Brian Russart took a walk in the woods this winter, then he wrote about it. Thanks, Brian, for allowing us to share your wonderful account of that day.

Ode to a January Woods
by Brian Russart

January is my birth month, which I have always felt was good fortune because the entire year is ahead of me. It has forever been a time for me to reflect about the past days so quickly spent and the new one already rushing ahead. When I reflect I habitually search out woodlands tucked away in some forgotten place. I grew up in what text books would call Wisconsin’s southern deciduous forest, not the prairies or savannas of Illinois. Given my preference for reminiscing I will always choose the woods because they feel like home.

As I walk through the woods I remember Januarys past, deep snow, bitter winds, and warmer aspirations. I walked in the woods today, the second day of January 2007.  I found no snow, nor the cold and unforgiving breath of winter, only solitude amongst the naked limbs of aged oaks. To say that I walked the trail with reverence would be anything but true. I have the heart of a wanderer, my feet grow unhappy with trodden paths. I have friends who would ardently protest me leaving the trail. Signs saying, “Stay on the path” are engrained into their minds to the point that even when there are no signs to lecture them, I doubt even a charging grizzly could part them from the trail. Yes, sensitive natural areas must be protected, and for those who bumble through the woods, trails save many a rare creature from an untimely end. However, for those who can walk with a delicate foot and a sharp eye, great adventures lie in wait over the next ridge beyond the trail’s reach. So I step off the trail and begin to flow over the land as if I were one with the winter wind.

It is not long before I discover the first treasure of the day, a honeycomb the size of a dinner plate. My inclination is to look up, but even with binoculars I can not tease a cavity out the dark and furrowed bark of the elderly oak that peers over my shoulder. Plundered then, from a negligent owner no doubt, taken in the night. Upon further investigation I see that no honey ever flowed into these combs, how disappointed the thief must have been.

Slightly up the hill I find a freshly excavated den in an ancient sand dune. The den slides down into the earth between two large tree roots. The roots are pillars on either side of the opening gracing a corridor to a hidden world. There was a time when I would have gotten down on my hands and knees and tried to peer into the den, but on one occasion years ago a deep guttural growl came back from the enveloping darkness. Nature knows no greater fury than an animal with no escape but through its perceived attacker. So I’m content to view the den from a polite distance and wonder who is home and who is on the prowl. If only there were snow, a story could surely be told.

Again I’m off. Cresting the ridge is a copse of pines. Reds and whites sway gently in the less than humbling January wind. As I enter the evergreen fortress a barred owl flushes from its hidden perch. What had been silent, broken tree limbs moments before sprout wings and charcoal feathers.  The hunt is on!  Feathered sorties are flown in and out of the trees until the owl has found a defensible perch down the ridge. Through my binoculars I see the deep, dark pools that are the owl’s eyes intently focused on me. I imagine it is pondering whether I am in cohorts with its two persecutors. Am I merely acting as a hunting dog flushing game for my masters, or an entirely different danger unto myself? Quickly it decides and continues down the ridge with its escort in close pursuit. I walk another 50 feet and stir a second owl from its roost. Ah, things are much clearer now. Winter is the time of owl courtship. I may have inadvertently separated a lover’s tryst. My cheeks are reddened, I would say it’s from embarrassment, but the cool breeze would say otherwise.

I traipse through the woods into the auburn sand prairie and come across the very thing I was trying so desperately to avoid. The trail has snuck up on me. Well, I guess I’ll walk it for awhile, if only to appease the trail’s need for wear. Cans and wrappers strewn along the borders, yes I remember now what I don’t like about trails. Something new has appeared in this refuse only recently. Straight out of the Mesozoic, black as sin when it comes out of the ground only to be made clear for our drinking enjoyment, the plastic water bottle. Sometimes I think that nature would have been better off if we would have continued to “roll the dice” with dehydration while taking leisurely walks.

A deer path provides my freedom from containment and disgust. Again I flow across the land skirting the edge of a small shallow wetland. My eyes strain to see molluscs, fairy shrimp, and water beetles. Even though the water is ice free and emerald plants dance below the surface I fear the year is much too young for such a liquid Serengeti.

A log lying across the wetland looks very inviting. I balance half way across and realize that I am no tight rope walker and retreat before I get wet feet. What is it about a log lying over water? If it were on dry land I could walk across it without breaking stride, but put the log in an inch of water and it might as well be straddling a bottomless abyss. Meek of heart, I travel along the edge of the wetland until I can slip around the far end. Cold feet are always preferable to wet feet in a January woods.

I quietly enter the bottomland forest and though I can not yet see or hear the nearby river I feel myself being drawn to her. My foot steps chosen not by my conscious thought but perhaps by my genetic code handed down from my ancestors who lived along the Rhine. I’ve passed down into the valley and by doing so I have left the wind behind. My ears begin to hear the soft gurgles of a river flowing to the sea. As it flows over log and stone it tells a story of its birth in the headwaters and all that it has seen, smelt, and tasted on its journey. To truly decipher the river’s tale one has to imbibe the honey colored water into their being. A story that maybe only fully known to fish and mussels as they breathe the turbid water flowing over their cold gills.

However, with my humble eyes and a small knowledge of the natural world I can look at the river and interpret a chapter or two of the tale. It carries a heavy burden. Sediment laden waters tell a story of human ignorance, greed, and misuse. In our rush to a “better life” we tend to destroy those things that are most precious to us. Many people do not see the river for its richness of life and its healing powers, but instead it is a conduit for our “throw away society.”

I stand on the river’s bank and am pulled into deep thought. Will this river ever run pure again? Does it even know that it once did? I do not think that rivers keep history books, at least not the way that the land does. The land in itself is a timeless archive. By looking at the topography, the soil, and the plants that grow upon it, a thesis paper could easily be written. The river is ageless, renewed with every breath, but the land remembers. Maybe it is that the rivers of the Midwest keep one central library in the Gulf of Mexico, the zone of hypoxia. A warning that all its books are overdue and everyone should start paying their late fees.

A chickadee pulls my mind from the rushing waters before it is swept away with what is left of Wisconsin’s & Illinois’s prairie history. The guardian of the winter forest, slowly and inquisitively checking every nook and cranny as it makes the rounds. I’ve held many a chickadee in my hand as I have placed a silver band on its leg, such a fierce passion for life I have rarely seen in any of my own specie. So ferocious is the chickadee that if ever I were to go into battle I would make sure my front line were made up of these black-capped storm troopers. Victory would be swift, loyalty would only cost sunflower seeds, and the flight of the valkaries would be their charge. I have great admiration for such a small creature that can survive below zero temperatures outside at night during an upper Midwest winter.  Why does the chickadee stay when many of its kin leaves for warmer climes? I have no doubt that a chickadee would have the stamina to migrate south in the winter, but I suspect that to leave its beloved woods would cut out its heart, which is the source of all power in chickadeedom.

The border guard lets me pass and I begin to traverse back to my point of origin. Before I leave the flood-plain forest a small orange-brown patch of fuzz catches my eye. It is a cocoon, of a moth unknown to me, affixed to a piece of cottonwood bark lying on the forest floor. My first thought is that this small abode will surely be inundated with flood waters and the occupant drowned come the spring tides. However, when I examine the bark more closely I see that the sides curve upward like a small boat. Genius or good fortune, only the moth knows for sure. How can a creature that spends youth in the trees, and old age in the skies know anything of sailing the seas? I smile and place the small vessel back where it was moored. In a voice barely audible I wish the traveler good luck and a forest of its liking at the next docking.

The day grows long and I fear the quickest way back is on the trail. With a deep breath I quicken my pace to spend as little time on this forced march as possible.  I have traveled half way when a tuft of misplaced deer hide blocks my path. I gaze to the East and see a trail blazoned with white fur leading up the hill. A bad sign for the deer, but one last adventure for me. I pay my condolences to the trail and head off. Before long I come upon a yearling buck, that won’t ever be anything but a yearling. The bones are picked clean, and my mind remembers the den in the sand dune over the next ridge. Have the den’s occupant and I have shared a vision separated by only a matter of days? The young buck will make young coyotes, and in time as his bones bleach in the sun and dissolve into the prairie soil he’ll make little bluestem and hoary puccoon as well.

Quickly now I must move on, because the sun is setting and I unlike the chickadee have no desire to be out on even a mild January night. I gather up as many bottles, cans, wrappers, and the remains of the day and scurry back to the car and civilization.

Brian Russart is county conservationist for the Winnebago County Soil and Water Conservation District.