Macoun leader Rob Lee lives in the forest, and today we explored part of it. We found a good lunch place where the bare deciduous trees (Sugar Maple, Beech, and Ironwood) let a little sunshine in, and a few White Pines provided dead, dry branches for a hot, steady fire. The temperature never got above freezing, but those sitting closest soon stripped off coats and boots. At the end, we used snow to douse the last flames and embers.
Then we were off, running and jumping, and zig-zagging around tangles of fallen trees. Rob led over rising ground, and then down, down to an old-growth cedar swamp, where aged specimens of these normally thin-barked trees had bark almost an inch thick. Then up over one last hill, to burst onto the open expanse of White Lake. There was ice in the bay, but open water out beyond. We looked, but there were no ducks.
We saw little wildlife this grey day – Red Squirrel (but plenty of eaten-out cedar seeds in piles), a couple of Black-capped Chickadees, and just a few passing Ravens. Ulyses turned a rock and revealed two kinds of millipedes and a couple of Ground Beetles tucked in for the winter. There were tracks, however, in the patches of snow – Deer, Fisher, and Fox.
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