Walking in the Woods

A native viburnum

Day 217
The Daily DuBrule

Every year, on the third weekend of September, I go camping with my girlfriends. This weekend was the 31st year in a row I have carried on this sweet tradition. It is a nice way to mark the end of summer and the beginning of fall. It is also a good way to get away and really relax. For the past few years I have been too exhausted to do much physical exercise. This year was different. I woke up on Saturday morning and couldn't wait to go hiking. The weather was absolutely perfect.

We were in the Adirondacks and the leaves were beginning to turn. We headed towards a beaver pond about a mile in. On the way there were babbling brooks, some inland wetlands, and lots and lots of wildflowers. I just couldn't keep my eyes off the flora and meandered very slowly up the hill.

This was a pristine woodland, no barberry, burning bush, honeysuckle, bittersweet. Everywhere I looked I saw princess pine, club moss, wintergreen, ferns, all kinds of asters, and every kind of native wildflower I could imagine. Tiarellas lined the trail. And the partridge berry was everywhere! 

That's me lying down in a bed of partridge berry

Fresh in my mind was the fairy festival last month. I saw fairy houses everywhere...hollowed out tree trunks with roots wrapping around rocks, hummocks of moss with cattail fluff on the roof. It was truly magical.


We got to the beaver pond and dragonflies floated everywhere. The sky was bright blue, the air was clear, and it was quiet- no traffic, no lawnmowers, just the sounds of nature. Heaven.

My pledge to myself is to walk in the woods a lot more in the year ahead. I forgot how much I love it.