FOREST AND FIELD

THE MUSHROOM TREES

Subdued. A bit overcast. This is good for a walk. The snow actually comes down and across now. We have missed it. No worry either way. I would not have thought it would have snowed. Rain, - possibly. Snow, - no. But March and April are capricious and their climate shifts like the wind itself. I went to the edges of the fields, - the farmer’s land (he gave me permission), and I saw after some lively Birches that made a welcoming archway of sorts, - an old tree that had mushrooms growing all the way up it. In behind me the red bird flew, and I saw him twice. Auspicious. I glanced up at the mushrooms and the sky loomed large but subdued.

THE FALLEN TREES

In behind there, closer to the direction of the farmer’s abode itself (which is about two kilometres more still), were old trees that had been taken down by the storms. Weight and wind, or else lightning. Not for me to say. I had a feeling of wind. The pines on them, their peculiar type of leaf if you will, - were half alive (green), and half dead (orange tinged). This juxtaposition of color plus the great trees across the forest floor really made some kind of scene. It was a place where no people go, - and so there is there an untouched vibration or even non-vibration. A silence.

PATH TO THE FELLED BRANCHES

Along a short pathway couched by odd medium height trees, possibly large shrubs, - is a calm area also. It is like a short causeway if a causeway could break a rule and be short. In the spring the red buds brag their color to the air and the sky melts blue upon itself all day long. But currently it is greyish, overcast, somewhat sad or forlorn, - but that is okay. It will wake from winters dream somehow, sometime. 

THE BONEYARD TREES

The path leads to an incredibly large pile of branches and trunks. Maybe the result of three days work and the gathering of ten or fifteen trees either pruned, fallen, or whatnot. They make for a startling sight and one doesn’t know quite they remind the subconscious of. Some old scene from a movie in a desert. Something ominous. A funeral pyre of some kind. Who knows? They sit there alone, their story over. A dead collective of old parts…

THE FARMER’S FENCE

Up and across is the fence. Part of it is shrunken and fallen to the ground but the main part stands well. Someone has repaired it because if looked at closely one can see the big and new nails, galvanized, - sunk properly into the right spots along the wood. They hold the limbs of the fence together. Some feral things, small grow, - and for a moment the sun peeked out for a glimpse to see what we were doing. Cumulus, fresh air, that red bird waiting up the way, watching curiously, - then gone. We walked on...

DOGS AND A STICK

They did not have enough energy out yet. So I threw a stick. They are not crazy about sticks, and do not retrieve well though they will if asked. The stick thing, or branch thing, - works mostly out of jealously. Neither one wants it too much and alone, would leave it right away. Yet, - neither one wants the other to have it. So they appear to play and jostle, to wrestle and remark and report back. Then, if and when one loses interest, - the other immediately does also. This comedy I smiled at, - and was happy because whatever was going on, - they were moving, exerting muscle and brain and emotional energy. And that is the point in the beginning and in the end of being there.

ATOP A FALLEN TREE W/MUSHROOMS AND MOSS

Heading back I was shocked to glance to the right and see a long moss covered tree w/ about four or four large mushrooms growing on the side of it. It just goes to show, - you can walk past the same spot over and over, - and not see what is beside you. This is what some Native stories mean to say when they say the medicinal plant for instance, will hide on you. The plant does not move, - but you have not prepared yourself properly always to receive what nature has to offer. So the higher dynamic has a way of protecting it ‘jewels’ or secrets from the heavy footed or from the consciousness that is not clear enough. Wolfe jumped atop and I snapped some pictures.

TAKING A BREAK

The two were now more tired, and stood nearby beside a tree that was bare. It was getting time to head out. We did not see anyone else and the air was crisp, - the temperature dropping and the world becoming a bit more overcast. Of course in the real spring and summer, even autumn or winter, - the temperature rises with the sun, with the day, with the procession of hours. But the willful April morning! It does what it does. It had not given us the sun on our face, such as in stories and poems and films, but it had given us some expansive chance to walk and look around paths and fields.



 

WHITE FOWL IN THE FIELDS

Some birds, - I guess swans out of their pond and looking for something, - waited in some other fields. We slowed down and stopped for a moment. The closer one just watched. The wind came over a bit. There were other things ‘round there, - old barns, an abandoned train car (how it got there I shall never know), - and this or that along the long pebble and rock shoulders that protect and divide loams and fields from roads. 

THE WAY HOME

Then we really went away. Past some mailboxes and down and up a big hill. There were a few solitary souls walking around. The red bird was far behind us. Sometimes there was a car parked, and left there just in from a road and leading to a set and series of pathways slightly hidden from view.

No doubt some person taking their dogs for a walk…