Today was one of those days in late summer when the warm weather comes back with a rush to remind us that the season is not quite over yet. The faded yellow sunlight pressed down on the sleepy earth, and as the temperature rose into the upper 20s, the bugs sang the lazy, hazy song of late August.
My big plan for the day was to take my bicycle to the bike path close to our little village and scout out the pinecone situation. I had noticed some trees there at some point that looked like they would have what I was looking for. So, around one in the afternoon, I got out my bike, grabbed a cloth sack, and loaded it and my fuzzy friend, Toast (Toast is my dog, a Maltese Chihuahua cross who is my constant companion) into the milk crate on the back of my bicycle. With a friendly wave to our neighbor, we were off.
The trip into the village of Roxton Falls, and onto the bike path isn't a very long one and within a short time, my tires were scrunching the fine pebbles that mark the trail. I passed several pine trees, the backside of sundry small businesses, and two roads before I was satisfied there were no more pines ahead. I turned my bike around and began a slow ride back, examining the trees on either side of me.
At the edge of a field, I spied my first pine tree bearing the cones I was looking for. I parked my bike and Toast and I disembarked and made our way to the tree. I did manage to find a few good cones on some branches within my reach, but not as many as I had dreamed of. It looked like I would have to climb to get any more, and even then, the cones were few and far between. I was greeted with the same results at a nearby tree. I had been afraid this would happen. Last year, my husband, Gary, had brought me a lot of cones, but they had come from some wooded spot too far for me to reach on my bicycle.
Toast squinted up at me through a few dead branches and grasses, her candy-pink tongue lolling out, proclaiming how hot she was feeling on this sultry afternoon. We headed back to my bike, and I decided to walk a little just to see what was around. Again, I was met with the same results. Pine trees with very few cones and the cones that had fallen to the ground were already starting to rot and unfit to sell. But then something else caught my eye. On the orange needle carpet under the trees I had been looking at, I discovered a different type of cone. This kind was smaller, more papery, and in a very great profusion all over the ground. My forager husband later informed me he thought they were spruce cones.
I almost kept walking, as these were not the type of cones I was in search of, but then I was reminded of a very beautiful wreath my mother had made me one Christmas. She had made it by hot gluing just such a type of cone as this to a foam form. Well, why couldn't I gather these instead? They would be a perfect cone for many kinds of crafts, and there were so many it seemed a shame to just leave them to silently decompose into the ground. So, I parked the bike again and fought my way into the brush.
Toast had her doubts about the journey into the undergrowth. She is a real adventurer type and loves to be outside with us but when your belly is only six inches off the ground, even just tall grass is a big jungle! I cleared a path for her and like a real trooper, she squeezed through to the clear space beneath the trees. After interesting her in a couple of chipmunk holes in the ground, I got down to the business of cone picking.
In some ways, I understand her chagrin when it comes to battling through heavy undergrowth and branches. My hair is long, and while always done up, tends to be easily snagged and caught by rouge branches. When Gary and I walk together off the beaten path I tend to notice this even more. His hair is short and so this enables him to plow through the woods, headfirst and unhindered at a good clip. He almost always comes home from a day of foraging with his hair full of pine needles, twigs, leaves, etc. I have to get him to brush off on the porch before entering the house.
Have you ever picked up nuts on the ground? Or gone berry picking in a very prolific patch of berries? Then you will know how hard it is to stop once you start. As I sat on the ground, gathering my cones I was reminded of an instance where I was pecan picking with my parents-in-law down in sunny Alabama. Every five or ten minutes, we agreed we needed to go home, but without fail another five minutes would pass and we would still be on our hands and knees grabbing pecans by the handful.
Picking up spruce cones had much the same effect on me. Always just ahead of me there was another pile of beautiful cones and so I'd shuffle forward on hands and knees to that patch. No sooner was I situated over the mother lode, than I'd spy another even more beautiful and bountiful supply just ahead.
Time passed. A slight breeze picked up, lifting Toast's scruffy red-gold fur and blowing my hair into my eyes. The sun poured out of the sky, a pale lemon, and all around me was the beauty of nature wrought by the hand of God. Nature has a way of filling me with a certain kind of peace I don't get anywhere else and all the little discomforts of the afternoon, the heat, my thirst, the dizziness I've been battling for quite some time, seemed lulled away in the comfortable stillness and beauty of all things growing and alive.
I am often interested in how observant or non-observant people can be. A few people passed me by, sitting under the trees, stuffing my bag with spruce cones like a squirrel gathering nuts. Some people notice things in their surroundings, and some do not. My first passerby spied me with a passing glance, and the next few whooshed past as though they never saw me. My last observer rewarded me with a stare that bent him into a corkscrew.
When my bag was almost full, we loaded up and headed for home. True, we hadn't found what we were looking for, but God had provided just the same.
Thanks for the peek into your woods!