The Sound of Winter Woods (ST#7)

Growing up in a reasonably heavily forested part of the country, my only playground was the woods that surrounded our home.    Oh, we could go up to the white school and play on the swing set that the men of town built in the late 1940's, and of course we could go fishing in Blood's Brook across the road from our house, but my most frequently used playground was the fifty-acre (or so) patch of woods that was bordered by a combination of several roads that were known collectively at The Mile Square, although it surely measured more that a mile and for sure wasn't square.


My friend Raymie and I fought off Indians and other foes in those woods, wearing our cap guns low to ensure a quick draw.  We'd load them with long red coils of caps with the little black dot where the gunpowder waited for the hammer to fall.  The smell of that little bit of gunpowder is indelibly imprinted in my mind.  Sometimes, we'd put a whole roll of caps on a flat rock and smash it with a hammer to get a real explosion.


We built a small hut where we'd go to plan our future and cook beans and hot dogs over a Sterno burner.  We'd climb up an enormous pine that had been partially felled during a storm years earlier, but still grew at about a 30° angle, held up but other trees and it's own crown.  We'd snipe at cars on the road below by firing our cap guns from a ridgeline protected by the cover of tall pines.  The pine needles were thick on the ground and little other growth emerged through that dense cover, so the ground was soft and quiet.  You could move furtively, something virtually impossible just a few yards away where the leaves from hardwoods made a rustling noise when you walked.


From time to time, we'd raise a partridge, which would surprise us with it's violent blast of wings and following swoosh and be gone before you turned.  Sometimes in the spring you'd hear the males thumping their wings on the ground or, if convenient, on fallen logs.  Purists are going to say the bird we had was really a ruffed grouse, which we all knew, but they were called partridges, most frequently with the first "r" remaining silent in that unique accent of northern New England.


The woods were full of blue jays with their raucous shriek,  crows that cawed over the canopy of tall trees, little peeping and trilling birds, red squirrels and chipmunks, yapping foxes and occasional deer.  


A few years ago, I mentioned the sounds of snow falling to my Georgia family.  They scoffed at me in that way people who don't know try to pretend that they really do know.  I was a bit amazed at their lack of knowledge in the subject.  It snows in Georgia now and again, and should they just go outside during such an event, they'd know what I meant, but like a lot of southerners, particularly those in the deep south, they usually stay inside like they're told to do on television.  But, indeed there are sounds when snow falls.  That really cold, dry snow that skiers like so much falls with a muffling silence that seems to absorb all other sounds.  The heavy, wet snow that kids like so they can roll snowmen and have snowball fights falls with a heavy whisper, and sleet comes down with a rattle.  When the wind blows and it snows, you can almost hear every individual flake as they pass your ears.  I shall one day take my bride to New Hampshire in the dead of winter so she can hear snow fall.


The most notable sounds weren't sounds at all, but the absence of sounds.  On days after a snowfall, you could strap on your skis and wander over fields and meadows.  One of my favorite places to go was in the meadows above the Chellis place before Bob and Rachel built their home.  I've been up there on cross country skis all by myself and the steady swish-swish of the skis through new snow, when upon stopping, the silence would almost be deafening in its totality.  No birds, no cars, no planes passing overhead, no people talking.  No noise.  


One winter I was in Meriden and went out on such a jaunt.  It was an extremely pleasant time, swoosh-swooshing along, then stopping to listen to the silence, then on  a bit further, stopping, movng on.   About an hour into my my journey, I stopped and the silence failed.  Somewhere below me, a modern day pioneer on a snarling snowmobile was racing up the very trail that I had crossed just a few moments earlier.   We didn't meet that winter day, although his presence was obvious the remainder of the time I was out.  


What reminded me of the sounds of a New Hampshire winter in the middle of a Georgia heatwave?  We had a rather violent but real brief windstorm last evening, so this morning I went out to see if we'd sustained any damage to trees, house or barn. All is good, but somewhere across the lake, the whiny growl of a chainsaw on an early Sunday morning may indicate someone was not so lucky. I hope there were no injuries or damage, but the sound of that chainsaw brought back the memory.