What another perfect weather day for some coffee accompanied solitude in the forest. Last night, the temperature dropped to 25°. Then, this afternoon, it rose to the mid-40s, which was a stellar companion for the clear blue skies we experienced. I noticed these clear skies just after Laura and I moved to Maine in November of 2013. I grew up on the east coast and for most of my life, I thought nearly all of the northern portion of the coast saw fairly similar weather. I also thought that the farther north one travels, the more cloudy it would be – especially during the winter months. Apparently, that’s not so. We see quite a few blue sky days all winter long, especially during the morning hours. The skies over Maine do have a propensity for clouding up during the afternoon, but for those few splendid hours after the sun rises, well, we enjoy them very much.
When the weather gets cooler, the chickadees begin following us around the trails, begging for food. They’ll chirp and squeak and flutter around, all to get our attention. It’s not our attention they actually want – it’s what Laura’s got in her pocket, which is a small container of bird seed. The birds seem to know what she’s hidden on her person and they hassle her until she stops walking and feeds them for as long as they desire. This may actually be part of the reason it takes us so long to make it through the trails. Stopping for 10 minutes every five minutes can’t exactly be considered productive.
We actually don’t see these birds very often during the spring and summer months. They eat from our feeders, but oddly enough, it’s almost as if they don’t want to know either one of us. I guess aloof would describe them best during these times. They’re courting each other and mating and building nests, so I’ll give them a break, but it’s sort of upsetting to watch friends we’ve been so close to at one point totally ignore us during another. Come October, November, and the rest though, oh yeah, they want to be friends again. Beggars they are.
We’ll continue meandering through the woods for as long as we can, feeding the birds, until the snow comes. We don’t know when that’ll happen – it could be tonight or it could be the middle of January. One never knows in Maine. The weather is very unpredictable, but we’ll do our best to enjoy ourselves.
