The south wind blows and the ridgepole of the old one-room camp creaks above our heads. We are on the shores of mid-Lake Champlain. With the window slightly cracked open, we can hear the waves lapping against the rocky shoreline.
Oh, to wander the woods after a spring rain! What wonderful awakenings await? The sight of forsythias blooming in the sunlight penetrating the forest floor with unbounded exuberance.
To a fisherman, the mysteries of what lies beneath the surface, living in a world where we can survive only for a limited duration, speaks of a world vastly different from our own reliance on terra-firma.
As we wind our way toward the end of a year that we will look back on as one of the toughest we have endured as a species, I am inclined to draw some metaphors from the natural world. First, let me say that this is not meant to minimize the tremendous loss of life that we have experienced as a species.
Twenty years ago, I was 41 years old. My experience as a professional waterfowl guide was at its zenith. I had wealthy clients from big cities and fancy gun clubs that never seemed to have the time to scout and practice calling ducks.
The old muzzleloader has been put back into the gun cabinet. Unfired for another year.
There is a wave of sadness that I couldn’t bring a deer home this year. But on the bright side there is this: We are sitting in our makeshift shore blind fabricated from driftwood caused by an early November Nor’easter, and we’re huddled behind the twisted branches with cattails and johnson grass woven in between the homemade front.
A cold north wind blows through the curtains of the bedroom. I pull the duvet quilt up a little tighter around my shoulders and wiggle back into my warm cocoon. Visions of red-legged mallards with their wings cupped and their feet dangling down fly through my dreams. As they begin their final descent into the decoys, my hunting partner John and I both switch off the safety mechanism on our shotguns. One low mallard whistle on the call, and they commit to the spread.
I woke up late, exhausted by another week of slogging through the mire as a slave of commerce. My heart and my mind were already in the woods, but my body required extra rest.
Indulge me for a moment and allow me to write about the same topic as last month. I am obsessed. It started off innocuously, like a mere sniffle at the beginning of a common cold. It soon developed into a fever pitch with me tossing and turning in my bed at night.
As I sit in my treestand, 20 feet above the ground in a mature maple, I am in awe of the beauty around me. The light filters through the gold and red canopy above me, spilling onto the musky forest floor. It feels like I am in a cathedral. I am sitting here practicing being still and mindful only of my surroundings, but I am overcome with gratitude and wonder.
Sympathy is extended to family and friends of Robert Magnuson who passed away recently at the age of 81.