Stairway to Nowhere/Dancing Trees/Meow Said Jensen

It was a fine spring day, and so we took our bikes and daysacks and my Tiger and headed for the Scotia Barrens, via Tow Hill. We packed a couple of cheese sandwiches for our lunch and made a day of it, leaving the house around 10:30 and not arriving back home until around 4. That's a Big Walk.

All told, we hiked and biked about five miles, but we spent most of our time sitting in the middle of the woods on the stairs you see above! I believe the stairs are somebody's version of a hunting platform, and it is more comfortable than you might think to sit there. We stayed there long enough to listen to the entire (might I say fabulous) U2 album, Rattle and Hum. Wow, what a treat!

As we were sitting there talking, we said some silly stuff, and I went to grab a pen, as I am wont to do, and write it all down. Yes, I write down some of our better quotes for posterity. But I could not find a pen for the life of me! Went through the daysack. No pen. Went through the camera bag. No pen! MY KINGDOM FOR A PEN!!!

I did, however, discover that I had a good, sharp knife in my daysack, and a tiny multi-tool thingy in my camera bag that had good, sharp edges, too. "If somebody comes by, you could attack them and steal THEIR pen," my husband suggested, helpfully.

But I told him the solution would be to cut my own self, and use my own blood for ink. "If it's not worth drawing blood for, it's not worth writing down," I said. (This is my new gold standard for economy of phrase, by the way. Also: if it bleeds, it leads!) But thankfully, it did not come to this, and so I put my knives away.

As an accessibility person in a prior life, however, my brain went straight to "Multiple means." I did think later that if there were something I wanted to WRITE, I could simply make a movie with my camera of my voice SPEAKING it. So there's that, for the desperate, before you turn to sharpening knives and opening up your own veins to tell your story. Ahem.

The big news from the Barrens, besides the fact that there are no PENS there, is that the vernal pools are open for business! Bigtime! Every little pond has water, and fine reflections, and is chock full of eggs of all sizes and kinds. There is a favorite pond I think of as the Pond of the Dancing Trees, and you may see it in the extras. (At night, do the trees begin to move and twist and sway?)

My only regret of the day is that I missed the shot of the 12 turtles, all lined up, basking on one of the lower beaver ponds. I was not nearly quiet enough or stealthy enough to sneak up on them, but I did get a shot of a few of them. Next time, 12-turtles! Next time!

We were finishing up our hike, and were heading out of the gameland to go home, when a large white dog came bounding toward us. A very friendly poochie. Sniff-sniff, lick-lick. It was very playful, and tried to drag a stick away to play with. Back again, more sniffs! Very affable poochie.

I turned and saw a woman walking behind the big white dog. And I looked AGAIN, for it seemed like there was a small orange shape lagging along behind her. "Is that your CAT, coming along for a hike?" I asked, incredulous. "That's Jensen," she said with a head-nod toward the cat. "He comes along if he feels like it."

We all turned and looked at the orange tabbycat as he padded by. "Come along, Jensen!" the lady said. "Meow!" said Jensen. He sniffed around the parking lot for a second, and then followed the lady and the big white dog at a swift trot into the woods, paws as fast as lightning! (You may see Jensen and his family in the extras.)

Now, THAT was a FINE, fine day! It is my tradition to include a soundtrack song or two, and since I have THREE photos, we're really going to give it a whirl! First, let me give you U2's Rattle and Hum, the whole thing, via a YouTube linky (that I hope they have not blocked in your country). For it is one of the finest albums I know of. Anytime. Anywhere.

I absolutely MUST pull out this one song, though, and dedicate it to the big guy sitting right beside me on that Stairway to Nowhere, my husband, my best friend, backwoods companion, and fellow music lover: All I Want Is You.

And finally, here is a song for dear Jensen, a cat who clearly does as he pleases, and who has captured our imaginations and made us laugh out loud. "Jensen lacks commitment," I said to my husband, as Jensen lagged behind. But then he really showed us, making up for lost time, with those lightning-fast paws! Go, Jensen, go! Here are the Stray Cats, with the Stray Cat Strut! Rock on, Jensen!