Walking on Water

One of the great joys of living in New England in winter is the freedom to walk on water courtesy of the ice. With thick ice, the ponds and lakes might as well be land and suddenly you can venture to places that are only accessible by boat the rest of the year.

In the case of Duck Pond, getting to the island probably wouldn't be terribly worthwhile in summer as the pond isn't all that large and would require hauling your boat almost as far on land as the paddle is to the island.

But with a solid layer of ice, Beyla and I set off across the water to visit new places. She wasn't keen on the idea at first, as she has some issues with smooth surfaces, but with a bit of encouragement she joined me. Once she got on the snow covered ice she was happily trotting along checking out this new place. Off we went along the west shore to the far end of the pond. Apart from a few paw prints near our starting point, and the tracks of an intrepid cross-country skier, we appeared to be the only ones who have braved the crossing since the last snowfall.

Our journey took us to a cove near the far end and past a dog who was quite interested in our arrival. No doubt the change of scene and the new visitors it brings must be very exciting. From there it was on to the island in the middle. After much sniffing around and some pawing at the snow (somebody else had come from across the cove with their dog at some point. we then continued to the end of the pond, which proved to actually be longer than originally thought. It seems beyond what I thought was the end, there was actually more pond! :) After rounding the peninsula that we though was the end previously, we crossed back over to land and followed the more traditional trail a bit before coming back to the ice on the east side of the pond.

It's a great thing to be able to travel in such a way. It almost feels as if you're getting away with something you're not supposed to be doing. Like you know you shouldn't be there, yet there you are and there's nobody stopping you. Now I want to head up to Maine and explore Indian Lake thusly. Here's hoping the new roof is on soon. :)

Pushing Back the Dark

As time makes its inevitable march forward, the winter solstice falls further behind us. With each passing day we gain another minute or 2 of daylight at each end of the day. It's nice to go out in the morning and not have to either bring a flashlight or leave a bit later so we can be seen in the off chance a car happens to be coming down our street, which doesn't happen very often on our little loop off the "main" road.

Unfortunately the forest is still blocked by a wall of hard, frozen snow so our walks have been confined to our road instead. Though Beyla still enjoys scaling the snowbank to check things out. Must be nice having full-time four wheel drive. :)

This IS January, right?

Fifty degrees at 7:00am on January 9th?! Thos ewho know me know that this is means no jacket for me! :D

And so off we go, Beyla in her usual OEM garb, me wearing only regular clothes and no jacket. It was a marvelous morning for a stroll. Even the birds were happy about it. I picked up a last four different calls, most in pairs in the woods around us. A nice change of pace from the usual near-silence of the morning woods. I had to keep the walk short since my boss was giving me a ride to work and I wasn't sure when she was coming. Even so, we got in a good 20 minutes along the road.

And to think not two weeks ago we had two feet of snow on the ground. Now it's going to be pushing sixty degrees and the snow is retreating rapidly.

The Winter Wonderland Continues

The trees are still covered in their veil of white this morning, which made for a nice scenic morning stroll. On the down side, the town came through and widened our road again. Their efforts left a decent wall of snow across the forest entrance so we stuck to the road today.

As far as I can tell the pushing back of the snowbanks uncovered a whole new set of smells because Beyla spent a large portion of her time this morning shoving her nose into every holes in the snow she could find. She even dug out a few spots to get to something interesting, though my feeble human senses couldn't tell me what beyond the fact that she smells something interesting enough to warrant excavation. But she seems to enjoy the effort so I let her continue unhindered while I sip my coffee and look around listening to the world around us as always.

Our only company this morning was one neighbor out shovelling out his new snowbank at the end of his driveway, and a solitary bird. I'm not sure who it was calling out to, but I heard no reply. But that doesn't mean he wasn't comminucating with a fellow bird a similar distance in the other direction beyond my ears. Or maybe he just likes the way his own voice sounds echoing through the empty woods. If I was a bird, I might do the same. :)

Back Into the Woods

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2008!

The old layers of snow have finally refrozen enough that we could walk in the woods again. Today we made our way down to the pond in the rut made by previous walkers, though Beyla was all too happy to walk on top of the snow now that she can. The wet snow last night stuck to the trees and left them all covered in white. It's a beatuful sight and one we've been treated to a few times already this year. I'm so glad winter has finally decided to put in a solid effort this year. This is part of what living in New England is all about.

With the changing winter, so changes the traffic in our woods. With some decent snow cover and frozen water out have come the snowmobiles. There were plenty of fresh tracks running across Duck Pond, with a couple of turnarounds on the shore. Of course, being conservation land, they're not really supposed to be turning there, but there's so much snow down now that they'll never leave a trace come spring so I personally don't mind all that much, so long as they don't come bombing down the trail recklessly.

And so, once again, Beyla and I patrol our woodland sanctuary walking amongst a beautiful covering of snow.