a spring country weekend

The sun shone through the trees and it was just warm enough that I didn't need a sweater in the afternoon. Wading in shallow water, ferns unfurling, wildflowers popping up...

All the greens:
spring green, apple green, moss green, forest green...

Checking the frog pond for tadpoles or frogspawn. Frogspawn reminding me of a favorite poem, Death of a Naturalist, by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney. (Read the entire poem here.) Remembering as a child in Virginia collecting frogspawn in jars and tadpoles in buckets...

...There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampots full of the jellied
Specks to range on the window-sills at home,..

-Seamus Heaney from Death of  a Naturalist

Catskill weekend

 Most of the wildflowers are gone. Gone to seed, I guess. 

But there are other things to see.

Ferns growing amongst a fallen tree.

 Little shadows in the stream look like footprints but are some kind of insect. 

Water strider? Pond skimmer?

Holes have formed in the rock at the bottom of the waterfall.

 We used to find crayfish in them sometimes. 

Where did they come from? Where did they go?

We used to see newts, salamanders, and tiny toads, regularly, 

but haven't for a couple of years. 

Where are they?

A woman came to the store and bought a little guide to bats. She said she used to see lots of bats, but doesn't any more. I realized that I don't see as many as I used to either. That scares me. It all scares me. 

By the way, bats are your friend. They eat mosquitoes. I strongly recommend Diane Ackerman's book The Moon by Whale Light, which includes a great essay on bats.

As for the store...everything is on sale and selling. Thank goodness--I don't want to have to carry too much back down the stairs I wrote so much about here! Three more weekends, then I close the door. I hope then I'll take the time to find some answers, instead of just asking questions.

rocks, water, moss

On a recent visit to the Catskills, I spent a lot of time walking along the brook,

mesmerized by the flow of water over rocks, the paths and patterns,

each rock and group of rocks 

unique, creating countless variations.

  And in the rockless shallows,

moss patterns look like a map, 

some verdant part of the country, as seen from an airplane.

weekend wandering

Where you might find me when I'm not at the store:

morning coffee here

after work nap here

reading here

or here

wading 

wandering

never underestimate the importance of wandering

wading and winners

Seven people left comments for The Great Field Bag Giveaway, and they were all wonderful--creative, amusing, enthusiastic, heartfelt ... It made me ridiculously happy that you took the time to write something unique. I like them so much that I'm reproducing them here, unattributed for the pleasure of the words (but if you want attribution you can go to the comments on the original post). They are like little prose poems:


*.As these days the majority of our time is spent in a city, when we do venture into the countryside we aim, like the Boy Scouts and following in the path of their founder, Lord Baden Powell, to "Be Prepared".

So, for us, the Field Bag would be such a very smart way of carrying one or two absolute essentials. Briefly, these would include: W.E. Johns 'Flowers of the Field', mackintoshes, smoked salmon sandwiches, The Observer Book of Birds, kindling wood and matches, a kettle, a tartan travel rug, shooting sticks, sun hats, rain hats, Wellington boots, a Thermos flask, a First Aid kit, Kendal Mint Cake, a compass, and a bottle of fizz and two champagne flutes.

And, dear Jen, if the Field Bag could be in a bright colour [if we were so fortunate as to win], then we should be spared having to carry distress flares and rockets. Waving the bag in the air should be enough to attract Land, Sea and Air Rescue Services.  

* I am a total farmgirl at heart. I love the outdoors and collecting various treasures that I find including stones, different kinds of leaves, flowers, etc. I would carry my found items in my field bag as well as a book to press flowers in, a notebook and pencil for sketching, and my latest crochet project. I would also carry snacks to accompany me on my explorations. I live in Colorado so a field bag like this would be ideal for me!

 *Oooh, I love the field bags!!! It would definitely hold my sketchbook and pencils, and a notebook and pen. And maybe my camera would fit, too! Everything I need for a nice hike.

 *yea! I want a field BAG!!! I would put my pad of paper and pencils and eraser and my bird book and my leaf/tree book and my mammal book that I just bought today! and go out to the quiet spot and draw.

* Sign me up, girl! I will suture it to my arm so that I will never be lacking a bag to collect strange branches, grungy pinecones, dead beetles, illicitly taken seashells from state beaches, and other natural ephemera. And I will want the bug guide.

 I love your field bags! I would carry it on all my country road trips. It would contain my little note book and pen for writing down the names of all the cool junk stores I'd pass, my uncle's old binoculars,(sp?) so I could see the address's, a subway sandwich, turkey with everything,(lots of jalpenos) to keep up my strengh, a diet coke to give me a boost, (even though what I'd realy like is an ice cold frozen margarita but I don't think it would travel well and then there is that pesky thing about drinking and driving), a pair of flip flops so I could change out of my boots when my feet get tired of trudging up and down all the aisles in those grungy little shops, a floopy hat and umbrella in case it decides to rain on my parade, my phone to call my BF when I find that perfect "thing" that I'm so excited about I can't stand it, and last but not least, a pillow and a vintage army blanket to spread out under a tree by a sparkling stream to rest, eat and daydream about all the cool things I found and the things I'm still searching for!

* I am so late and everyone has been so witty I can't even remember what I thought I would carry.

My mind? My camera for sure. My daily book of reflections. An eyeliner. A bottle of water. Clippers. My cell phone ( let's get real here) oh, and I know a stack of your business cards so when people ask me where i got the fantastic field bag I could casually hand one over and say, why right here!

******

So I wrote out the seven names on bits of paper and folded them and put them in my pocket and went wading, and I am in love with the word wading, and even more in love with the act of wading, which made me feel like I was four years old, and then I rummaged around in my pocket and pulled out one paper and it read "Hattatt". So the marvelous Jane and Lance Hattatt of Budapest and Bath are the grand prize winners. 

Is there any other kind of winner? Well, yes there is. If any of you other six nature loving comment-poets are still reading, email your address to jen@countryweekend.net because I have some nifty runner up gifts. (Can you tell I was the teacher who could never fail her students?) Seriously! I'm in a giving mood--and you are in danger of hurting my feelings if you don't.

Jen