December 2025 – Dave Greschner Outdoor Journal

Soft and peaceful the night

Introduction: During this season of glitter and gifts, family and friends, and reflections and resolutions, I’m sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors.” For the book reader/nature lover on your gift list, signed books are available through me (see price and contact information below). The book is also available at local bookstores and online. Here‘s the third and final excerpt, a February journal under a winter’s full moon.

Winter affords one, maybe two, opportunities to snowshoe or ski comfortably by the light of a full moon. The necessary trifecta is mild temperature, a mostly clear sky and, that big sphere, full or nearly so. In the last week of February it all came together under the Full Snow Moon.

So off I went, a couple of hours after sunset, the moon three hours into its night ride and already halfway up the eastern sky. The temperature had dipped below the freezing mark when I strapped on snowshoes and slapped them to the trail. I hoped to see animals moving in the moonlit meadow or the large field as I shuffled toward the narrow path in the forest. But the melting and freezing of previous days left a crust. Crunch, crunch, crunch spoke my snowshoes. I would not be sneaking up on anything.

The full moon was behind me, my shadow waltzed in front of me. I crossed the field, the wide expanse allowing me to study the sky—Orion the Hunter and Sirius the Dog Star high in the south, the Big Dipper balancing on its handle in the northeast, and that big orb Full Snow, 225,000 miles away but seemingly riding on my shoulders.

The dark, jagged form of the hilly forest was a half-mile away. It wasn’t that dark when I got there. My path was easily visible, a white ribbon tinged in blue, though always trailing into a dark curve. I’d reach the bend and see the next stretch of ribbon. I paused to listen for an owl, perhaps a coyote, but heard only the sifting of moonlight through the bare branches and pine boughs.

I headed for home, my shadow tagging behind to the jogging rhythm of my snowshoes. For a moment, it was nature’s night song, on the wings of a Canada goose, in the gurgle of a creek, on the cadence of an owl’s call. Sirius was my guide, high and straight ahead, with the moon towering to my left. Soft and peaceful was the night.

Note: “Soul of the Outdoors” is available through me at the special holiday 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, and 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.

Solstice, and serenity, of winter

Introduction: During this season of glitter and gifts, family and friends, and reflections and resolutions, I’m sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors.” For the book reader/nature lover on your gift list, signed books are available through me (see price and contact information below). The book is also available online and at local bookstores. Here‘s a short journal from the book’s December section.

Winter arrives on the calendar this week. So what should I expect from winter? The worst, I suppose, if I so choose to look at it that way.

But what if I expect the best of winter, of the gems to come, found in the serenity of snow and cold? These gems will surely turn my head even as I turn my collar to the wind.

It’s already happening. I see the wide flowerheads of faded, bronzed sedum dressed up in white hats. Chimney smoke curls into the frigid night air, softly illuminated by holiday lights as the wisps tease the crescent moon.

There’s more to come. I’ll see swirls and whirls of frost on the window panes of an old shed. An icicle will hang in the bushes, changing colors as it catches sunset’s golden rays. The same rays will find their way through a south window, warming a nook for reading a book.

I’ll study tracks in the snow, discovering a rabbit’s night moves to and from the seeds below the bird feeder. I’ll see deer tracks sharing my snowshoe path. A cardinal will appear among the first fat snowflakes of an approaching storm, flashing its red feathers as a warning to all birds to feed and take shelter.

Winter is bright red high-bush cranberries against a backdrop of pine boughs laden with snowy fingers, dogs bouncing in the fluffy whiteness with hints of fun on their noses, lake ice booming in the darkness, the lonesome hoots of an owl at midnight, and geese shrouded in the rising steam as river water meets a morning of zero degrees.

Perhaps I’ll approach a feeding chickadee, so close I can feel the energy of its dime-weight body vibrating for warmth. Yes, warmth, what we all seek now. I’ll carry an armful of warmth from the wood pile for the late afternoon’s repose, the serenity slipping into a cozy evening. Then, a quiet morning indoors, warmed by the wood heat and hot coffee.

It’s winter. Sometimes the best of times.

Ghosts of the Woodlot

Introduction: During this season of glitter and gifts, family and friends, and reflections and resolutions, I’m sharing excerpts from my book, “Soul of the Outdoors.” For the book reader/nature lover on your gift list, signed books are available through me at a special price of $17 this holiday season (see contact information below). The book is also available online and at local bookstores, including The Old Bookshop in Rice Lake at its new location at 318 S. Main St. Here‘s a short journal from the book’s November-December section.

There were white ghosts and black ghosts, dancing away in the fading glow of the full moon an hour before sunrise. The ghosts were racing for cover before the light of dawn.

Was it their past the ghosts sought after they took a harrowing heated escape up the chimney on this bone-chilling morning? It was obvious, however, that the ghosts had no bones. They leaped from the chimney with dizzying fluidity, whirling and swirling, rising and falling and rising again as if eluding invisible obstacles.

They were wood stove ghosts. I wondered if their release from the hot coals sent them looking for the forest where they once lived in maple, oak and ash trees. Would they spend the rest of their days hidden high in the branches, wisps of the past witnessing secrets of the present?

I stared at a snow-covered backyard lit dimly by the Full Cold Moon, now high in the west behind me and casting shadows from all the familiar characters—the birdhouse, the trellis, the deck posts. The smoke ghosts were not as serene and steady. They were white against the cold predawn sky as they escaped in waves from the chimney. But their flickering shadows were dark on the snow below, their forms changing with the whims of any slight breeze.

The ghosts were hard to follow. I watched some race through the herb garden, bounce off the yard shed, climb the shed’s roof and disappear in the branches beyond. They were free, no longer standing in the forest, stacked in a pile or trapped in a stove. Now the ghosts danced in the branches. A cold winter dance.

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, and 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.