Dave Greschner Outdoor Journal – Writing about outdoors and nature

Cattail detail

In a week or two this shoreline will draw anglers soaking up spring while soaking worms to tempt panfish in shallow, warming water. The bobber watchers may not jostle for position but will surely work to outmaneuver each other for the best spots.

This morning there are no anglers on the marshy bay, covered in thin ice for at least one more day. There are, however, a lot of geese, and they do jostle, wings clashing if verbal threats aren’t taken seriously. Canada geese are in pairs, claiming nesting sites in snowy patches of cattails and reeds poking from the ice.

I’m seated tight to the shoreline. Winter is on the leave but has left its mark. Stubborn spits of snow and wet ground are covered with branches from an ice storm. Bits of garbage are strewn about, though scarlet twigs on a red osier shrub pay no mind.

Geese are paired up for as far as I can see—dozens of “gooses in deuces.” Truces of courtship appear in place, though every so often a lone goose, probably having lost its mate, wanders about. It gets chased away, its hope for a new mate dwindling; geese mate for life, until death do they part.

Today the geese walk on crumbling, darkening ice, sometimes stopping to rest their bellies on the surface or stand on one leg. I vow to sit and watch in an attempt to read their nesting behavior. I have a lot to learn.

Just when I think there is peace among the geese, suddenly one pair begins honking. Honking loud. Apparently, another twosome has come too close, though to my eye the “offenders” are simply waddling aimlessly. The honking male, slightly larger than the less irritated female, makes a short dash at the other male. They awkwardly tangle, clashing wings. Then it all quiets down again.

What am I watching? Is there already a nest I can’t see, hidden on an elevated clump of ground in the cattails? Has dogged nest defense begun? Perhaps egg laying has started. Could well be, for geese, like many birds, lay an egg a day before incubation begins, allowing for simultaneous hatching of a half dozen goslings, maybe more, maybe less.

I shift position and sharpen my camera focus, framing geese in cattails 125 feet away. But what’s this? A few feet from my feet a sleek creature comes through a platter-size hole in the ice. A river otter, dripping wet, pauses next to the bank near exposed tree roots. It sees me fumble with my camera and tripod, then it whirls and dives back down the hole, leaving me with a photo of a tail.

I turn my focus back to the bay. A bald eagle circles above, male red-winged blackbirds atop cattails trill “conk-la-REE,” and a lone duck passes over, drawing a few honks.

The geese are calm but guarded. When egg-sitting begins, they will aggressively and tirelessly fend off predators, including that otter. The geese are focused on the goal of goslings, spring’s detail in the cattails.

Note: For more essays like this, my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Icy entity of March

Morning revealed the night work of nature’s ice artist while oak leaves shimmered in the glow of sunrise. I thought about March, the month already half over, how we always seem to wish it would just end. Wish it were April.

But March is more than a bridge between winter and spring. We may have to look for its allure, but it does offer more than shrinking snowbanks and rising temperatures. I looked where yesterday’s puddle of melt had turned to ice overnight. Imagine, nature crystalized this piece for my brief enjoyment. In only a matter of hours it would puddle again under the sun’s growing power.

On this small, hard canvas was ice as smooth as a mirror reflecting the sky, and also ice textured and feathered like a bird’s wingtips. There were delicate shelves of ice, swirls (cat-ice), and wandering wavy lines, like chimney smoke on a calm morning. I stared at the icy creation, seeing a fallen bird, the eyes of a ghost’s upside-down face, and the geographic form of the Red Sea between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

This intricate piece—one of a kind sculpted in darkness—would soon be water again, its artist in hiding, planning tonight’s design.

I returned to my coffee, where through a breezeway window my eye caught a kitchen window reflecting the morning. The glass was filled with rust-brown oak leaves—a mirrored, blurred image with a blue-sky background. Any slight movement of my head shifted the image. It was fluid, not frozen, a rolling scene of leaves preferring to move sideways, not fall.

Not yet, not in March. For March, despite home of the vernal equinox, is more winter than spring. Oak leaves hang on to winter’s very end, as do we. The leaves tumble in spring, as we fall head over heels for the season of rebirth.

Oaks, like the beeches, retain their dead leaves in what botanists call marcescence—the retention of dead plant matter. Why? There are theories, only theories stress some, since nature can be coy regarding its ways. Perhaps a spring leaf drop delivers fresh organic matter to the soil under the tree. Perhaps leaf retention protects the tiny buds that formed last fall and now wait to swell in spring, pushing off their winter protector.

But why only oaks and beeches? May it be these species are still evolving into fully deciduous trees from their evergreen roots? Yes, the beech family also includes some evergreens, whose winter needles provide us with greenness when we most need color.

We wait for spring warmth and the color palette it awakens. New life all around us, new life within us, while oak leaves colored and dried last fall wait for their demise. They make their last stand, above puddles that form and freeze, thaw and refreeze, in a month that moves us along in a frustrating tease.

April will have its own agenda—showers that puddle and not freeze, tree buds swelling into tiny leaves—while icy artwork and spent leaves are swept away in streams of spring.

Crystal blue persuasion

At least once a winter I go ice fishing to remind myself why I don’t go ice fishing a couple dozen times a winter. Nothing against shacks and waxies, teardrops and tip-ups, or cold beer on a cold lake. It’s just that I prefer my fishing days on soft water when I can hear the plop of the bobber.

That once-a-winter came up on the last day of February, initiated with the text, “You wanna go fishing today?” That would be my brother-in-law’s thumbs typing. I replied in haste, “Yeh!”

Why not? The day promised thawing temperatures, blue sky, and a chickadee breeze, not a hawkish wind that is the bane of the shackless. There we were the next day, on a white canvas dotted with shanties of retreat and heat, gloveless in our pursuit of hooking on waxies to hook up bluegills.

With the sun, the calm, and temperature above freezing, my only other requirements were safe ice—I was assured 30 inches was safe—and someone to power drill holes through those 30 inches; my hand auger has become garage art. Bro-in-law has a gas auger to spit, lickety-split, ice from holes 10 inches across.

Then I settled in, or I should say settled on, for I sat on the mandatory 5-gallon pail turned upside down. Later, the pail would be used to carry 5 gallons of fish. I hoped. For the time being it was my front row seat to watch a tiny bobber for anything resembling a nibble. I stared at the hole, assuming the ice fishing pose.

Anticipation went down the hole and nothing came up the hole for the first hour. Yet, I was entertained by the lake’s Saturday-in-the-park atmosphere among the ice anglers with nothing much on their mind but enjoying the expansive getaway. Music wafted across the whiteness. We loaded and lowered our waxes to the Doobie Brothers’ “Only A Fool Believes,” followed by Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” Not exactly tunes to build fishing confidence.

Whatever confidence we brought to the lake began to wane. No amount of angling finagling could bring the fish to light. So out came my brother-in-law’s drone. And beer. A drone went up, a beer went down.

“You hear that jet?” bro-in-law asked, as if testing my hearing, which indeed could use some testing. Yes, I heard it, and I saw its contrail bubbling behind. He played with his phone. Suspense heightened to the crystal blue sky before he said confidently, “Vancouver to Toronto.”

I inquired about the app, the app I now want to track flight routes of passing jets. Why I don’t know. Then something happened that brought our attention back to lake level—the fish turned on. Ah, crystal blue persuasion.

For an hour we caught bluegills, though many of them were shirt-pocket size. I was hungry for fish, however, so even the borderline catches made the cut. On cue, a real fisherman came by to check our meager catches and let us know he had 15 pounds of fish in his freezer at home. Well, la-di-da came to mind but not to my lips.

He went on to inform me that my bobber was not sensitive enough to catch bluegills. I wanted to say that I didn’t want sensitive bluegills, just the uncomplicated ones that take big gulps. He must have noticed me biting my tongue, assuring me that it wasn’t a good catching day for anyone. So that ended well; misery loves company.

Then the fish quit biting. Just like that. No big deal, for the day was mild and pleasing, the lake a whole different vista than the dirty, melting snowbanks at home. A small jet went over. “Iron Mountain to Minneapolis.” And then the sky was peaceful again, as was the lake, except for vehicles going to shacks. One or two people would disappear into the mystery of the shanty, sometimes with a dog.

If I go ice fishing only once this winter, this was the day, a good day—one beer, nine bluegills, one new app to explore, and zero cold fingers.

Note: For more essays like this, my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

The ride of Sol

There sits the camper, 30 feet of summer fun covered with 3 feet of winter. Well, not quite 3 feet, but enough snow atop it to worry me as I beg Sol to send melting rays the camper’s way. Icicles cascading down the camper’s nose tells me the sun—the goddess Sol’s personification in Norse mythology—is trying.

There’s a pine tree in Sol’s way for most of the afternoon as she guides her chariot, pulling the sun across the sky with horses Arvakr and Alsvior in the lead. The chariot was believed to be formed from glowing embers of the sun.

Back in the real world of winter, melting matters are about to improve. Heading deeper into February, the sun angles higher, obscured less and less by the pine tree’s boughs. We feel the glow.

The higher arc of the sun will soon lighten my mood and also my guilt of subjecting the vehicle of exploration and relaxation to the cold wilds of winter. I long for the calm whims of summer. I watch the camper’s corner spouts to see snowmelt dripping from the roof. Drip, drip, drip … dripping toward spring.

By three or four minutes every 24 hours, daylight now lengthens between sunrise and sunset. Like coins into a jar, the minutes add up, and soon it’s half an hour, and then an hour, and then it’s, if I dare say, the vernal equinox in March.

The sun’s rising angle melts our winter weariness. Sunlight is reaching us now from about 30 degrees above the horizon compared to 21 degrees two months ago on the winter solstice. It will be at 68 degrees on the summer solstice in June, obviously closer to overhead when we may choose to hide from the sun.

From here it gets tricky, at least for me, having to do with the earth’s axis tilt, declination, right ascension, sine and azimuth, all of which make my head hurt. So I try to simplify, satisfied to learn that on the first day of winter, because of its shallow angle, a mile-wide ray of sun shines on twice as much earth than on the first day of summer.

Spreading that much sunlight over twice as much ground weakens the sun’s energy to half the power in December than during its more direct beam in late June. The halfway point, of course, is the vernal equinox on March 21. Right now, we are well into our winter journey from the solstice to the equinox. So that’s a good thing, right?

For now, quite simply, we know the sun is climbing higher in the southern sky, amping up power to slowly subdue snowbanks, white roofs, and snowy fields where corn’s stubborn stubble is reappearing, having never given up its ground.

So here comes the sun, and I say it’s alright, as did George Harrison when he wrote song lyrics in a garden in the spring of 1969. Yes, I’m rushing the season a bit. But we are angling toward spring. And gardens. One degree at a time on Sol’s ride. Drip by drip becomes quite the might. It’s alright.

Note: For more essays like this, my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Numbers for February

A pair of river otters watched me stop and point the camera their way. One slid off the snow-covered ice shelf, disappeared under a swirl of blue, resurfacing within seconds. Then, with acute inquisitiveness, the otters stared at me from their spit of open water.

The diving otter could have stayed under for 8 minutes. Had both otters decided to escape atop the ice they could have bumped and bobbed, picking up momentum to slide, covering 22 feet per slide on the slippery snowpack; otters prefer slide-travel in winter.

Eight minutes, 22 feet. Numbers to ponder on a day in February, the temperature struggling to reach double digits. It can’t, despite some sunshine. It’s 5˚ after last night’s minus 7˚. Numbing numbers. The numbers of winter.

On this fourth day of February, the sun sinks behind bare trees 44 minutes later than on the first day of this year. Tomorrow, the sun rises one minute earlier than today. We’ve gained 71 minutes of daylight since the winter solstice 45 days ago.

Winter’s numbers tell of a struggle to survive. The fisher of 30-mph speed punctures the snow with leaping tracks up to 16 feet apart, pursuing rabbits and other prey over 10 square miles of range. Rabbits can dash 18 mph. Beneath 20 inches of ice, 32-inch northern pike cruise for 5-inch perch and bluegills.

Ruffed grouse roosting in 12 inches of snow stay up to 35˚ warmer than if they perched in a pine tree. Whitetail deer trail past the grouse in the night. The does carrying fawns are halfway through their 200-day gestation period.

Birds of 15 species work over the five feeders outside my window—chickadees, juncos, mourning doves, cardinals, pine siskins, blue jays, and two varieties of nuthatches, three of woodpeckers and four of finches. The chickadees weigh four-tenths of an ounce. They will eat about 60% of their body weight this cold day, only to shiver the added fat off tonight to stay warm while they lower their body temperature 15˚ to conserve shivering energy. Fourteen hours to dawn.

Those same feeders will be visited in the light of the moon by flying squirrels, gliding in at 15 mph from a nearby tree up to 150 feet away. Standing 24 inches tall, a male great horned owl hoots in the dark, declaring its territory and attracting a mate as nesting season begins. The females lay up to four round, dull white eggs, and incubate them for 33 days in the dead of winter.

Chipmunks, curled in a burrow, slash their heart beats from 350 per minute to five. Thousands—make that millions—of mosquitoes are buried beneath the snow, waiting for a day three months away. Far above, a hawk sees light eight times better than humans, picking out a meadow mouse 1,000 feet below.

Sleepy bear sows in dark dens give birth to two or three 8-inch cubs. They weigh 5 ounces, and won’t open their eyes for 6 weeks. I look at the calendar. There are 45 days until the vernal equinox. The cubs’ eyes will be wide open for spring. So will ours.

Note: For more essays like this, my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available by contacting me at davegreschner@icloud.com or 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, and at these fine bookstores in Wisconsin: Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Clarity of January

The common redpolls have found the common tansies. On a gray January day, where the meadow meets the field, these small finches feed on the minuscule seeds of the dried wildflower five months past its bloom of yellow buttons.

The redpolls balance on the flowerheads, now faded to olive-brown. Some of the birds are on the ground, in scant snow, pecking at tiny black seeds that have been shaken loose by the birds, or the wind, speckling the snow like a shake of pepper. Somewhat alarmed by my approach, the redpolls lift as one, whirl and wheel away, like my fleeting thoughts on a winter’s day.

But they whirl their way back, following their hunger in this last half of January. Perhaps not the last half of winter, but a milestone toward spring nonetheless. January is often too long, too cold, too burdensome.

I’ve tried to do more than just “hang in there” this month. I strive to stay upbeat and find the brights spots on cloudy days, some warmth through frigid waves, and a good trail to follow out of the wind in most my ways. I trace what January offers in the plus column.

It has worked, evidenced by the dizzying yet pleasing sight of hundreds of redpolls, with some other finch species probably interspersed, feeding and fleeing in the chilled air. I have looked up at a barred owl on silent watch for cottontails which should also be looking up. I have found melted ovals on matted leaves where deer curled with shelter at their backs and sunshine slanting from the south to warm their thick coats.

And yet, January is not conducive to stay and play all day. I return home to let the wood stove heat warm my feet in the calm of the late afternoon. No different than deer, I let the sun find me, the sun that will be hanging around 38 minutes longer by the end of January than on New Year’s Day; we’re making progress in the light department.

I also let the quiet of winter surround me, content in this state of repose and reflection, and clarity too, if we’re fortunate. Naturalist writer Annie Dillard observed, “I bloom indoors in the winter … I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear.”

It’s clear that January has its place. I just have to find the tiny seeds it feeds me before I wheel away, like the redpolls, to the next chapter of the season.

Note: Want to read more nature essays such as this? My book, “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special price of $18. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available at regular prices through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tale), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), Cable (Redbery Books),and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Year of the (flying) squirrel

The “shadow” appeared out of nowhere and disappeared with the same swiftness.

In the Chinese zodiac calendar there is no designation for squirrels. So I’ll take care of that matter because it’s always the Year of the Squirrel around our yard, especially when it comes to bird feeders. The squirrels don’t get the “bird” part in bird feeders. But that’s OK. I enjoy the critters.

Two years ago, during a snowy January, I even accommodated the daring gray squirrels who cross the road to reach our feeders. I dug a tunnel in the tall snowbank along the street. They still had to cross the road, but that leap over the snowbank was no longer an Olympic feat.

It was a playful experiment, and it worked. The squirrels used the tunnel, which I called The Squirnnel. I thought I was quite clever, or at least good for a laugh.

But there was more to that Year of the Squirrel than a tunnel. In the first week of January I was enthralled by the Full Wolf Moon softly illuminating the snowy yard, including the bird feeder area. Breaking my near trance was a small dark figure, or maybe a shadow, darting about the ground near the maple tree trunk where I had spread corn and sunflower seeds for the ground-feeding birds. And squirrels.

The “shadow” appeared out of nowhere and disappeared with the same swiftness. At first, I thought it was a mouse going in and out of a hole in the snow. But it seemed too big, almost rat size (heaven forbid). And, thank heavens, it was too fast for a rat, and had a feathered flat tail, not a rat tail.

It became apparent that the critter was leaping from low on the tree trunk to the corn and seeds and then leaping back to the trunk, all with such amazing speed that the critter was like a spirit creature. I watched this scene repeat itself over and over until I was pretty sure what I was seeing, even if I had never seen one before.

It was a flying squirrel. I did the research, and it confirmed that this indeed was a northern flying squirrel, a 10-inch, bug-eyed squirrel that glides through the night. It may land in the snow, leaving “sitzmarks,” or on a tree, using padded feet to cushion the landing.

The flying squirrels—sometimes there were two—came nightly, at various times. I did not see them glide, land and scurry around to the other side of the tree trunk as they do in fear that a hungry owl might be following their flight. I did watch them whirl to the far side of the trunk after their exposure while feeding on the ground.

I read that flying squirrels will tolerate a light on them. So with headlamp and camera, I set up a stakeout from the deck on a cold January night. The flying squirrel came and began its frantic feeding. I got the photos, though I had to be swift with a shutter finger that was numbing from the cold.

There’s always something new in nature, right there in our yards, to see, to be stumped by, to be studied and identified. I was not surprised. It’s always the Year of the Squirrel.

Note: Want to read more nature essays such as this? My book, “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special price of $18. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available at regular prices through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Christmas Eve honey tree

Introduction: During this season of giving thanks and gifts, I have been sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” which was released at the end of last year. For the holiday season, the book is available through me at a special price (see information at the end of this post). As we close in on Christmas, this excerpt is the last half of the introduction to “Sometimes the Best of Times: November-December.” The first half of this piece was in an earlier blog, “A Waning Day in Autumn.” We pick up this piece at the first mention of Christmas. Enjoy.

… I’ll search for a Christmas tree in the woodlot. Or a honey tree at Christmas, for it was such a tree on a December day that nudged me toward the wonder of nature. It’s a childhood memory in which I see my father and myself on the hillside pasture beyond our barn.

It’s the afternoon of Christmas Eve. A chainsaw churns into an old oak tree. It falls to the ground. My dad stops the chainsaw, reaches into the hollow trunk and takes out pieces of honey bee combs. In the cold, the honey is too thick to drip. He places the golden combs in a stainless steel milk pail.

I recall the fascination and magic of honeycombs, of small snowflakes dancing through the gray afternoon, my cold fingers, my inquisitive dad. Did we stumble upon the bees’ summer work or did dad know this present was in this tree? I think the latter, for why else would he bring along the clean pail? I’ll never know for sure; oh, the things we wish we had asked our parents.

I would guess he saw it and took note during deer hunting, or on a late summer search for a cow and its newborn. I do the same now, noting and returning to the nests of bald-faced hornets and goldfinches, and the drying stands of pearly everlasting.

I remember the afternoon growing dim as we made our way home, Christmas lights twinkling in the windows, mom’s Christmas Eve meal in the oven, our sweet find in the pail. It was December, and now it is again. And now, like then, I bring home the gifts of early winter as I was taught, and the knowledge that seasons come and go, as do our trials and tribulations, as I have learned.

We find beauty and hope in the new season, the new day, the new chapter, and the sweet treat in the tree.

Note: Thr0ugh the holiday season, “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special price of $17. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available through online book sellers, including Amazon, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Settling into winter

Introduction: During this season of giving gifts, I am sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” which was released at the end of last year. For the holiday season, the book is available through me at a special price (see information at the end of this post). The following is an excerpt from the chapter, “Woodland Settles into Winter,” from the November-December segment of the book. Enjoy.

Winter settles deep into the woodland, the chilly silence pierced only by the roar of my chainsaw spinning toward the core of the hardwoods.

The saw settles into a downed oak branch, scattering wood chips on the snow while slicing off 16-inch hunks of firewood. I pick up the pieces and bang the smaller ones together. A sharp smack rings through the leafless forest.

Then the saw unsettles winter in the middle of the firm but dying tree trunk. Caramel-colored rings tell me the oak has seen many winters. This is its last.

I come to the woods for more than wood. In early December, I come to make sure that some deer remain after the hunt, and that the first frigid blast hasn’t scared away the squirrels, rabbits, foxes, and ruffed grouse. I know the answers before I arrive, but reassurance is good for the soul, and a good reason to take to the woods.

In her 1942 book, “We Took To The Woods,” Louise Dickinson Rich writes of winter, “You can neither remodel nor ignore a thing as big as winter. In the woods, we don’t try. We just let winter be winter, and any adjustments that have to be made, we make in ourselves and our way of living.”

As the afternoon wanes, the half-lit first quarter moon starts to brighten quite high in the eastern sky. The full moon is exactly a week away, when the large sphere will rise at sunset. It’s a dreamy afternoon, and I think of the song verse, “There’s a new moon on the fourteenth, first quarter twenty-first, and a full moon in the last week brings a fullness to the earth.”

I feel the fullness. It’s getting dark as I haul my firewood to the truck. I pick up the pace and start sweating despite the chill that rides in on the sunset. I drive away, content that nature here is well, making all the adjustments for another winter.

Note: Want to read more nature essays such as this? Thr0ugh the holiday season, “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special price of $17. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is also available at regular prices through online book sellers, and at Wisconsin bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.

Walking the land

Introduction: During this season of giving thanks and giving gifts, I am sharing several excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” which was released last Christmas. For the holiday season, the book is available through me at a special price. See information at the end of this post. The following chapter, “Walking the Land,” is from the November-December segment of the book. Enjoy.

I’d like to think the land remembers my face, my gait, and that I was a friend. Still am. Why else would I keep returning to these woods, pastures, fields, and old farmsteads?

I come here now because I was here as a youth. Growing up here, the land etched in me the tranquility of tall pine trees, amber sunsets beyond fields of green corn, flaming maples, and fox tracks crossing fields of snow.

I nurtured a love for the land and for walking the land. There remains within me a desire to walk out the back door, through the barnyard to the pasture, up the hill and through the woods, across the town road and through the neighbors’ fields, pastures and woods, as I once did.

Though properties were defined by fences and roads, they remained joined by the land’s flow of hills and valleys and tree lines. And the sweat of settlers.

The land I walked for miles in all directions had different owners, but owners who were not much different from each other. They were farmers bonded to their neighbors by the need for green pastures, healthy crops and livestock, and firewood. Come hunting time there was a sharing of the land to an extent I’ll never see again.

These descendants of immigrant settlers from only a generation or two ago were willing to share. They lived the saying of Native Americans, “Who are we without the corn, the rabbit, the sun, the rain and the deer? Know this, my people, the all does not belong to us. We belong to the all.”

When I visited this land on a mild, sunny afternoon in early November, I knew I could cross the property of at least one family, for they are the children and grandchildren of my parents’ neighbors a generation ago. From our woodlot, I headed for the huge rock on the adjoining farm we once owned. The rock is in a valley of the pasture, near a small creek at the foot of tall pines. The rock is larger than a chest freezer. It begs one to pause.

I sat on the rock as a kid while exploring, and later as a young man while hunting. In his journal, “In Context,” Native American Kenneth Cooper (Cha-das-ska-dum) wrote that the Lummi tribal members in Washington tell their children, “You sit on this rock, and I’ll come back in a couple of hours, and you tell me what you learned.”

Patience is what children will learn on the rock, and what we all should learn if we take the time to sit under a canopy of tranquility. I sat on the rock for a time and then pushed on to the first deer stand my dad built. The boards are rotting and crumbling. I think I should rip the deer stand down someday. I think I don’t want to.

On this mild afternoon I nestled my back against the trunk of a large maple tree and slid to the ground, letting the sun find my face. I listened to a dog barking in the distance. It could have been my dog decades ago, barking at a treed squirrel from the base of this very tree.

I got up and begin pushing over a series of hardwood hills, crossing the tracks of deer and wild turkeys. I stood in a clearing between woodlots, where as a young photographer I was consumed with the golden leaves of birches against a blue autumnal sky. The birches are still there. And today, so am I.