One step

The yo-yo season of warm and cool temperatures is underway at Roundtop. A day of warm weather is followed by one or two of chilly temperatures. The warm and cool cycle can all occur on the same day, too, which makes figuring out what to wear even more difficult than usual. And I’m not just talking about first thing in the morning, either.

It can be comfortable in the morning and jacket-needing in the afternoon. It can be cool in the afternoon and warm and moist in the evening. If I’ve been inside for a few hours, I have to step outside to check the feel of the day to know if I’ll need a jacket or not. Looking outside or even looking at the thermometer doesn’t tell the whole story.

This time of year the only way to know is to experience the day and its vagaries of weather. In fact, much of living in the woods is like that. I lament the day when I have to close the windows until the spring, because it means I won’t be able to hear what’s going on outside anymore. Even now, when my windows are barely cracked, the sounds I can hear are much diminished. Often, it’s only when I do step outside that I can hear the geese fussing over on the big pond or the sound of someone’s tires on the dirt road at the bottom of my lane. When my windows are fully open I can feel I am in the forest when I am inside the cabin.

The rest of the year I’m only a step away from the forest, but the cabin is still a cabin and not part of the forest. Being inside the cabin feels different than being outside. Temperature, humidity, sound and smells are all different. One step, to the inside or the outside, makes a huge difference. In other words, even though I live in the forest, I need to get out into it to experience it. It’s just easier for me to do that than for most people. For me, the forest is only one step away.