Am just back from a brisk hike into the woods behind our land. Is it mountain, is it hill? I am not sure. It is steep and I have not yet reached the top. When I first began exploring the land it was thick with trees, deeply rutted with what had clearly once been a single wagon road. There were also a few newer ATV trails. John and I liked the old footpath best. Now, since the loggers have been through it, there are twenty foot wide gouges from the gigantic, ungentle skidder. The vistas are huge--I saw Whiteface and other mountains I had not seen from that vantage point before. On the earth are crumbled, shredded tree bits. The earth itself is pale brown in places, gray in others--crumbly, frozen, glossed with thick ice from dammed rivulets. I strive not to be judgmental and to take this in with an open mind. This change in landscape is the result of local economy and generations-old skills. As a neighbor, Paul J., said, the cleared forest will become home to many birds as the shrubs and bracken can grow with more light and rain. The deciduous trees will dominate the scene and in fall will be even more spectacular.

It was a hard walk up because so steep and rutted. I took my time, pausing often to look around at animal tracks, wood shapes, snow light, ice rills. I composed poetry in my head, thinking that loggers and forest animals care not for views. But maybe those loggers pause, too, and gaze out at the awesome mountains with appreciation and humility.

The frozen streams were most beautiful. They looked in places so smooth that I could have sat and slid down the mountainside on my butt, but one quick slip on the trail and I remember that ice is HARD.

Came home, let Papi in--he had waited in the garage rather than come with me on a minus two degree walk--and then went across the road to stand on the Au Sable River. Heard pops and bubbles of water under ice. Am in love with my surroundings.