A Living Magazine - Day 337 - Homecoming - Greenfield to Bernardston

In the morning we had delicious almond flour pancakes that Melinda made. I think she cooked up and egg for me too. After breakfast she showed me early 1900's pictures of her family and their campsite in Boothbay Harbor. 

I kept hemming and hawing about when I should leave. With each person I've visited in the last few months I've been more and more reluctant to leave. And, with Melinda, I'd felt so comfortable. Staying just felt natural. But, I couldn't. There was still quite a bit of walking yet to do.

When late afternoon came, I ate an enormous lunch. We still had some Chinese food left, and I had some hot dogs that I knew Melinda would never eat. I ate as many as I could and then tossed the extras (something I never do--I hate wasting food).

It was also a bit later than I'd planned to leave; almost sunset. But, I was finally packed up and ready to go. We had a nice long hug, and she took this shot, before I walked down the street toward Vermont...

Fattened up for the Journey.

The plan was to walk north up Route 5 as far as I could, and look for a sleep spot somewhere around Bernardston. I figured I could do about five miles until the traffic got too dangerous along the slim shoulder...

Neat little stone house.

The Farm Table. We'd driven around the parking lot on our way

back from Brattleboro a few nights earlier.

It was quite a walk. For some reason I can go farther at night, or it doesn't seem like it takes as long.
I didn't discover until the next morning that I'd actually gone eight miles. I was looking for a spot that I'd seen on Google Earth. Of course I couldn't really see a damn thing at night, but guestimated that I'd come near it when I saw a place on the left with a field on the right, spaced just enough between two houses as to not be visible. I went into the woods, deciding it was as good as any other place.

And, it wasn't bad. There was a mixture of pine needles and leaves. I found a level spot and cleared it of sticks. The spot itself was very close to the road, but obscured by a large boulder and a stand of small pine trees. It was due to rain the next day, but I decided not to deck out the tent for it, betting it wouldn't come earlier.

The forest was cool and dark enough that were no mosquitoes. I climbed into the tent. It was so nice to have clean clothes and a clean sleeping bag. The zipper on the bag had come apart several camp spots earlier. And, now I was just sleeping with it open on the side. There was no problem since the risk of temperatures going below about 40 degrees was long over. I also remembered that I had a new light from Melinda, and it worked wonderfully...

Survival Frog Air Lantern. It inflates, with mirrored surfaces on top and bottom, a series

of LED's on top and a little solar panel to charge it. The plastic around it helps spread the light.

Traffic lightened up significantly on Route 5. Mostly what I heard was the hum of I-91 in the distance. The peepers were really cranking out the tunes. Interesting to note that my spring has lasted from early March (well before the first calendar day of spring). I'd been hearing peepers for a solid three months. I learned way back in Durham, North Carolina, at my sleep spot there, all about the behavior of peepers. A lot can be gleaned when you spend so much time listening and observing one thing.

First, if there are an enormous amount of these little (less than an inch long) "chorus" frogs (Pseudacris crucifer), there will often be two tones heard, in waves that rise and fall in volume. And they don't sound like peeps. They sound like a high pitched wind, like a distant jet engine firing up. In Durham this was over-the-top extraordinary. The first tone - let's say the higher one - will sound for a good 10-15 seconds. Then it will die out, and the second (lower) tone will climb and fall for the same amount of time, beginning the cycle over again. 

I was fortunate enough to be about three acres away from this insane din, when in Durham. Had I been down the hill and closer to the marsh where these horny creatures were singing, I think I would have been driven mad. Something to think about before building or buying a house near a swamp.

Secondly, peepers will temporarily stop singing whenever something large enters the scene. In Durham, it was a small family of deer. They were foraging at the bottom of the hill and then ambled straight out into the marsh land. Immediately the peepers ceased for a good five minutes. They started up again, presumably after the deer had moved on--or maybe they got used to their presence. This is an excellent early warning system, by the way. If you're camping and the peepers suddenly stop, you will know for SURE that something larger than a rabbit is around. There is no other reason why they would stop.

Also, pause to consider that the mating commotion you hear are only the males of this species, singing to attract a mate. So, if you hear a million of these tiny amphibians, there are another million silently being sought after. The singer's at my Bernardston sleep spot were calming, rather than irritating. 

It was interesting to think that these were the first days New England was being graced by the peepers. I had the distinct feeling that I'd towed the spring up from the South with me like a long flowing, green cape--melting the frost, pulling the leaves out of their buds, lengthening the days, and waking up the peepers. I smiled. It was nice to have this kind of profound power, even if only in my imagination.