There’s enough time to go out for about an hour. I head out the door and start walking out the road, not knowing exactly where to go. The sound of a car coming down the road behind me feels intrusive. To avoid it, I take a turn into the field on the right, and can decelerate into “looking” mode.
On this late November morning, a few spiders are still spinning webs. They shine, bedewed, in the grass. I walk to a grove of evergreens. Underneath a spruce tree that I helped plant, with my mother and my sister, about fifty-five years ago, is a chunk of bone. Its surface is marked all over, inside and outside, chewed by calcium-craving rodents.
From the grove to the edge of Look’s Pond is a few hundred feet. Little bluestem grass is russet, lowbush blueberries form maroon patches, and green notes come from mosses and from young conifers. At the edge of the field, a little pitch pine has met a setback. A passing buck, or bucks, with their antlers, have rubbed completely through the outer bark.
On the ground next to the little pine is a fallen and licheny sassafras branch.
Quacks come from the water below the slope. I’ve moved slowly enough not to alarm the ducks visiting the pond, though they’re aware of me, and swim slowly away.
I go back uphill by way of a little valley that passes the house I grew up in. In the yard are some cedar trees, which once were too short to tie a badminton net to. Now they’re between a foot and eighteen inches thick where they emerge from the lawn, and between twenty and thirty feet tall. Ten years ago I pruned them, removing dead and small branches. Today I see that the trees are growing back around and over where those branches once were. I tilt my head and notice a branch scar that looks like the eye of a sleepy dinosaur.
The next waypoint of the walk comes to mind. I head down the road, to go over to the neighbor’s house to see if her horses have produced enough manure to make a trip with the pickup truck worthwhile. Along the way, the branches of the trees are are busy with chickadees, nuthatches, sparrows, flickers, bluejays, and more. They are all out on “noticing” forays of their own.
Crows caw afar.
I slip through the electric fence that contains the horses, say hello to them, and go to their barn to see how well they’ve been tending to business. There’s a modest truckload, in two different locations, but there will be no harm in waiting a week or two. A family of woodpeckers is tapping along the trimboards of the stable, hoping to sound out grubs or larvae. What beautiful birds.
I decide to cross Music Street, and to go home by way of Jerry’s Pond. I love this old house. I learned a little bit about how to ride here.
One of the things I remember from this place is the time I didn’t flatten my hand when presenting an apple to my horse. The blaze of pain from the bite of those jaws is a memory indelible. I remember other, nicer things, too. Like the sight of an orchard oriole in the branches of an apple tree in full bloom.
In the brush near the house, I find a partial skull of a deer, a young buck, who died with his first “spike” antlers on. The skull goes into my jacket pocket, and it will join another buck’s skull on an outside table, back at the house.
I pass through a patch of field in succession, its grass being crowded out by cedar, hawthorne, blueberry, viburnum sumac and wild roses. Young oaks are shouldering their way to the sky.
An old utility pole still has its nailed-on aluminum “C & V E CO” name strip, and it number. The number 3 means that this is the third pole of a line that comes in from Middle Road. The C&V E CO and its successors have been swallowed multiple times by corporate buyouts and mergers. It gets hard to keep up with the name changes.
Then I pass a pond with three names. Most maps call it Davis Pond. Most locals call it Jerry’s Pond. A few of the locals, mostly those nearest the pond, call it Glimmerglass Pond. That name is from the Victorian Era. Ducks are here, too.
This is an old mill pond, one of the mill ponds built by the first white settlers of the Vineyard. Near the outflow of the dam, a beech tree and a maple tree seem at combat. The beech grows so close to the maple that an anaconda of maple root is trying to strangle the beech.
From here I go up the path to the road, up a hill and past grandmother’s house, on the way home. Under a utility pole is a dead squirrel. Did it accidentally electrocute itself? There’s not a mark on it, as it lies on the ground, front and rear paws clasped together, its unseeing eyes still open. I feel its paws and claws with my fingertips, then lift the animal’s body, which is surprising heavy, and dense. Such power, such strength. Suddenly I better understand how well fitted these creatures are for making their homes and their living up in the trees.
The tail is as large as the body, but is as ephemeral as the body is dense.
I don’t want a passing truck to squash this deceased gem of creation, and then think that it might be nice if my grandson, who might be exploring around here, could find the squirrel. I move the body from the road to the top of a nearby rock. Maybe he’ll find it, maybe he won’t.
In the yard at the house I notice the japanese maple, a years-ago Fathers Day gift from my family. Every year it is the last tree in the yard to lose hold of its leaves.
Today its leaves are ablaze with the red of death and resurrection.
Welcome home.
You certainly are waxing prosaic this morning! And I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Having taken your walk, I will now go out and rake leaves.
Yes…these are fantastic!
Very good point about how much you can see on a short stroll around the neighbourhood if you keep your eyes open. One example from a recent evening stroll around my neighbourhood in Vilnius: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/evening-sky-vilnius/
Thanks for your comment…
Some really beautiful finds and a great eye to find them. I’m teaching my kids to slow down and really look at the natural world around them, and they’re getting it so well that they often will come up with things that I’ve missed. Thanks for sharing your walk, and a thin sliver of your life.
Thanks so much. I had the good fortune to grow up in a time when “free range” was normal for children. Kids are great notices. My 3 1/2 year old grandson can find a spider at 40 paces.
I absolutely love this post. It’s so telling and fascinating. I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind me going out on my own around my college campus to see what I can see in a walk such as yours and post the result?
Have a good walk!
The tree’s dinosaur eye is impressive!
Good job! It’s amazing what we can see, if we keep our eyes open. 🙂
Ahh, what beauty. Thanks for the drive-by.
Congratulations on being freshly pressed.
Thanks very much. I had never heard of the “freshly pressed”, but am pleased to be noticed. I’ve had more visitors in the last few hours than in the previous week or two.
Beautiful photos! I especially love the black and white duck/lake one and the last one with the gorgeous red leaves!
Thank you for the virtual tour… I also love the ‘eye’.
I met Jack Frost on one of my quick wanders a while back http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruthhb/4257046275/in/photostream/ .
love the red leaves!
A really nice take on actually looking and seeing what is there, a whole system existing alongside us. Enjoyed your photos and your walk very much – could do this every day!
Thanks so much. The slower I go, the more I see.
And you have a clever blog name, too. I get it. I am familiar with Martha’s Vineyard; what a beautiful place. When I go hiking it takes about an hour longer than it’s supposed to because I look at everything the desert has to offer which is a lot.
This is a great post — such a powerful reminder of how intimately we can experience the natural world if we’re open to so doing.
Thank you so much.
Awesome! couldn’t stop reading 🙂
Is this Martha’s Vineyard? Not a horrible area for a quick walk. I really enjoyed your photography and your writing. I felt some “warm fuzzies” after reading this 🙂
Its one small part of the Vineyard. Glad you enjoyed the post….
Beautiful blog and beautiful red tree leaves! What an interesting walk! Look forward to reading about more walks from you!
Thank you! I’ll head out again, after a while…
Can’t wait to read it! http://www.segmation.wordpress.com
Lovely. I’m smitten by the sassafras and the squirrel. It is wonderful that you know the nature around you so very well.
I just love those photos. To be in harmony with the nature itself sure feels nice.
this is a great post. the pics are awesome! hope to see more
Thank you…and you shall.
I need to stop walking and start “seeing”….thanks for opening my eyes 🙂
Thanks for visiting the ‘pile, and for signing up for the notifications.
Pretty pics! I love the sassafras and squirrel tail pic….Congrats on being FP! 🙂
Thanks for the congrats…visitors are up by an order of magnitude. Weird, that.
That’s usually what happens when you get FP—your popularity skyrockets and you gain new readership. It’s the Golden Globes of WordPress! 😉
Loved your pictures!
Beautiful! I really enjoyed this:)
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Nice work and good lesson in observation skills. Necessary for photography. I would be returning to that wonderful Japanese maple. So brilliantly red….
There will be no problem returning to that tree, since it’s about thirty-five feet from my front door.
very nice japanese maple pict
What a beautiful piece. felt it inwardly slow me down just reading it. I love going on ‘noticing forays’ myself, though I don’t have a camera at the moment to capture the beauty as you have done so well. Love it:-)
Very nice, I liked it.
My favourite image is the tree that looks like an eye – very cool.
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
Thanks for the dissemination….
Such a lovely post! It is amazing what you actually “see” when you walk. One of the things I enjoyed the most was the addition of your history and personal memories of the places your walk covered.
You may have gotten a lot of people out of their cars and into some walking shoes. Great job!
Having lived in one place for many years, almost nothing I see is “new”. What I encounter in my daily movings-about is clothed in memories, and wreathed with “ghosts”. It often seems as if nothing is simply itself.
Thanks for taking me along on your walkabout. It was an engrossing two minutes!
Thank you….now you have fifty-three minutes and thirty seconds left! That walk took about a third of the time that writing about it did. Funny, that.
Wow…. wat a treat… Such a beautiful Maple tree… woooowwww…..
These photos are amazing. It’s really fancy to know what you can see in a few head turns.
Reblogged this on pam kelso + PK Nature Photography and commented:
A first thing in the day thought
Thank you Pam. Your “Photographer creates a Universe” post, w/ rhododendron photo, made me think of something I read about making pictures. It was an answer to the question, “How can you make a good picture?”. From the context, the questioner seemed to be looking for information about what camera to buy, what equipment to have. The answer gave no such advice. The answer was that to make good photographs, you should learn everything you can about everything that you can, because it is one’s depth of knowledge and awareness that makes a photograph, and not technical details such as depth of field.
I agree with you completely but good glass and 28MG will seriously improve an image BUT without the inspiration you could be using a phase one and the image will be flat.
Wow, these are some great images! I love the simple shots that really mean a lot. Great post, thanks for sharing and congrats on FP!
Nature offers us so much, yet we are way to busy with our hectic lives to slow down and “smell the roses”. I love doing this and found all your photos and descriptions very warm and enticing. It makes me want to grab my camera and take a similar stroll about my place.
Well, now’s your chance. Stop wanting, and “do”!
Very nice scenery
The picture of the maple tree took my breath away. I would probably die if I saw that in real life.
You’d survive, I promise you. Japanese maples are wonderful trees.
excellent photos here!
Love the pictures and the lines and patterns that nature makes. Post number 3 is definitely my favourite!
Perhaps someday I’ll be able to threepeat myself.
You remind me of Thoreau. Beautiful capturing of the often unnoticed!
Thank you. I love HDT’s sense of humor. If you’ve not read his “Cape Cod”, it’s well worth the time.
Beautiful photos!
Many thanks.
Wonderful pictures, I especially love the maple and the “dinosaur eye”!
So much beauty in such ordinary things.
Thank you very much. Is it Finnish that has 13 or 14 different noun cases?
The dinosaur eye caught my attention and I felt compelled to read the post. It inspires me to go on my own walk! Thank you!
It’s wonderful what tilting your head can do!
I go for walks when I want to relax. I also look for those little details–sometimes, just wandering around my suburban yard with a camera is all it takes to find a whole world of tiny wonders. Somehow, that can make my own problems feel a lot smaller.
The cedar and Japanese maple are amazing! Thanks for sharing your neck of the woods!
Reminds me of the walks we’d take with my grama in northern Michigan, pointing out bugs and moss to her while she told us stories of birds she’d seen, and if we were lucky we’d have a chance to catch sight of a grazing deer or two. Then it would be inside for cups of steaming hot chocolate.
I have recently read a book set on Martha’s Vineyard at the time of the first European Inhabitants.The book’s called ‘Caleb’s Crossing’ by Geraldine(?) Brooks. Your post bought those early days to mind. Thanks you for taking the time to show me (in far away Australia) your home.
Those “early days” are not too far from the surface around here.
A beautiful photo essay. I tool this walk with you and experienced what you did. I love it.
You sure did see a lot of things.Cool stuff.
http://sayolori.wordpress.com
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Maybe it’s the list type of posting which got on the ‘freshly pressed’ clout. Still some good photos at a short timespace.
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This is really inspiring. I haven’t gone out and taken pictures in a while. Maybe I will do something like this to break that.
Yes!
Well done. You certainly captured the beauty of your surroundings.
Thank you, Tom
Hi Tom, beautiful blog! I would like to ask your permission to use your succession photo in a land conservation presentation I am giving. Free open to the public.