When Worlds Change...

.The back edge of the property offers a narrow, slow moving stream. It respects no boundaries and insinuates itself in and out of neighborhood yards. 

Peat bogs and muddy wallows have become the foundation for Cinnamon, Fiddlehead and Christmas Ferns. Skunk Cabbage, Touch-Me-Not, Arrowroot, and Jack-In-The-Pulpit are scattered about. Dutchman's Breeches and Wild Rose grow on drier upper banks of dirt. Wild Raspberry thickets abound. And Virginia Creeper, Poison Ivy and Fox Grape vines interweave among branches and trunks of Yellow Birch, Swamp Maple and Crab Apple. 

There are paths of rotting leaves and broken branches. Large root systems rise out of the muck in the form of fingers grabbing hold of the earth to anchor the huge trees tilting from storms of past years. In between the woody digits, mushrooms, lichens and other fungi fight for their perfect damp spot.

The woods are also home and playground to squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons. Beavers, skunk, possum, and rabbits claim their territories along with many other kinds of small rodents. Deer, coyote, fisher, and wild turkeys wander along the stream. Great horned owls and various species of hawks search out snakes, turtles, and salamanders. And multitudes of other birds, both native and migratory, fly in and out of the puzzle of trees.

But several years ago, something happened. The winters had become increasingly warmer. There was no bitter cold to freeze air, precipitation, or soil depths. Seasonal storms of snow and ice gave way to heavy rains that soaked into the unfrozen land, over and over.

Suddenly, the land was too saturated to hold any more water. The rain had nowhere to go. And the forest turned to a lake. It was strange to see this new body of water. Trees that were never meant to live in submerged fashion, appeared as if they were tropical Mangroves. The brush and smaller plants were completely covered. And there was no scampering of squirrels or chipmunks on leafy paths.

For a little while, it seemed as if this new landscape was lifeless, lacking all the plantings and creatures that had filled every corner of the little universe. But as time passed and days grew warmer, new life appeared. Mallards, cloaked in green and brown, arrived to raise their families. The colorfully marked Wood ducks also moved in. And some Canada geese danced through the intricacies of their ritual courtship, in a sight unseen in these woods before. Sounds of crickets and tree frogs gave way to water bird quacks and squawks, and the deep percussive timbre of Bull frogs. The night filled with the "guitar string plunk "of the Green frog, first here and then there. Back and forth through the dark.

The apex of evolution in this environment, was the arrival of the"little blue heron". Not the "great blue heron" familiar here, the "little blue" was simply enjoying a respite during its migration. It was smaller, but equally beguiling with its long, brown neck and bluish grey body.

One morning, more suddenly than the arrival of the lake, the water was gone. As if a rubber stopper had been pulled from a filled bathtub, down the drain it had disappeared.

What had happened? Rumors floated through the neighborhood that a far off beaver dam had been destroyed either naturally or with the assistance of man. In any case, the land again showed its face and renewed itself with kisses of sunshine and dry air.

My woods are now alive with animals, birds and vegetation of all sort. All the sights and sounds of life are restored.But, occasionally, I think back to that special time when water and land became one. The earth performed its magic, for a new kind of home beckoned new residents, and life continued on.