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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer – February 26, 2003 |
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The land is snow covered, quiet, uninterrupted by human activity; a sense of waiting hangs in the cool, gray, quiet, late February air. Woodlands that boarder the fields have been abandoned of such activities as firewood cutting, logs being hauled out for lumber, deer and small game hunting, cross country skiing, the odd hiker that may pass through. Brandycreek, meandering its way through these woods, is still held in the frozen clutches of winter that have not released its hold for many weeks. The now off-white blanket of snow has settled some over the past few days, under sun filled skies, with daytime temperatures slightly above freezing.
High among the barren branches of a large oak, within the brush filled fence line to the West, can be heard the bleak caw caw of a solitary crow. That very black bird against a colorless sky, its ageless call that seems to have always come from that direction and all points of the compass at this time of year, forewarns of the change in season lurking just beyond the horizon.
The quiet of winter will not last much longer. Sap rising in the maples will soon bring the sugar maker to the grove that surrounds the sugar shack not yet unshuttered since last seasons work. The snow will soon burn off in circles around the bases of those large silvery barked trees waiting and reaching for the warmth of spring. The air is changing, the waiting almost over, a new season is just around the corner. |
