It is always interesting when going through the old photos of my grandparents and seeing the history of years past. It would be nice if this winter picture was in the past but the winter season has just started and spring is months away.
Today is ‘Giving Tuesday’, a daylong national event designed to help charities raise money online and encourage volunteerism following the Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I am definitely willing to give or volunteer my snow to anyone that wants it!
While shoveling snow this morning, I dreaming of a nice warm day at the pond, listening to the frogs and watching the dragonflies buzzing around, instead of seeing the falling snow.
Today might be the last Sunday above freezing for a walk in the woods without the ground being covered in snow until springtime, but with deer hunting still going on, it might not be too safe for a walk without wearing orange.
But if you did adventure out in the woods around here, you might spot some bright green leaves looking totally out of place with the rest of the autumn decor. The Hepatica is first wildflower to appear in my woods in the spring, where the blossoms comes up on its own stem and the leaves do not appear until after the flower petals have dropped. And while they are first wildflower in the spring, the Hepatica seems to be the last one giving green color to the forest floor.
With the help of an Native American, Squanto, the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful and in November 1621, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.
Once the grandeur of the autumn’s color display is over and before the white coat of winter sets in, there is period of starkness; bare trees, lack of colorful wildflowers and a landscape brown instead of green.
The pleasant farm scene is just a memory until next year as the corn is harvested, the trees are bare and landscape is turning brown soon to be covered in white.
No rush hour commute for this boat to make it to work on a Monday morning as “The Eagle” has been retired for a while even though it can see Lake Superior were the fishing boat worked for many years. I haven’t found when it was built but it operated out of Bayfield, WI until 1947 and after a short retirement, it continued working until 1972. The boat is presently sitting ashore at in a village park at Cornucopia, Wisconsin looking over Siskiwit Bay on Lake Superior.