The promise of spring returns on these gentle wings.
We spend most of our time living in suburbia, but most weekends we escape to our cabin in the woods. More small house than cabin, the best feature is it sits on 17 acres of wooded land. Other than harvesting dead trees for wood for the wood stove, we have basically left the land alone. There are three trails that were there when we moved in and we maintain those. Since it’s mostly untouched woods, there’s quite a bit of wildlife in residence. We’ve seen deer, wild turkeys, coyotes, beaver, pheasants, the normal raccoons, skunks, squirrels, and rabbits. We had a bat get in the wood stove once (luckily it was August and we weren’t using it!). My favorite thing about spring at the cabin is the return of the herons. Out near the creek there are several trees filled with heron nests. They sit empty most of the year, but in the spring the herons return to fight over them. They flap their huge wings and “scream” at each other if one tries to land in a nest already occupied.
Yesterday I stood by the creek, the air was cold, the sky was blue, there was a gentle breeze, and other than the sound of the birds everything was completely silent. It was like being the only person on earth. From over the field next door, a heron flew in. It’s huge wings effortlessly gliding over the creek. It was beautiful and actually brought tears to my eyes. Just that all of this exists in such beauty and simplicity and that I could be in that place to witness it was amazing to me. I’m not a religious person, but these moments are divine, those woods are my church.