1Jan2009

Gun hunting season during much of December has put a damper on my enthusiasm to be out in the wilds of Spruce Hill. I had wanted to do a public, winter solstice day hike that would encompass the entire hilltop trail, the two neighboring hilltop fields to the south, my orchard, across Baum Hill Road and encircle my 165 acre parcel--amounting to a 4-5 hour public hike, but that did not materialize. Even with the landowners' permission, the concern over it being gun-hunting season was enough to set aside that idea.

But what a joyous way to start the new year! So when the first of the year wheeled around, I thought it a great opportunity to finally check out the route. We started before sunrise on January 1st, at 18 degrees F, circled our property, and crossed Baum Hill Road by 830am, where we got our first glimpse of the sun's warming rays and the resident pileated woodpecker. Traversing the orchard and the two hilltop farm fields that abut Spruce Hill on the south end, we crossed onto preserve property at the southeast corner by 930. Within the next hour, we had ringed the Spruce hilltop and were back at the southwest corner of the isthmus and home by 11. This hike basically takes you from one end of the Spruce Hill Ridge complex to the other, crossing four individual parcels that total almost 1,000 acres and stretching south from Paint Creek at Bourneville towards Camelin Hill at the other end.

I couldn't help but notice that our 4W invaders have definitely been inconvenienced by the huge stack of trees and branches that our friendly and sympathetic neighbors have piled at the northeast corner of their farm fields--where a major 4W crossing brings the riders from the preserve property at the isthmus onto the farmers' field. This popular thoroughfare is now completely blocked to motorized traffic. We will have to wait and see how the 4W enthusiasts handle this new obstacle course.

As I hiked across the orchard near the pond dam, I witnessed what I thought initially was a tropical paradise magically transported atop Baum Hill. Spots of bright red and bright blue, punctuated with bright white and dark gray flashes immediately caught my eye. What could it be? I threw up my binoculars and there it was---eight to ten male northern cardinals, a dozen eastern bluebirds, pairs and pairs of juncos on the southeastern face of the earthen dam---all enjoying the first rays of the rising sun, clustered in an area perhaps ten by thirty feet, warming themselves and enjoying a morning sip, where there was plenty of vegetative cover that broke the icy surface and created tiny unfrozen pools. It was one of those moments that can only be witnessed by being out in the wilds at just the right time---what a perfectly lovely, visual treat on that gray and frozen landscape.