Watching the Woods Awake

Yesterday there was rain all morning but a lovely afternoon, although a bit chillier than I wanted for a walk on the beach.  So I went to Hathaway's Pond and took my camera.  Few people were around, a kayaker, a fisherman who had caught an 8 or 9 inch fish, a woman with her beautiful Irish setter. Peacefully quiet as I expected. 

I watched for signs that spring was returning to this wooded area that still clearly showed the difficult winter that we had -- trees down, limbs broken, long young trees leaning into their neighbor's arms.   The first picture seems to me to have caught some of what I hoped to see.  A weathered older tree -- not very big around but obviously visited with invaders and weather worn, with new shoots in bright green, deepening from the yellow awaiting more clorophyl.

Then I noticed the dead fir tree beside the pond, it will never be green again, but the lichen (if that's what it is) has seemed to frost the limbs with white.  They are still a graceful vision against the clean blue of the pond. The breeze that lightly rippled the water was not strong enough to reach inside the  woods where I walked. The pond, perhaps, is reflecting some of the intense blue of the sky that had appeared after the mornings rain clouds swept away. 

Since it was afternoon the birds were almost all quiet. In fact the whole wooded trail was quiet, dappled with sun through the still sparse leaves. The road not far away was lightly trafficed so I heard almost no motor sounds.  

A lovely reflective walk, less than an hour even though I walked slowly and stopped now and then to look at how the trail and it's offshoot trails looked inviting and serene on such a quiet day.