Quiet is good, I tell myself, hoping to believe it sooner or later. The wind has died down, which is a good thing. I was tired of finding limbs in the driveway that were too large to drive over. More than a few of them seriously tempted me. I sort of wanted to see what would happen if I did drive over them or at least tried to. But then I grew rational again, thought of the possible car repair costs and did the smart thing by exiting the car and dragging the limb or branch or half a tree out of the way.
Quiet is a good thing because it means the raccoons haven’t dragged the bird feeders deep into the woods for several days. One feeder I never have found. Another was tossed or dragged off the back deck. The glass is still missing out of the squirrel-proof feeder. It did keep squirrels out. I’ve never seen a raccoon-proof feeder for sale. I think people know better than to advertize a feeder that way, because there would be no possibility of truth in such a statement.
The nights are quieter than I have been used to for a while. My windows are closed now. I had gotten used to the gentle sounds of the forest as my ever-present background music. But now those sounds are gone until the weather warms in the spring again.
For the moment, not much is going on around my cabin. Migration is quickly winding down and that means the birds that I see outside my door today are pretty much the only ones I will see until roughly the middle of March. Oh, I will likely find a few waterfowl, perhaps the odd wintering-over raptor, but I will have to travel to see them and there won’t be many.
Winter is a time of quiet, and the quiet is again settling over Roundtop Mountain. I enjoy the silence, though sometimes I also think I understand the urge towards hibernation. After the busyness of the fall season, the quiet and the silence of near-winter is making me feel a bit restless. Perhaps I should just hibernate through the quiet and awaken to spring’s bustle. Perhaps I’ll get over my restlessness and settle in to the quiet. Maybe that will be tomorrow. Or the next day.
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4 comments:
Carolyn: In "Annie Hall," Woody Allen's character informed Annie that he didn't like to go to visit her parents (who lived in the country) because the quiet kept him up all night. Alternately, my mother-in-law (who lives in a sterile, inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio) told me that she couldn't sleep at our place because the bullfrogs in the pond below the house kept her up all night. I guess it all depends on your perspective, huh?
We have a blanket of snow and that seems to only add to the quiet. In a cold snap at the moment.
We have no raccoons or skunks in our immediate area ... at least I have never seen any evidence of any ... amazingly enough. I'm sure we have owls but I have neither heard or seen them nor seen any cough up balls either.
Quiet up here too. Could use a dusting snow but none in the forecast.
great blog. looks like you're surrounded by some nice solitude, jealous! That trail looks inviting, for sure. I'm ready for spring migration already... :)
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