Ice Weaving

Notes from the Forest's Edge January 20 2025

The north facing slope that takes me up to the barn is both squishy and frozen now. A slick crust of compacted ice over a muddy layer of dead grass. I dance between getting my boot dead center in a previously frozen print and wildly veering off the frozen trail to aim for a thawed spot with more grip. Its an odd path a weave.

Entering the field I cross a super highway of other tracks criss-crossing through the frozen mush. This highway forms the path of least resistance from the barn to the creek, carrying thirsty four-leggeds to the cool, ever-flowing nourishment from the mountain’s depths.

Pausing to look at all those who walked here, I see the big round saucer feet of the horse, her weight squeezing through the snow into the brown soil. The goats' two-toed pattern tends to stay atop the snow, compacting it to a translucent window onto the ground below. Five-toed dog paws spread out across it all as they bounce around between the larger ones. The cats barely break the surface, gliding along before disappearing up a locust post into the hay loft. By the creek I see the three-toed prints of squirrel just touching down before they too launch back into the trees for a better vantage point.

I trudge slowly back from the creek with a bucket of cold water, careful not to spill it down my boot again. I wonder how many have walked this path in the 100 or so years since our land ancestors built this barn. Countless hooves, toes, paws and boots taking care of the basic necessities of life. And before that? The wild ones who followed the contour of the land to this natural dip in the creek where the water pools, deer, elk, rabbit, fox, bear, snake? Who was here? What tracks did they leave?

A crow caws from the trees lining the banks, drawing my attention to the sky. What about all those that fly here, back and forth from forest to field? Hawk, vulture, cardinal, snowbirds, crow, so many criss-crossing the terrestrial tracks adding another layer of complexity to where my boots slip and slide.

Below, a whole other world of unfathomable, subterranean tunnels woven by those that creep, crawl and burrow. A web of journeys for food, water, shelter, and light, felted into the soil around the roots of the plants hunkered down for winter.

I see a multi-layered tapestry of inter-species movement stretched out across time. All of it here with each boot fall. My tracks now lost in the cacophony of life in which I am embedded. My delivery of water to the sheep in the barn swirls amongst the actions of my ancestors, the drive to quench our thirsts, the need to move.

It feels insignificant yet profoundly important. A simple way to support life, to participate in the great turning of the wheel, to add my tracks to the great tapestry.

How are you weaving yourself into the world toady, dear one?

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Notes from the Forest Edge is a bi-monthly exploration of the liminal space between human and forest consciousness, rooted in a small forest farm in the Southern Appalachian mountains.