Sunshine tease,
Even warmer than predicted
A quick after work escape to search for signs of spring
Category Archives: St Louis region
Columbia Bottom Conservation Area
The trail is rugged and often dissolved. Frozen in time by flooding in 2019 and Covid in 2020. Muddy from the recent snowmelt, it’s sometimes hard to navigate even where it’s still open. But the sun is out, and the breeze is only slightly cool, and the river tumbles the final chunks of ice to their southern doom.
We stumble on a back trail cove that looks like a science fiction movie set. A barren eerie landscape huddles in mysterious post- apocalyptic webbing. This would be the scene were the idiot stars walked casually in and were eaten by whatever sprang from beneath the shrouded brush. So, of course, we did the same.
Creve Coeur Lake
It’s feels almost like spring after so many shockingly cold days. Fourteen, I think they said, days below freezing. That’s not something that happens around here much. The snow is almost gone, but the waterfall and lake are solid ice, plant life captured in their grasp.
Sunset Park
Thick, soft, cornmeal mush of snow
Gliding ice pack remnants,
Bird song,
Barely hushed,
By muffled traffic hum
Hickory Woods
Frosty morning, Covid style snow day. No in-person classes today, but I’ll be back online in an hour or so. There’s time for a quick walk. I’m not sure when I leave just how quick it will be, expecting I may want to turn back before the end of the road.
It’s cold, and still spitting a little, but it doesn’t feel that bad. I’m well bundled and the sidewalk is snowy enough not to be too slick.
I last about an hour in a peaceful blur, my glasses much too fogged over to wear.
Wild Acres Park
I left my computer at school today, and my ipad, and attendance book, and class journal.
First day back and I’m already done?
Not really. It was a pretty good day overall. The new kids seem nice. The ones just returning from full time virtual adjusted agreeably to all the new covid restrictions.
There hasn’t been a day since we went back in October, that I haven’t hauled the whole pile home every day, just in case there was any reason I couldn’t get back.
But the sun is shining, my room is set up, there’s nothing to grade yet, and it’s supposed to rain for the rest of the week.
I didn’t even recognize the name of the park, I just punched in a search for something nearby. Once I pulled in, I realized I had been here before, watching my nephews fish.
Only slightly off a busy road, it’s not really quiet. By my second pass on the trail that winds around the pond, though, the traffic had faded to a background muffle and birdsong has drifted in.
Wintery Reflections
It’s not really quite winter, of course.
It’s not even all that cold.
But the sun is edging toward the horizon
In what feels like it ought to be mid-afternoon.
The trees are stark and skeletal along the river and over-flow ponds
A well packed new trail now winds through the woods,
Where the paved one, once again, tumbled off into the river in the rush of the early spring floods.
Hickory Woods
Dusky jungle
Thickly muggy from afternoon showers
Locusts and fireflies and evening birdsong
Calling and flitting within the thickets
Leaves, enormous now,
Swaying over the the trail
Muffling the traffic that struggles to regain its dominance
While the sun sinks beneath the glowing horizon
Rainy Day Deck
They finally gave up. The birds have spent their days this spring and early summer darting in to snatch a mouthful of seed, angrily scolding the squirrels who hang from their feeder, and dodging my every attempt to capture them with my camera.
They mocked my efforts for a while, darting in and out through the rain, landing briefly, then flitting off when I slowly lifted my camera.
At last,
They tired of the game,
or maybe the rain,
And decided I was best ignored.
Babler State Park
The meteorologist promised a clear pleasant morning, with storms moving in through the late afternoon. So we set out early, somewhat suspiciously eyeing the thick clouds overhead.
The meteorologist needs a window. I don’t care what the radar shows, this most definitely qualifies as rain.
I’ll accept pleasant though.
The trail is damp, and occasionally thickly muddy, but never impassible
The rain subsides to gentle drizzles and cool the muggy air.
The dense old-growth Virginia May trail is suggested for bird watching. There were none in sight today, but dozens sang and called from the thick tree tops as we walked.
The skies cleared as we left the trail
Hikers and picnicker drifted in
And the wildlife probably wished we all go
Rambling ... 