Trees, for the woods

“A bewitching stillness reigns through all the woodland and over the snow-clad landscape.”

– H D Thoreau. December 9, 1856

My sister popped by Walden yesterday to check on things and to turn off the heat for the winter. I was set only at 5C, but that is enough to keep the deep cold from the mattress and to avoid spills from split jars of frozen pickles in the pantry. Now it’s time to let the cold and stillness in.

Val reports that the spring is running fast down the hill past the cabin, from the head by the turning spot and beneath the drive to where it spills out of the culvert by Grandma Phoebe’s lilac bush. It’s a wonderful sound at any time of year, this “water feature,” but even moreso in winter when the only other sound in the sleepy trees is the wind and the occasional crack of an old trunk giving way to frost.

That’s true stillness. The woods are in no hurry. The water runs, but even it just goes with the flow.

Simon and I stitched some cranberry and apple pieces on string for the overwintering bluejay, with some help from cousin Lynn and Amanda and her kids, my newfound nephew and niece. Stuff’s growing in the Walden woods, even in the off-season.