Week #6

Things Have changed a lot in the two weeks since I last visited my spot in Centennial Woods. While the warm weather then only hinted at spring it now seems to have arrived in earnest. As I walked into the woods I noticed the buds on the box elder saplings at the entrance were soft and looking ready to burst open at any moment. I made my weekly visit in the cool overcast afternoon after a rainy morning. The trees were dark with water and branches dripped on my coat as I tried to walk down the path that was more muddy stream then walkable trail. I will have to find a new way to get to my spot since the meadow I walk through has reveled itself to be marsh saturated with water that seeped into my not-quite waterproof boots. The main stream was roaring and the water level was at least a foot higher than the last time I'd seem it. Only tiny pockets of snow still remain, marking where the deepest shadows must be under the hemlocks on the south side of the stream. As I made my way to my spot another thing that stood out to me was the new vibrancy of colors in the forest, chalky purple raspberry stalks and brilliant green moss stood out clearly from the brown background. When I got to my spot I put my hand on the wet rough bark of the large double trunked white pine I sit beneath and drew my hand away covered in sticky pitch I realized was seeping from a large vertical crack in the tree, I thought it was perhaps a sign of growth but when I got up and looked around more I noted an even deeper crack on the opposite side of the tree that seemed to split the wood almost to the core in some places and oozed pitch, could it be frost damage from warm days and cold nights? I find myself concerned for the health of the tree that I've gotten to know over the past weeks. Focusing my attention on the stream that runs through the ravine I noted that it was almost completely thawed above my spot but below ice still covered the surface in the protected recesses of an oxbow. The water rushing down from above disappeared under this covering of ice as it rushed towards the marsh and eventually the torrent of the main stream. The buds on saplings near my spot didn't seem as tender as those near the entrance where the sun doesn't have to cut through a canopy of pine.