The eastern towhee was back in the lower meadow, calling out at the start of my early morning walk yesterday: “Drink your tea!”

The robins were busy about their breakfast in the dewy grass.

As I walked, I felt a little dejected that neither of my daughters had taken the opportunity to come along. But it didn’t take long to recognize that in fact I was having a very good time being completely alone.

I thought about a meditation I’d heard recently on the idea that any human artistry has to begin with what’s already created — therefore it has to begin with gratitude. I thought about how I was walking through a work of art, and I did feel grateful.

I’ve said I was alone. Not entirely. I prayed, and so that level of conversation affirmed a companionship. There were plenty of sounds and critters to testify to the community of wild things around me, too: chickadees, kinglets, woodpeckers, chipmunks and squirrels, a ruffed grouse making its sound of a dribbling basketball off in the distance.

My favorite parts were the times I stood still and waited. In one of those listening times, a silent, shivering oven bird showed herself.

A little farther along and I reached a favorite spot. The green along this stream, and the glittering reflections, invited me to linger and think.

A short climb, and I reached the upper meadow.

More birds here, including flickers…

…and many a chattering goldfinch.

This demure song sparrow rustled quietly in a bush next to me.

And a rabbit briefly considered whether I was to be trusted before beating a hasty retreat.

I was thinking about developments in my life — decisions made, attitudes held — when I turned around to survey the view behind me and saw what seemed a perfect picture of Frost’s “Road Not Taken“:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The poem’s last two lines are the ones usually quoted, but they are really spoken tongue-in-cheek. The speaker has just told us that he had trouble deciding which path to take because both were worn “about the same.” The difference was slight. But he knew he’d look back and try to read more significance into the choice he’d made. In any case it seemed a fitting sight, and a fitting allusion, just at that moment. I’d already passed both “roads” and was looking back, as the poem does.

Thoreau says (in “Walking”) that a person has no business walking if they are preoccupied with their thoughts:

…it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head, and I am not where my body is; I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

I was guilty of this. Yet there was much, still, that I noticed and enjoyed. There is something about knowing that life independent of me is busy all around that sets me free from trying to keep track of everything, and allows me to hear the inner voice. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I stayed out for several hours — almost long enough to grow moss and lichen, like some of the trees.

Winter reveals secrets: nests hidden in summer, wasp nests, holes in the ground no longer covered by long grass.

And tracks. Especially along frozen streams.

Today in this spot we saw what must have been muskrat tracks — small feet with a tail-dragging mark between. They came up over the edge of the bank, meandered in a circle on the grass, then dropped back over the bank. There was a little dirt slide that led right down into one of those slats between sheets of ice and the bank.

These tracks suggest a squirrel and a crow taking a walk together, but probably the crow came later.

I once watched a squirrel carefully bury a nut in our back yard. Just after he left a crow landed, dug it up, and carried it away. I think the crows watch for the squirrels and investigate.

We saw several of these spots today, where crows had landed and dug at something. There were some dried seed pods around, so maybe that’s what they were after.

Mouse trails show up well too. They must hop pretty high to leave such perfect imprints, complete with little tail marks.

Then there are the tracks left by juvenile homo sapiens — my kids, who like to write in the snow with sticks.

Winter crop circles. Or Nazca lines. We humans, unlike all these tough little barefoot animals, have the luxury of boots and can make gratuitous marks in the snow. Maybe next time we can draw something spectacular. Till then it’s the tried and true.

These pictures were actually taken back in December — I just haven’t gotten around to posting them. They capture a beauty unique to winter with its pristine paleness.

The frost seems to emphasize the outlines of things, from grass to dead leaves. And somehow, the reflections seem sharper.

Textures and colors stand out in a way that fails to attract attention in the green busyness of summer.

I know it was December, but what I think of is John Updike’s poem about November extolling “the beauty of the bone.” Winter lasts longer than I’d like where I live, but it does something for me.

We took a windy walk today. Most of the leaves were down, and the wind blew them up into numerous eddies. I wish I could capture wind and whirling leaves in photos, but…

The other factor was the light. I love the brightness of November sun, and it was truly squintworthy today.

The only leaves left are a few brown and red oak leaves, and these golden leaves.

At one point, I stepped off the trail to photograph an evergreen grove — and discovered a deer.

She saw us but kept foraging, close to the ground. Then, she decided to lie down for a midafternoon nap.

Hope she stays in the preserve for deer season. We said goodbye… then I took my tree picture.

We didn’t see many animals, but we had the woods to ourselves and enjoyed the unsettled feeling of the tossing trees and the sound of wind.

Our run of lovely weather seems to have ended for now. It was overcast today, and rain is in the forecast. But yesterday was a different story.

We entered a favorite trail by the boardwalk helpfully marked with a white stripe — but the leaves nearly obscured it altogether.

We walked to the bottom of what’s usually a small waterfall, but it’s been so dry we were able to do something we’ve never done before: we climbed the falls like stairs.

The stream bed made a nice trail and provided lots of opportunity to admire the leaves and reflections.

Acorns and other nuts were falling, and the chipmunks were scurrying everywhere on the steep banks gathering them. They blend in well with the leaves, but once in awhile one held still long enough for a picture.

Other than that, we didn’t see any wildlife, other than a few warblers up too high to identify. I consoled myself as we walked along this stretch of trail by remembering all the animals I’d seen here before…

…brown creepers in early spring, yellow-rumped warblers in fall, black and white warblers and oven birds in summer, deer, salamanders, even a tiny fawn just off to the left a few years ago. It was a joy to have these memories return as we walked the familiar path.

The trail ends at a meadow with a nice view of distant hills.

We weren’t the only ones enjoying the day. There were other people in the woods, all of us with the same idea of how best to appreciate October’s bright blue weather.