15-Day Sit Spot Challenge - Day 11 and Interlude-A Walk With Cherie, November 17 and 18, 2018

15-Day Sit Spot Challenge

Day #11 and Interlude: A Walk With Cherie

November 17 and 18, 2018

And, we continue with the Sit Spot Challenge.

See my first entry in this series for an explanation.

Day #11

November 17, 2018

After 1:00 pm Eastern

My Sit Spot, seen from the west

Prompt for Day #11: Sensory Meditation Day. Practice using Owl Eyes, Deer Ears, touch. Take deep breaths through your nose to gather scents. Open your mouth and taste the air.

This day was warmer, clear, sunny. Maybe that contributed to some of the things I saw and heard.

A Fragile Fern peeking through the increasing leaf litter in a spot of sun

Lichen and moss on an old log

There was a general sense of quietude in the woods on this day. But, as I went to m spot I heard more bird sounds than I had the day before – chirpings, chatterings, and rattles, among the light rustle of leaves in the breeze.

I settled into my spot, facing north, and practiced Deer Ears, being still and aware of sounds all around me. There was a scratchy sound on tree bark behind me. I turned to see a squirrel scampering up and down a tree.

As I sat quietly, longer, bird sounds came closer. I tried something similar to Deer Ears that I have often taught to children and adults – Rabbit Ears. We humans cannot, of course, turn our ears like rabbits do, to catch sounds from different directions. But, we can cup our hands by our ears in various positions to simulate this. It is amazing how differently one hears that way, and the different sounds we can pick up.

When I cupped my hands behind my ears, facing forward, I could pick up the roar of air – not so much wind, but just the current. I didn't pick up this sound any other way.

I heard a Hawk scream. A Nuthatch cackle. A Crow caw. A Squirrel chatter. The other people of the woods were busy on this day.

Breathing in, I noticed that the smell of wet leaves was strong on this warmer day. It was especially strong when I walked, evidently releasing the scent of leaves underfoot.

As I sat still, practicing Owl Eyes, I noticed only select tree leaves fluttering on branches, while others hung fairly still. Below me, there were puddles of water on some fallen leaves, but still some icy stuff on others.

I noticed that some trees had dark and light sides to their trunks (from the side, it was as if a line was drawn down the trunk between dark and light, resembling the dark and light sides of the moon). The dark was the wet sides. Maybe this wetness was from the icy sheen they had on them yesterday, now melted.

View to the northwest from my Sit Spot

The Four Trees near my Sit Spot: Sugar Maple, Tuliptree, Black Cherry, Chinquapin Oak

I also became aware of various bark textures as well as the bumpy designs along the trunks of some trees, where they had borne branches and lost them as they grew larger and taller, reaching further up into the canopy.

Sensory Meditation is something I need to practice more often, and for longer periods of time. In time, I will be better able to most of the senses at once instead of focusing on only one at a time, and I will, as wildlife does, be able to be aware of all that is around me.

Interlude: A Walk With Cherie

November 18, 2018

I have mentioned before that I don't notice, these days, much of a difference in pattern between weekdays and weekends. They usually kind of blur together at the edges. I also mentioned that I might notice a sharper difference if, for example, we had weekend company.

And, we did.

Our great friends Andy and Cherie came to visit from central Illinois for a couple of days. Cherie loves to walk in the woods. In fact, she was the first person with whom I walked these woods, after Richard and I took ownership of this property, in the latter 1980's. Cherie and I rambled and explored, excitedly finding all sorts of early spring wildflowers in bloom.

Though I love to roam the woods on my own, I also love to experience Nature through the eyes and discoveries of other people. They always notice some things that I miss. Cherie is especially perceptive and observant, so the discoveries with her are always interesting. In my blog Cottonwood Pond, I documented her visit with me to that location in the bottom of my woods. It was the first (and thus far only) time I've seen a Water Snake there. Check it out (including the snake) at:

https://cottonwoodpond.blogspot.com

(Look for A Visit to the Pond With Cherie, published on November 14, 2014, though the visit took place on May 23, 2014.)

This was Sit Spot Challenge week. We did not sit – we rambled (though I did show her my Sit Spot place). It was a mild day, perfect for rambling in the woods.

Mireille on my Sit Spot

Here are some of the things we found (p.s. - some of my cats came along, too):

This little black mushroom is so shiny!

A purple jelly fungus

This tiny Chorus Frog!! So, that means I did hear a Chorus Frog during an earlier sitting!

Trying to catch another photo of the Chorus Frog

Some white shelf fungi

A snail moving along, leaving a slime trail - this could be considered a very short "wildlife trail"

My daughter and I had dubbed this "The Fairy Tree" years ago, when she was little and the tree was all intact. Now it bears the ravages of time.

Claus explores the hollow log that was once the top half of The Fairy Tree

A "cone" of Tuliptree seeds

Cut-leaf Grape Fern (Botrychium dissectum). Many of the ferns of this species in my woods are the less dissected, smooth-edged versions, but here we found a large area of the more frilly-edged ones.

The evergreen Cut-leaf Grape Fern with the remains of its fertile frond above. I have sometimes confused this with Rattlesnake Fern (Botrychium virginianum), which is closely related, but the latter is not evergreen.

A special find - an extra-dissected Cut-leaf Grape Fern - Botrychium dissectum dissectum!

Some other things we saw, of which I don't have photos:

• Raccoon scat on a log
• The old “Raccoon Log” with a hole in which Cherie and I had seen a Raccoon years ago – now the log has fallen apart!

I wish we could have walked longer and farther. In one direction, though, we hit “The Wall”, as I call it – the thick, practically impenetrable grove of invasive Asian Bush Honeysuckle that fills in the woods bottom and slopes from that point on. I used to be able to walk through that part of the woods, and likely Cherie had, too, years ago. Richard and I have been tackling invasive plants in our woods, and The Wall is a most formidable area that we will begin addressing this winter.

Back up to the house.

Tomorrow – back to the Sit Spot.

More of our woods-walking companions:

Silas resting on Krampus (such a brave kitty)

Claus expressing his inner Bobcat