Surprises

Jack-in-the-pulpit

The view of the mountains to the west of my cabin is already obscured by spring’s new foliage. It will be November, a full six months from now, before I am able to see those hills again. The leaves first began to appear slowly, but once they started to bud the change to leaves was rapid. Even so, the canopy isn’t nearly as dense as it will be in another month. To the north, I can still see through the forest, a bit, to the sky. By summer’s solstice that will disappear, too. For now, I am enjoying what view of the sky I have left.


A couple of things about spring have surprised me this year, though after all the years I’ve been on the planet, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d forget something so obvious so easily. The first is the sound of the breeze through the leaves. The sound is entirely different than the sound of winter’s wind through the trees. My first thought when I heard the breeze was that the wind must be a lot stronger than it looked, to make so much noise. Then I realized that I hadn’t heard that sound for roughly 180 days, so it seemed new to me again. It doesn’t take much wind to make a summer breeze sound noisy compared to winter. All those thousands or millions of leaves rustle loudly on even the lightest breeze.

The second thing isn’t quite so much of a surprise, but a pleasant remembering. It’s nice to get up in the morning and have it not be dead dark outside. Even at 5:30 a.m., when I get up, daylight is now apparent. It’s not sunshine and it’s not yet very bright, but it’s light enough to do without the headlamp and that’s a nice thing. It seems so much more civilized to get up when the day is already producing some light. In midwinter, that 5:30 a.m. alarm seems as though it’s going off in the middle of the night.

My photo today is the first jack-in-the-pulpit that I’ve found so far. They are a pretty little plant but seem to want to grow around poison ivy, so getting a photo of one without having to tiptoe around poison requires careful reconnaissance before attempting a photo.