Spruce Cones

Long November walks in shoes are impossible to resist. A long stride and light step is the finest way to travel. While in the forest I sometimes twist my long brown hair around a bough of balsam fir to scent it. It makes me smell like a Christmas tree. The tree in the photograph is a cone-barnacled spruce I met on Friday's adventures.

Beaver Down Pond Road

Walking on the left side, facing traffic, as all pedestrians should when there are no sidewalks. There is a second beaver not in this picture, off to my right in a thicket of Joe-Pye-weed. When I politely requested "the nickel-pose," the beaver snorted.