Smoke & Peepers

Date: 24 February 2017

Time: 9:00pm

Temperature: 66°F

I firmly believe that there is almost nothing better than flying down highway with the windows rolled down and country music blasting through the speakers. Wind flies through the car like a cyclone, making your hair dance in your face. Sunshine is warm on your skin. Base thumps through the speakers.

Then again, I said almost nothing better.

One of the only things truly better than that are summer bon fires. You don’t necessarily need mountain pies or s’mores to make a perfect bon fire. No, you need a stack or two of dry wood, a handful of friends, and some warm weather. Today, this evening, had all of those things.

Because it is late February—not even spring—our bon fire lacked a lot. As I lied on the ground beside my tree, looking up at the star speckled sky, I thought about summer, about when my favorite aspects of the summer night will appear, about how the first signs of it will arrive sooner rather than later.

March

The spring-peepers made their first appearance last spring almost a year ago next week. There’s a pond behind my house in the woods where they live and breed each year. During much of the summer, the pond is more of a large mud puddle. But wildlife thrives here. Geese visit frequently throughout the year. Many different kinds of green plants grow thick. Deer—as well as other natural creatures of our neighborhood—come here for water.

But the spring-peepers are my favorite. Spring-peepers are a kind of chorus frog. Like any frog, they start off as tadpoles. When I was younger, I wanted to collect a few of these babies in a mason jar and take them home; my dad wouldn’t let me. These creatures, about an inch long each, chirp and cheep, creating a beautiful music that acts as a back-beep for the spring and summer seasons. The internet claims they sound like sleigh bells. To me, there’s nothing like their peeping; they are completely unique. Look up their music on YouTube.

It won’t be several more months until true aspects of summer get here. Yes, coyotes, raccoons, deer, and other animals have been here off and on all year long. Fireflies, blackberries, blueberries, and other beautiful pieces of me won’t show themselves until June or July. Until then, as the bon fire cracks and flaws, I’ll take what I can get.

Six More Weeks

Date: 12 February 2017

Time: 5:00pm

Temperature: 44°F (feels like 37°F)

It’s windy today, but this wind is different than typical February wind. The storm looming in the sky is different than the storm we got last week.

Last week, I disappeared into my room for a few hours, sealed off from the rest of the world, hiding from civilization, from responsibilities, from the promised six more weeks of winter. A few short hours later, I appeared out of my hole and, much like Phil, saw my shadow, the full moon’s light reflexing off the sudden one to two inches of fresh snow on the ground.

The snow appeared like a mirage. It came so quickly that I knew winter had finally reared its ugly head, that it had finally settled into something of a routine. I can finally accept that winter is here, that my boots will no longer gather dust, that we’ll be shoveling on a daily basis and throwing salt like rice at a wedding.

Now, sitting on the garden box surrounding my tree, I see that winter has once again disappeared: mud has caked my Converse, puddles have settled on our driveway. Some of the trees around our yard, around our town have started to grow buds, and I fear, like many winters, that they will not made it until mid-May when the fear of frost is almost nonexistent.

There is a small scent of it in the air, in the wind that loosens pieces of hair from my bun. Instead of the sky being white and blindingly blue, it is gray, coal-colored clouds spotting the horizon. It’s supposed to rain tonight. My dog is probably hiding in the basement from the hollowing wind. The groundhogs that live under our shed—no matter how often and fanatically we try to rid ourselves of them. If I didn’t grow up resenting them, I might find them cute, with their round ears, upturned nose, button eyes, short and chubby frame, and buckteeth.

Maybe Phil is getting older, developing Groundhog-Alzheimer’s. Maybe he is tired of Pennsylvania weather and its unpredictability. Maybe he is frustrated with how we treat him, giving him all too much attention for only one day a year and then hating him for unfailingly seeing his shadow (which would be hard not to with all of those flashing cameras flood lights on).

Whether or not Phil sees his shadow, we still get six more weeks of “winter”, whether it be a blizzard similar to that of 1993, of Snowmageddon or whether it be a day filled with memories yearning of springtime. But we do need to take notice how drastically these seasons have changed since we were children, since our parents were children. This, we cannot deny much longer, is clear evidence of, weather we want to see it or not, global climate change.

Middle of Nowhere

Date: 29 January 2017

Time: 5:00pm

Temperature: 29°F (feels like 24°F)

We live in the middle of nowhere, at least that’s what I was always told. But as I grow older, I see that this might not be as true as I thought when I was younger. There always seems to be more and more cars, more and more people in our small town and along the nearby (seven-plus miles) highway. Traffic on our road has increased exponentially since I was a kid. The night sky seems not as dark as it used to be. More litter scatters the sides of the main road not far from our house.

Fortunately, some things have changed—and for the better. The trees in our backyard and in our neighbor’s property have grown taller. The weeds along the edge of the woods have grown thicker, hiding the many entrances I knew by heart as a kid but have forgotten all about now. The blackberry bushes have multiplied. The number of deer and turkey that visit our yard have grown.

But there are clues about our nowhere-ness still peak out from behind the brickwork. In the winter, we heat our house with a wood-burner. We collect wood throughout the warm months, split it, stack it, and bring it inside. It’s a long process that takes weeks, months even, to prepare but simple enough to do every single day, year after year without fail. Without this “old-school” technique, we would have to spend double, if not triple, on our electricity bill each month.

Growing up, we had a cistern. A cistern is a large container of sorts that stores water. Ours is underground behind our house, like a well. Unlike a well, we had to fill out cistern if we wanted water. Each month, the fire department would come and fill it with water for us to use. We had an electric pump that would pull the water from the cistern and bring it into the house for the shower, toilet, dishwasher, etc. We did not get city-water until mid-2006. City-water is still a privilege for us that we’re not quite use to.

From my tree, I remember this, the small little histories of our neighborhood. I can barely see the house on the hill behind our home that belongs to the gentleman (and his wife) whose father built and founded this road. The original house is still back there, granted it’s in a crumbled pile, but it’s there. My sister and I used to visit them almost one a month. We brought them Girl Scout cookies and played with their dog. The entire town knows them—and yet, somehow, no one knows where our street is.

Looking around, I can see white snow and white sky. Animal tracks litter our backyard and our neighbor’s back yard. The birds that had visited our feeders not a week ago have gone into hiding again, waiting for the cold to break. The deer and the turkeys too have gone into hibernation, coming out only to eat when completely necessary.
The air is no longer filled with the laughter and shouts of my cousins, my best friends, and me, but by the new youngsters of the neighborhood. Hopefully they have as many picnics and expeditions into the wilderness as we did. Hopefully, they establish a clubhouse somewhere far away from the prying eyes of adults, with secret codes and plans to spend the night under the stars. Hopefully, they grow to appreciate and cherish the very ground they were raised on, the very nature that made them, the very wildness that grows bees and wildflowers and far too many scars to count.

“Get Back On The Horse”

Date: 15 January 2016

Time: 4:30pm

Temperature: 36°F

People often use the phrase "get back on the horse." This phrase means that you should do something to challenge yourself after some sort of failure. For example, when you are first learning to ride a bike, and you keep falling off, a parent might say “get back on the horse,” even though they mean “get back on the bike.” Here, it means that Abby (me) should to get back in the tree. However, I am going to take it slow, re-introduce myself to the tree, getting to know it again.

Today, I walk around the base of my tree, taking it in. My dog explores with me while we wait for dinner to be ready. He looks at me occasionally, not sure of what we are doing. He quickly moves to start sniffing out for food, for creatures to “play” with.

The sky is a blue-grey color as the clouds bring the weather and as the sun starts its descent, casting oranges and yellows across the horizon. The grass crunches under my feet, both from its lack of chlorophyll and the frost that is settling in. The same goes for the weeds across the street in the cow field, empty now since the cows stick closer to their barn in the winter months.

The occasional bird—finches, I believe—sings from the distance. Every once in a while, they fly over heads, graceful black shadows against the pale January sky. The hum of an engine, a tractor perhaps, creates a back-beat to our adventures, like a base-drum of a good song. It disappears before we go back inside.

There is a faint breeze that moves the hairs that fell loose from my bum along with the smaller branches of the tree. It might be cold out, but the wind feels nice, an indication of a good spring to come. It smells clean, but I miss the pollen from fresh flowers and that indescribable smell of an incoming rainstorm.

My tree is framed by a garden box my dad constructed for my mom many years ago, reminding me still of Lincoln-Logs. Brown-black mulch covers the frozen ground. Colored seashells pile under the tree, memories of past trips to the beach. A few leftover skeletons of flowers remain behind from fall. There are two bird houses: one that I made with my dad when I was about seven and one he made a few years after. Their exteriors are painted a bright sky blue in attempt to attract bluebirds, though we house more yellow finches in our boxes than anything.

Finally, I move to examine my tree, a sugar maple. The bark is rough as a work my way around its base again, some of it breaks off under my touch. A car passes me on our quiet street. Dry sea-form-colored moss grows on three of its sides, not just the northern side like they tell you when you are younger. Roots now have grown from under the garden’s box, away from the safety of their dirt home, and towards the sun.

I wanted to climb into my tree, see if I could fit into all of the little notches that I used to, but I had wanted to take this slow. Next time, I will spend more time outside, up in my tree. Like Muir, I’ll close my eyes and listen to the “music.”