If you had told me a year ago when I was writing my lastWalktober post in Connecticut that a year later I would be writing my next one from a new home far away in North Carolina….. I would not have thought it even remotely possible. But here I am!
This is my contribution to Walktober, this year being hosted by Dawn over at her Change Is Hard blog. See Dawn’s warm invitation to participate here: Walktober 2023.
10.25.23 ~ Carolina North Forest Chapel Hill & Carrboro, North Carolina
It turns out that 750 acres of woodlands, with numerous trails, belonging to the University of North Carolina, is only about a mile away from our home, as the crow flies. For this, our first visit, we wound up on the deeply shaded Occoneechee Loop. It had plenty of uneven terrain for Tim so it wound up being our longest walk so far this fall.
My camera kept telling me that I needed a flash so I decided to focus on finding pockets of sunlight for my pictures. It wasn’t long before I was feeling more relaxed and mindful, noticing the individual trees and the little things. This forest bath was having a delightfully positive effect on me.
shagbark hickory can grow over 100 ft tall and live for 350 years
sometimes we could see the sky
leaf trap
hickory leaves?
suspended pine needles and leaves
leaves on a sassafras sapling
On such October days as this, we look about us as though in some new and magic land. The mystical draws close behind the luminous veil. We see the things about us and sense larger meanings just beyond our grasp. ~ Edwin Way Teale (Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year)
burl on a loblolly pine
squirrel making a quick exit
another squirrel checking me out
same squirrel taking his nut up, up, up
new growth
sunlight penetrating the deep green forest
another squirrel giving me the tail
We’re looking forward to our next walk in this wonderful forest. It will be nice to see how it changes with at least three of the seasons, as I know hot and humid summertime walks here will be few and far between.
9.15.23 ~ Bolin Creek Trail Chapel Hill, North Carolina
At last, walking weather arrived Friday morning! We decided to try Bolin Creek Trail. It was a pleasant enough walk, but it was paved, which is hard on Tim’s back and hip. He needs uneven terrain to walk at all comfortably. And there were many joggers out and lots of people. There were cars zooming by on the road on the other side of the creek. It didn’t feel at all like a walk in the woods!
a burl on a loblolly pine tree
Still, we were delighted to be out getting some fresh air and moving our bodies for an hour. I doubt this will become one of our favorite walks but it was nice to get more familiar with what we have for options in our vicinity.
Hurricane Florence must have been a doozy back in 2018. Apparently Bolin Creek floods quite frequently but I haven’t been able to find out how high it was during that storm. I was standing on stairs leading up to the road to get the next three pictures. The tunnel goes under another road.
Tim standing under the high water mark (see sign below)
There were some interesting tree roots along the mostly shaded creek.
bits of sunshine poking through the leaves
playing hide and seek with this squirrel can you find him?
very tiny hemlock sapling trying to grow in the dark understory
Like Gold Park in Hillsborough that we visited a month ago, this trail had an urban feel to it. I think we’re going to have to venture farther from home to find some more woodsy walks to explore. I’m getting excited and hopeful about the possibilities.
“Don’t let Mom see,” Larisa advised in an early morning text. She found a zipper spider in their garden and thought her father might like to check it out. If you, dear reader, are an arachnophobe you might want to skip this post. There are pictures. Well, I am afraid of spiders but my curiosity was piqued.
The zipper spider is also known as a garden spider, writing spider, banana spider or golden orb weaver. The female is BIG. Her abdomen can be more than inch long! The zipper, zigzag she weaves into the web is called a stabilimentum. Scientists don’t know its purpose but they have several theories. Katherine’s is that it warns birds not to get caught in the web.
We had picked up Katherine from school and asked her to show us the spider. She loves and is very knowledgeable about bugs. There was some kind of magic at work here because I didn’t feel terrified when I saw her from a safe distance, perched on her magnificent web in the bright sunshine. The giant web was hanging between two tall bushes. After admiring her size and coloring and that amazing zipper pattern I realized that we were looking at her underside.
underside
Well, that wouldn’t do. When I expressed my disappointment to Katherine she said she would show me a way around to the other side of the web. It involved climbing up over a porch bench and jumping down into a narrow space between the house and the bushes, and then making our way between the bushes until we got to the opposite side of the web. Wow! My little Katherine was an excellent nature guide.
If the sun sets you free … You’ll be free indeed, indeed … She’s only happy in the sun ~ Ben Harper ♫ (She’s Only Happy in the Sun) ♫
Mind you, if I had seen this spider in the house I would have had a panic attack. But somehow, outside, it was different. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this. Why the difference? Larisa says these spiders never come in the house. Because they love the sun? Maybe because house spiders creep around in dark places is why they are so dreadful. All I know is that the words of Ben Harper’s song came to mind when I saw this one!
On this twenty-first of June, the hinge day of the seasons, the yearly tide of light reaches its flood. Tomorrow, it will begin the long rollback to the dark days of December. … And so this longest day in the year comes to an end with silver mist and low-lying land and the smell of the sea. Twilight here is doubly impressive for we are face to face with twin mysteries — the mystery of the sea and the mystery of the night. We, as diurnal creatures of the land, are looking into foreign realms, into worlds other than our own, into the mysterious dark and the mysterious depths. ~ Edwin Way Teale (Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year)
Another dawn — serene and honey sweet. At such times, it seems to me that dawn is nine-tenths of the day. Staying up late at night has a sameness about it; but every dawn is different. And this is the dawn of May — May, the month that is never long enough. This is May the first as the first of May should be. … On such a day as this, it is enough to spend the hours soaking in the sunshine, breathing slowly, sensing to the full all the perfumes of spring. It is enough to delight in the varied shades of green, in the forms of trees and the colors of flowers. On such a day, all our moments out-of-doors are lived in quiet pleasure. ~ Edwin Way Teale (Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year)
4.26.23 ~ Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center mama goose still sitting on her rock island nest
hairy woodpecker
skunk cabbages are getting huge
swamp near the pond
more skunk cabbage
Many young leaves are dotting the trees now, spray and foliage both showing. The woods are quite green; the rapidity with which the leaves unfold between sunrise and sunset, or during the night, is truly wonderful! ~ Susan Fenimore Cooper (Rural Hours)
it’s feeling much more like spring, even it it is still chilly
red maple seeds
the essence of springtime
crabapple tree
We got our second covid bivalent booster on the 25th, recommended to those of us over 65. This will make me feel a little safer traveling to North Carolina and being around more people in the coming months. We had our first bivalent booster back in September. I wonder if we’ll be getting one every six months from now on…
7th Grade Class Trip Mansfield Middle School (1969-70) Barn Island Wildlife Management Area
Salt marshes have a long memory. Humans have a short one. Like sponges, salt marshes hold onto things. But for us, it’s out of sight, out of mind. ~ Tim Traver (Sippewissett: Or, Life on a Salt Marsh)
4.12.23 ~ Barn Island Wildlife Management Area
Many years ago, my 7th grade class traveled for an hour-long ride to a field trip (48 miles away) on Barn Island on the Connecticut shoreline. Little did I know I would one day move down here to live in a neighboring town. It wasn’t until February of 2019, though, when my friend Janet suggested we take a winter walk here, that I got around to visiting it again. See: winter in the marsh. I took Tim there during the pandemic in December of 2020 when we were looking for isolated places to walk: See: reflections. So we decided to visit one last time before the big move. There is a very long path that crosses the marsh.
It was low tide and the water level in the tidal creeks was lower than it was on my other visits. I noticed a lot of clams and mussels in the exposed mud and clinging to the creek banks. The only waterbird we saw was a mallard but we encountered a lot of people and dogs, which was surprising mid-week. The woods beckoned from the other end of the path. Then we retraced our steps.
Barn Island is the largest and single most ecologically diverse coastal Wildlife Management Area in Connecticut. With over 60 years of continuous wetland research at this site, Barn Island provides a rare window into long-term marsh development both before and after restoration efforts. Its 1,024 acres are marked by centuries of cultural and biological history, once a vital resource for early colonial settlers and Native Americans and now for scientists and outdoorsmen. Its diverse habitats support rare plants and animals which add to its rich ecological resource base. Barn Island’s sprawling landscape sustains a wide variety of ecosystems and recreational activities; it consists of salt and brackish marshes, one of the state’s largest coastal forests, hilly uplands, intertidal flats, sandy beach, and a rare sea-level fen. ~ Long Island Sound Study website
looking north from the path
mussels in the mud
one mallard in the marsh
The marsh is a microcosm of the world. With its peat meadows, meandering tidal creeks, microbes and mud, at the living, breathing edge of continent and ocean, it seems that life must have started here. Every microcomponent contributes to the whole. Discovering how this system works was a biogeochemical pursuit that took years and is ongoing. ~ Tim Traver (Sippewissett: Or, Life on a Salt Marsh)
mussels and clams clinging to the tidal creek bank
In the above picture, looking south from the path, dock pilings can be seen in the distance. There is a boat landing there, on Little Narragansett Bay. We decided to drive down there and get a picture of the salt marsh from the dock. A solitary herring gull was quietly sunning himself on the dock when we arrived. He stayed put the whole time I was there.
The next picture is looking north to the salt marsh (between the woodlands) from the dock on Little Narragansett Bay. There are some people walking along the path that crosses the marsh, where we had taken our walk and had taken pictures. I zoomed in on them in the second picture, as much as possible.
On the way home we spotted two ospreys above a much smaller marsh near Paffard Woods, a preserve of the Avalonia Land Conservancy. We pulled over on the very busy road and tried my luck with the zoom lens. Unfortunately it was a very windy day and the car was shaking a lot.
osprey at home
having a fish dinner
stretching the wings
sharing a meal
We stopped again on the way home to pick up a cod loin for dinner and wondered what kind of fish we will find plentiful in North Carolina. Also, living by the sea it is breezy and windy here more often than it is calm. I started wondering what the wind will be like in our new inland home. And then we got back to our sorting and packing…
So, Tim has been feeding peanuts to a squirrel all winter. Then my dear blogging friend Linda suggested he try feeding them walnuts. On our next trip to the grocery store we looked in vain for walnuts. Tim asked the produce guy about it and he said they only had walnuts at Christmas time. Undaunted, Tim then found someone selling walnuts on Etsy, of all places. He also did some research and learned that walnuts are better nutrition than peanuts for for squirrels. Soon, the order arrived and four walnuts were put out on the balcony. It wasn’t long before they were discovered. This guy made quick work of his prize, sitting on the railing and in the sunshine. Lucky photo op through the sliding glass doors for me!
This morning Tim tried rolling a walnut towards the squirrel and it accepted the delivery without running away. I’m sorry I missed it!
Today is the first of February, snowy, brilliant, but dripping with the sound of spring wherever the sun lies warm, and calling with the heart of spring yonder where the crows are assembling. There is spring in the talk of the chickadees outside my window, and in the cheerful bluster of a red squirrel in the hickory. ~ Dallas Lore Sharp (The Atlantic Year Book: Being a Collection of Quotations from the Atlantic Monthly)
