Walking in the Woods

Posted Fri Aug 23, 2002 in

When I lived in Missouri, I loved to walk in the woods. Sometimes I was hunting. Many times I would carry a rifle or shotgun, but never fire it even when game was present. Sometimes I would just walk out into the woods and sit, unarmed, with my back against an old white oak, watching and listening to the sounds of the woods.

Those were reflective times. When sitting, I would rock my head back against the tree to close my eyes and just listen to the living earth. I could hear the sounds of the wind in the trees. In winter, there were no leaves and the wind would whistle about the branches and twigs that make up the skeletons of the deciduous timber. That is a lonely, haunting sound. After leafout, the trees’ leaves would flutter and shake. In the fall, as the leaves dried, they rattled against one another, a cold sound and a sign of impending winter. Some trees would have a limb that rubbed against its neighbor, which the wind would set to creaking softly in a low-pitched voice. Because everything has a natural rhythm, the creaking would repeat itself, providing a heartbeat of sorts.

The calls of bluejays and woodpeckers punctuated the sound of the woods, the jays’ raucous cawing a contrast to the staccato hammering and soft voicing of the woodpeckers. Crows rarely came close, their crafty eyes warning them of my presence. But I could hear their voices in the distance, calling warnings and encouragement to one another. Cardinals (red birds) might flit from tree to tree, their voices different than the others and the bright red plumage of the males a beautiful sight against the starkness of the woods.

Squirrels, when present, could be heard either jumping from tree to tree or bouncing in their hopping gait on the ground. When in the trees, their weight would pull branches and the swishing of the leaves was distinctly different from the normal sounds of the trees moving in the breeze. When hunting, this was always a tip off for me. Other times, I would smile to myself, just enjoying their presence. If they came upon me, they would stop and look, turning their heads from side to side, tails twitching in that squirrely way. When on the ground, their jumping gait sounded much like the footsteps of a person, coming in bursts of four or five hops.

Gray squirrels are distinctly different from fox squirrels. The smaller grays always seemed more nervous to me. They twitched constantly and rarely sat still for more than a few seconds. They were almost always more active just at dawn and dusk. Fox squirrels are more laid back. They were often found sunning themselves on top of a branch. Their red-highlighted fur and big bushy tail would shine in the sunlight.

But, that reflection wasn’t the real purpose of my story. I was sidetracked in my recollection of a particular walk in the woods that occurred one fall, late in the afternoon. I was walking along the bluff on my in-laws’ property. It was an old familiar path, one I had walked many times both with my father-in-law, and alone when hunting. This particular afternoon I wasn’t hunting, just enjoying walking in the woods, quiet in myself, stepping softly with a hunter’s gait, listening and watching and trying to make myself as invisible as possible.

It was cool enough to put my hands in my pockets, but not cold. The leaves were still on the trees. The air was still in the evening and the sun was setting in the west. The woods were alive with the busy-ness of life, birds flitting and calling, squirrels working to prepare for the winter. I could hear the creek burbling off in the distance and the barking of farm dogs on the next ridge line. The leaves, when I stepped on them, crackled under my feet.

I stepped through the barbed-wire right-of-way fence onto the county road. To my left a couple hundred yards away was the low-water crossing of Dry Fork Creek. To my right, the road sloped steeply up the valley wall to the fields of the farms on the ridge. I stepped across the road, silently, my boots crunching the creek-run gravel surfacing.

As I came to the far side of the road, there, on the shoulder, were three baby raccoons. Each could have been held in my doubly-cupped hands. I stood over them, towering relative to their small size. They looked up at me, their sharp eyes studying my intentions. Then, suddenly, all three opened their mouths and hissed at me once, in unison, warning me that they were prepared to defend themselves.

My head went back and I laughed out loud, startled but not threatened. Still chuckling, I looked down at them and said “What can you do to me? I’m not afraid of you!” out loud. I stood there watching to see if they would run, but they held their ground. They were so small, but so feisty and cute.

After the interchange, my situational awareness returned to me, my focus shifting from the baby animals to my surroundings. I decided I might want to keep an eye open for mama raccoon as I would not want to be tackled from behind by 25 pounds of defensive mother. With that thought, I said goodbye to my small friends, stepped over them, then the ditch, and worked my way up the cutbank to the other right-of-way fence. I stepped through the fence, glanced back one last time at the baby raccoons, and continued my walk through the woods.

The rest of the walk was uneventful, a continuation of the time before spent listening and watching the woods and the life they contain. I was, however, still musing over my chance encounter with three little bandits who refused to be intimidated by a creature 100 times their size. Moreover, I’m still musing over that encounter today, nearly 20 years later. I believe that God put them there at that point in time for my amusement and I thank Him for that.