My walk in the woods

Finally, the rain and gray skies have cleared here on Roundtop. After giving the woods a day for the rain and mud to settle, on Sunday I headed down to the bottom of the mountain for a walk along the normally quiet Beaver Creek.

I was lucky. The valley tends towards wetness even when a season is dry, and I was worried my walk would be stopped by yards of mud. I did find wet spots, of course, but not so much so that I needed waders. And the normally sleepy and nearly still Beaver Creek was, for once, a loud and very pretty little stream.

Baby Dog accompanied me on this foray, to her delight and my relief that the mud and water didn’t cause her to brace like a balky horse refusing a fence. Baby Dog hates to get wet. She wouldn’t even take a drink from the creek because it would mean getting her toes wet.

We headed down the mountain along an old woods road, which takes us to the bottom of the mountain, where we followed another woods road along the valley and along the creek. We saw no one and none of the large forest residents either. Bird song surrounded us—orioles, tanagers, the pewees, wood thrush and ovenbirds. The forest is thick enough already that spying the singers was almost impossible, even when the sound came from a tree nearby.

As you can see from the photo, the creek is running full, and the valley is bright with spring greens. I came across three species of ferns within 5 feet of each other—sensitive, Christmas and Lady. The three species abound this year.

The sun was finally out, dappling everything in green-tinged sunshine. The loudest sound was the creek, which carried everywhere, sometimes blocking out the sound of the singing birds. Even as we climbed up the mountain again, the sound lingered and followed us all the way back to the cabin.