Spring In Winter

Hasn’t been much of winter yet. Except for a few days of below 10 nightly lows to start the New Year, it’s been unseasonably warm since fall. I guess its a continuance of the cyclicly higher temps which made last summer such a scorcher. But it seems, at least for now, the drought is behind us. Rain has been falling with some regularity since fall, the earth is damp. Grasses are starting to assume more green, and there’s green showing even in the woods. Out front of my office the daffodils—others call them jonquils or buttercups— have pierced the ground with the tips of their spears. That might be a month early, give or take a week.

I wouldn’t count winter out, yet. Two months more could bring us snows; the worst snowstorm we ever saw fell almost mid-March, gone n days. But Winter warmth like this carried tow dangers: when the weather changes, and it inevitably will, the transition is usually ushered in with violent thunderstorms, even tornadoes. And if the warmth continues too long, or isn’t broken up with prolong spells of serious cold, we end up with an early spring and the prospects of a killing frost like we had last Easter. It was a hard freeze, really, that robbed the warming season of all its glory.

So while I greet the green as sure sign spring’s to come, I hope it doesn’t arrive too soon.

Polly's Branch

For a year-end hike five of us headed over to the Bridgestone Firestone Centennial Wilderness(http://www.sparta-chamber.net/attractions_search_details.asp?AttractID=6) area in White County area yesterday. The corporation donated 10,000 acres of Scott’s Gulf to the state a few years ago. What a gift to all! Plenty of trails and much to see if your idea of a great time is the great outdoors

Took the Polly’s Branch trail down to the falls and river. Highly recommended; it was beautiful in winter and can only imagine what it’s like in spring when the stands of rhododendron are in all their glory. Nearby is the Virgin Falls pocket wilderness area and trail, another gem.

You can follow the trail straight in and back or, like we did, as a loop of about seven miles or so. First part of Polly’s Branch trail an easy stroll through the woods of little more than a mile to the first of several falls. From there the trail descends at a gradual climb, past other falls, down to the river, then along it for a good ways. Much to explore.

Of course whenever you hike to see falls, the hike out involves a climb. This was pretty gradual from the river, and we took the Chestnut Mountain Trail back, for the loop. Once you climb out of the bottom it’s pretty easy but not as well marked or worn as the trail in. We wandered off trail at one point but quickly found out way back.

Only passed one set of campers the whole five hours there so had the entire area to ourselves. All this pristine wonderland there waiting, whenever you take the notion to get out and experience this great state, Tennessee.

Seven plus miles of hiking, fantastic scenery in unspoiled wilds. Great camping sites and plenty of photo ops. A great way to wind down the old year!!!





A return visit is now a New Year’s resolution.

Winter

Six weeks of not much to say. First day of winter last week but already the dusk lingers longer into the short afternoon, sun already embarking out of South for North on the long journey which will carry it all the way through June.

Much needed rain, daffodils showing green through the too-warm earth, but the season hasn’t arrived yet. There’s a cold bite coming. It never misses, if it only reigns for a day.

Another Christmas passed. Stockings hung again from the old mantle riddled with traces of tacks, nails and staples which suspended the dreams of generations of children grown old, grey forgotten. In places the mantle is now a narrow long slit, so many Christmas stockings over the years.

The day is always special, a measure of another year, a hallmark for the next. The older I get the less there is about Christmas that matters than the sounds and laughter of family and friends. If there were no such holiday we’d surely invent it, an excuse to infuse light and warmth into gray days , cool nights

There comes a time each winter when the winds howl out of the north, across the ridges and up the hollers herald the cold. We haven’t seen it yet, but it’s coming, sure as the spring to follow.

Homesteads

A friend and I spent yesterday wandering the shore and woods surrounding Center Hill Lake. We’d come across an old map of the area and wanted to see if we could find a couple of landmarks. A good excuse as any for getting out and about in the brisk November weather.

The lake was created by the Army Corp. of Engineers back in the late 1940s/early 50s’s with the construction of Center Hill Dam across the Caney Fork River. The dam stopped the water of the river and its tributaries— forcing all who had lived along their banks to relocate to higher ground.

We never made it to our destination; even the best map is a poor indication of the rigors of the hike, through gulleys and brambles, up bluffs and around mud.

In the course of our ramblings, though, we came across the tell tale signs of a few abandoned homesteads. Up one branch, the water level had retreated to winter lows, revealing the fallen chimney and rock foundations of someone’s dreams. In the thicket woods we traced an old wagon road to remnants of another chimney, a mountain spring beneath a moss carpet nearby. Further on, down another hill, a rectangular limestone wall encircling a rich patch of bottom was all that suggested here was home, long ago.

In passing, we briefly wondered what life must have been like there, way back when, and moved on.

I always think about places like these after the hike, and wished I’d spent just a little more time there. For I may never pass that way again, and there’s something I might have missed.

Colors

As the days grow shorter we start looking forward to the fall colors. They’re never the same, and they never disappoint. Because of this year’s drought some were predicting this wouldn’t be a good season. Hah! though there were a lot of early yellows, the colors have come out now. And with last night’s frost, first of the season at the top of the ridge, the next few days should see a dramatic transition as the forest gives up its cloak and readies for the long rest.

Lot of deer, but not many hunters, at least in the early season. I don’t hunt but if I did I could get a deer on every venture into the woods. They’re that thick now. And with a poor crop of acorns, walnuts and hickory nuts due to our Easter freeze, they could face a tough winter. But there’s also been some sort of disease thinning the herd; hear frequent stories of people finding fallen dear near the creeks, or of staggering to water and then expiring without taking a drink. nature takes care of everything.

A new comet in the night sky, visible to the naked eye. Below Cassiopeia, near Perseus. Can’t miss it here in the country. Looks like a fuzzy star, and will be a nightly visitor from fall into winter.

Worth a look. as are the colors defining our landscape, in every season.

Critters

The man who grew up in our house told me he saw one deer his entire childhood, jumping across a fence, and he thought it was one of Santa’s reindeers ”what had lost its way.” Deer were pretty sparse the entire period these hills were farmed. Now, like everywhere else, they’re nearly thick as leaves. There’s not a day or hour I venture into the woods when I don’t see or hear signs of them. Most times, if I were a hunting man and it were hunting season, I can get near enough to put one well within range. Keep meaning to bring my camera.

Turkeys, which none of the oldtimers remember, are just as abundant. But they are much harder to see. Those birds are pretty sly, hear you coming from a long way off. The only hint they’re there can be a scurrying sound moving away from the direction you’re heading, far off and deeper into the woods. Sometimes you’ll be in the right place when one glides across your path, but that’s rare. Mostly, you’ll come across some ground they’ve scratched up, or hear the gobble deep in the holler.

Twenty years ago no one would have predicted the coyotes, but they’ve become a real nuisance. Best evidence they’re there is their startling sudden calls at night, or finding the remains of a deer or farm animal which fell victim to the pack. My son’s dog and her litter of pups disappeared for about a week, The other day she dragged herself home alone, her festering gut ripped open, flesh torn from the bone on one of her back legs, He doesn’t know if he can save her.

I read the first settlers who moved out of town for a cabin on the creek left after one night because of the wolves howling and scraping at their door.

The forest has reclaimed the abandoned farms. There’s more homes than ever, in clusters and pockets, but there’s a return to the wild past the edge of the yard.

Turning...

Suddenly, it starts to feel like fall.

After summer’s relentless heat and lack of rain, the weather turned cooler with a front which moved through last week.

There’s a hint of yellow in many of the trees, and now and then in the woods there’s a spot of color where one branch or one tree has assumed its fall colors prematurely. And when there’s a breeze, a few leaves ride it down without hurry to rest along the trail or the surface of the pond or branch.

The season is changing slowly, the fields are thinner, the air tastes of pollen, the crickets chirp into the day.