A bootless endeavor

The beauty of the winter woods is hard to capture on camera. There are technical difficulties, of course--sun reflecting off snow makes exposures difficult, producing blown highlights and washed-out details. But before you even think about finding the right settings to capture both bright light and deep shadows, first you have to get out there, all bundled up in coat hat scarf gloves boots, except I don't have boots that fit right now so I wore thick socks and the same ratty sneakers I wore on the beach last week. I figured the sneakers would serve as an effective alarm system: when my feet got wet, it would be time to go back inside.

I had to dig deep in the hat-and-glove basket to find the deer-hunting gloves I used to wear when I was a journalist covering cold outdoor events, thick lined gloves with flaps that fold back to allow the fingers freedom to adjust camera settings. Those gloves must be 30 years old and I rarely wear them but when I want to use a camera in the cold, nothing else will do.

I took my walking stick, not just to keep steady in the slippy spots but to probe the depth of the drifts I was wading through. Light, gentle snow has been falling on and off for two days and at any given moment it doesn't look like much of a storm, but over time it covers everything.

When the world looks like a black-and-white photo, every subtle flash of color stands out: rusty brown oak leaves, mottled green and gray sycamore bark, faded beige yucca pods. At the birdfeeders cardinals and bluejays provide a splash of color amidst the crowds of little gray and black birds--titmice and chickadees, woodpeckers and juncos. 

I kept seeing shades of blue-gray in the frozen creek, pink in the sky, purple in the shadows surrounding snow drifts, but the intensity of the white overwhelms all else. It felt pure and clean and sculptural, but it also felt cold, very cold, and my feet got wet and warned me to go back inside, where my photos don't seem to convey the still beauty of the scene so I have to rely on making pictures with words.

Bear's head fungus capped by snow.

Quiet storm

The brouhaha before the storm was far louder than the storm itself, which arrived as fine snow falling silently as we slept. Looks like we got about four or five inches but more is expected throughout the day and the county is under a Level 2 Snow Emergency, which means we should stay off the roads unless it's absolutely necessary, which it isn't so we're staying home.

Lots of folks stayed home from church yesterday to avoid the cold, and the furnace struggled to keep the sanctuary warm. The rest room was toasty, though, so I jokingly suggested moving the service in there, but who wants to sing hymns next to a toilet, a trash can, or a can of Lysol spray?

A few starlings have been visiting our birdfeeders but I hope they don't alert the entire flock. The trailcam showed possums and deer and what might have been a fox but mostly squirrels cavorting in the snow. This is the time of year to watch for eagles along the river, but we didn't see any on our way home from church yesterday and we're not going out today so the eagles will have to wait before earning my applause and appreciation.

I received some unexpected appreciation recently but I don't know what to do with it. A high school teacher confessed that she idolizes me because I had the chance to go to grad school and teach college students, who she imagines must be much more dedicated and passionate learners than her students. I appreciate the support but I suspect that her view of higher education is not entirely accurate. At a time when our entire culture seems to think that what I do can be easily replaced by Artificial Intelligence, it feels odd to be told how lucky I am to teach college students.

Now the sun is rising over the snow-covered hill as juncos and cardinals arrive at the feeders.  Yesterday a Carolina wren kept hopping up to the big picture window as if begging to come inside. I sympathize--baby, it's cold outside! It's all very pretty, but if this is how Ohio welcomes home its weary travelers, I think I'd like to go back to Georgia.

Yes, we still have Christmas lights outside.

Road trip back to winter

And here we are back home again in one piece, if a little tired and ragged around the edges. When did I last wash my hair? Where is the bag where I stashed all my dirty clothes? When was the last time I cooked a meal or cleaned a room? Doesn't matter. We're home.

Just three short days ago we were walking barefoot on the beach picking up shells, watching cargo ships come and go, climbing a lighthouse, eating excellent seafood, and now here we are home and it's winter. We drove through a little snow in the mountains but the more severe weather is still on the way. Early Tuesday we paid one last visit to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge for a little relaxation before spending five hours on I-95; we saw red-shouldered hawks and egrets and herons and many whistling ducks, but today when we got home, we found our birdfeeders damaged by high winds and badly in need of attention. 

I'm glad I have a whole week to make final preparations for spring semester teaching and admin tasks, but my suitcase is calling me and my house wants a good deep cleaning. What's left in the fridge? Enough leftover ham for bean soup? When can I take down the Christmas tree? Oh, here's the pile of books I opened on Christmas morning--which one shall I read first?

Brand-new year, same old chores, plus how am I going to get all the sand out of my car? I guess I'll just have to take one task at a time and keep at it until everything is done, but first I think I'll take just a moment to savor those last few days at the beach.

I love the white flashes on the whistling ducks' wings.

Traffic jam.

Ibises

Gator

Egrets

Kinglet

The little blue heron

Red-shouldered hawk

My husband was obsessed with the container ships

Fresnel lens at the top of the Tybee lighhouse

The view from the top

278 steps up, and 278 steps back down

I love the way the morning sun lights up the waves

 

Misty

Sitting by the shore watching mist make things disappear--big solid things like container ships and islands and long stretches of beach--I feel like the last survivor of a catastrophe or the first person awake at the dawn of creation. The waves roll in, the waves roll out, sand shimmers in the light and then disappears beneath a wall of fog. I hear the waves pounding but can't see them, the ocean suddenly invisible. I've come to watch the water but it hides behind the mist and if I wait a minute longer, I too will disappear. The mist makes everything incorporeal, even me. Perhaps that's why I'm here.

  

Egrets, shmegrets

Yesterday I sent my daughter a text without realizing that Autocorrect had transformed my egrets and ibises to regrets and irises. Regrets? I've had a few.

I regret not packing more turtlenecks because this morning's wind cut right through me. The temperature was in the 50s but gray skies, intermittent drizzle, and sharp wind kept us off the beach and in the car for the first part of the day. We drove through the Wildlife Drive loop at the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, high on my list of favorite places on the planet. The herons, egrets, and waterfowl seem unbothered by the weather, and a massive flock of black-bellied whistling ducks put on a playful show both in and out of the water.

Then we were off to Fort Pulaski, where we visited the monument marking the site where John Wesley first touched American soil. In his journal he mentioned the difficulty of finding a place to shelter from the sharp wind, and we empathized with him on that point. Wesley didn't much care for his time in America, partly because of a disappointment over a woman who did not return his affections, so he went back to England in a sulk and eventually founded Methodism. Regrets? He had a few, but he managed to put them behind him and carry on.

I'm sure the designers of Fort Pulaski regretted their inability to anticipate advances in weaponry. The fort took ten years and a million dollars to build (back when a million dollars meant something), and in 1847 the experts declared the completed fort impregnable. In 1861, Union troops tested new rifled cannons on the fort; thirty hours after the bombardment began, the Confederate troops surrendered. The fort's walls still show ample evidence of that battle. 

By the time we'd finished touring the fort, the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and the wind had lost its edge. From the balcony of our condo I watched black skimmers strolling on the beach as waves rolled in behind them. Tomorrow we expect warmth and sunshine, but even if we don't get perfect beach weather, I don't regret coming to Tybee Island in the middle of winter. If we look hard enough, we can find shelter from the wind and so many beautiful things to see. 

(But no irises. Wrong time of year for irises.)

Little blue heron

Egrets having a bad hair day

Great blue heron

Coots (cute)

Anhinga

Hundreds of black-bellied whistling ducks in the distance

They're very photogenic up close

Little blue heron

The Wesley monument

At Fort Pulaski

Evidence of bombardment

Kestrel, I think

Nest box with bald eagle

Skimmers and waves, the view from our balcony

This is the forest primeval, or not

The last time we visited Congaree National Park (in 2017), there were maybe two or three cars in the parking lot. I'm sure the cold kept people away back then, but today the parking lot was nearly full and we encountered many people and their dogs on the boardwalk trail. Hurricane Helene knocked some trees onto one part of the boardwalk, which prompted the resident woodsman to say, "If only I'd brought my chainsaw, I could help 'em out." But nevertheless we enjoyed a lovely hike through old-growth forest, admiring the silvery shimmer of the cypress trees with their mossy knees that looked like gnomes telling secrets.

Here's a secret I successfully kept from my husband until yesterday: We're spending the next four days on Tybee Island, Georgia, where our condo looks out on the ocean and egrets and ibises welcomed us to the island. It was cold and rainy when we arrived this evening, but cold rain is more bearable with an ocean view. Tonight we'll relax after the stress of the drive down I-95 (AKA America's holiday parking lot--with bonus accidents and crazy drivers!). Tomorrow we begin exploring the island in earnest. Just for the moment, though, I'm happy to be sitting still in a warm room with dunes and waves outside my door. Time to rest and contemplate the calm of trees.