Tag Archives: narratives

What a Day!..and the Irony of it All

Last Saturday was the first substantial snowfall that we’ve had all season.  To herald the occasion, I was out of bed by 5AM, shoveling the sidewalk by 5:20 or so, and on the road by 6:30.  I would have left much earlier, but you can’t get into the preserves earlier than dawn, and the sun wasn’t due until 7:03, so I took my time.

snowy fungus

snowy fungus

As things worked out, I should have dawdled a great deal longer.

As an aside, let me say that I can’t help but feel that so much of our lives these days are colored by these various shades of irony, though without the comedic relief.  I’m sure I’m not the only one.  For example, I write a blog about experiences in nature, deep thoughts while sitting around and all that good stuff…yet I have to drive 8 to 10 miles to actually get out to these woods.  I sit in my car so I can go sit in the woods.  swell.  And then there’s the fact that the forest preserve “closes” at dusk, and “opens” at dawn?  I understand the reasoning behind this, and it makes sense; but is there not an irony in the fact that I have to observe visiting hours in order to spend time in the natural spaces that I seek?

Prairie Snowball

Prairie Snowball

Anyways, I hurried out the door and was on the road, unplowed, which felt all adventurous, and I was dead set on being the first one out at Bemis Woods.  You know, to beat out the throngs of naturegoers lining up to go wander around at 7AM on a Saturday morning.  Well, I get to the place, and right as I’m pulling up I see the snowplow man closing the ‘closed’ chain behind him and heading up the way.  I was a little early, so I felt okay about things at this point and figured I’d just drive around for a bit until he got things tidied up.

An hour later, after driving up and down through dark and slowly waking neighborhoods, peering in the windows of unwary Americans – the man sitting alone at his dining room table, the woman at her desk in an office with floor to ceiling bookshelves that I now covet, a couple people here and there shoveling the walk – the snowplow dude is STILL not finished.  Another irony, I guess – to get up early in the morning so as to enjoy the sun slowly filling the spaces and lines of a snowy woods, only to spend my morning driving around looking in people’s windows.

Bemis First Snow-13

Icicles in Salt Creek

And to top it all off, I had to stop and get gas.

Around 8:00 o’clock I phoned home and the family was roused and willing to come out with me.  So, I returned from whence I came, was nearly killed by another snowplow that threw a blinding sheet of slush and salt onto my windshield as I was passing, had an Eggo, a cup of coffee, and piled everyone in the car to go back and check out the scenery.

Snowplow dude was just leaving when we arrived.

All in all, when it was all said and done, it was a good time and time well spent.  I got some pretty good pictures, and the kids had a lot of fun before their toes started to freeze.  I also had the chance to see where a vole or some other rodent had been tunneling under the snow, which was pretty cool being that I’ve been reading up and getting all lerned on winter ecology this past season.

So there you go.

on dragonflies, a carcass, and beavers

There be beavers in Salt Creek.  He found evidence as he was ambling along this past Saturday.  Downed trees and stumps chewed to a fine and tapered point.  Another tree, still standing, which was a work in progress.  Where they make their home is anybody’s guess.  He didn’t see a lodge, but he didn’t spend a lot of time looking.  He was in a hurry to check up on the carcass of a deer he’d found lying by the edge of a small, green pond a couple weeks back.  When he’d first seen the animal it was still barely alive, though obviously down and not getting back up.  He had returned the next day to see if there were any buzzards, which there were not.

Returning after two weeks, he could smell the subtle undertones of rot as he neared.  Not too strong, and maybe even imperceptible if he hadn’t already known what was there.  There was a small trail that broke between the thick shrubs and brambles that surrounded the water hole, and the smell was there too, stronger, but not overwhelming.  He stood on the muddy bank where the receding water revealed the prints of the other deer and wildlife that drank there.  He stood, looked across, maybe 8 to 10 yards, and could see what was left.  not much.  The bones had been picked clean.  Funny, he thought, how bones don’t look like bones.  They were a reddish brown color, largely indistinguishable from the ground where they lay, scattered.  Again, if he hadn’t known they were there, he likely wouldn’t have seen them at all.

As he walked out of the woods, the sun was soon to set over the field, sinking behind the trees.  The field was filled with blooming yellow sunflowers and the sun shining through their petals.  Small insects and dragonflies were ascending, silhouettes and specks of light both cascading upwards to loop and hover, sway up and downwards again.  The dragonflies were feasting on the smaller, slower insects, dipping in rapid fire arcs, rising again to meet one another in midair for the briefest moment before resuming their flight.

The smaller insects’ wings were illuminated by the sun so that they appeared almost as glowing specks of dust, or fluff.  One rose up before him just as the dragonfly swooped in from somewhere off to the side, paused, with its back to the sun, four wings and segmented body framed and held static in the light, before continuing on, leaving only emptiness.