interest for any man with eyes to see or two-pence worth of imagination to understand with!"

(Robert Louis Stephenson)

October Morning Walk

  

I have just returned from a walk. With plenty to do, I shouldn’t have succumbed but the lure of this cold, sunny morning proved irresistible and before I knew it, I was opening the garden gate and walking along the local roads and lanes.  The little voice that usually tries to spoil the fun with ‘you ought to be doing such and such’, didn’t even bother whispering today, for it knew it would be pointless.  At sunrise, I had noticed the pink tipped clouds through the veil of mist, and took my cup of tea out into the garden where the steam from the hot drink mixed with that of my breath.  The cold nipped my fingers and slapped my cheek, rousing me from my sleepy state.  I was fully  awake now, alive to every little nuance, sight, sound and smell around me.  I drank it in.  On going indoors, I washed the breakfast things, immersing my hands in the warm, bubbly water and before I knew it, I was at the gate with coat on and hands deep in my pockets.  Nothing on my mind, just following my own footsteps.

What did I see on my walk this morning?  The sun in one direction, casting its warm rays onto the bodies of the sheep dozing blissfully in the fields.  I saw tree sparrows and green finches zig-zagging across the lane and darting amongst the branches of the trees and hedges, twittering loudly to each other. Rooks called from the tree-tops and a robin increased the volume of his song against the background of their raucous noise. 

I reached a gap in the hedge, a field-gate, and from there I watched the last thin wisps of morning mist fade to reveal nature in her Autumn dress.   No admission charge at this entrance to an exhibition of the highest Art.  Nature is generous and bestows her gifts freely on all who are prepared to stop and look.  The mountains lay in the distance yet every path and chasm was clearly visible.  In the near distance, a group of four or five trees were ablaze, as though red and orange flames were engulfing their leafy canopies.  Green fields surrounded me, laid to pasture, interspersed in places by some that were a pale golden colour following the harvesting of wheat and the cutting of hay.  A brown thread ran here and there between these fields, the recently ploughed rich, dark soil now visible and dotted with black and white specks where rooks and sea-gulls foraged for food.   To my left, spread over the wood like a patchwork quilt were trees and shrubs bedecked in varying hues and shades of yellows, golds, reds, oranges and  browns.

I stood mesmerised by such beauty and drifted out of myself to meet the fields, trees, birds and sky without moving from my vantage point.  I don’t know how long I was gone but I was roused from my trance-like state by the sound of someone saying ‘Thank you.’  
It was me. 

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

L.M. Montgomery, 

 Anne of Green Gables