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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #37, November, 1997
Lets be glad for the space that's left

Cheerily, the first chunks of cherry are blazing in the stove, bringing it to life and radiating comfort while the oatmeal is cooking. Outside, the remaining clouds of yesterday’s nor’easter skoot past, creating a lattice through which spotlights of sunlight are focused. Above me, and against those gray clouds, a sea gull rises from its night of rest on the lake. The sun catches the bird doing pre-breakfast aerobics and accents its underside to refrigerator whiteness.

Back down at ground level, the summer crowd has headed south - birds and people alike. The crew of 48 migrant workers, alias cedar waxwings, has finished picking the small crabapples and moved on. The cadmium red berries of the black alder or winterberry that colored the wetlands two weeks ago have become birdfood just about the time we’d like some to grace a holiday bouquet or wreath. Even the golden needles of the larch, the only conifer to shed its needles, have become history.

Three nor’easters (Saturdays) ago I saw an excellent presentation by the Forest Society on "Good Forestry in the Granite State". In the multi-projector program the speaker included scenes of a snowy woodlot. I was caught off guard. Surprised to see snow that I hadn’t thought about up to that point, I was ready to go for the skis then and there. Premature? A little, but without waiting for the white stuff, the ACC, and in a related effort, the Amherst Land Trust work all year round to expand and improve the opportunities for X-C skiers here in town. (I have to mention the sponsor.)

So, some of us tolerate winter - the jays, nuthatches and chickadees and some really enjoy the white artistry and recreation - the otter and we X-C folks. But for those who only see winter as a cold purgatory to be stoically traversed to get to spring, take comfort. Look around you at the signs of next year’s life. The buds are already forming on the peach trees and rhododendrons. Pussy willows are sitting there waiting to explode. Birds that used to be the harbingers of spring; including, robins, cardinals and titmice, seem to have adapted to cold feet and stay around.

We seem to spend a good bit of the year bemoaning what seems to have been lost from the community and natural environment. This week, at least, let’s be glad for the space that’s left, for the landowners who protect and nurture their lands, for the wildlife that share their space with us, for the ever-changing wonder of the natural world…for our Quality of Life.

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go;
The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal snow,
Hath sent the hoary frost of heaven, the flowing waters sealed,
And laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field. —Frances W. Wile

For the holidays, give each member of your family a natural history book such as Mother West Wind, Make way for Ducklings, a Peterson guide, Roadside Geology of NH and VT, or Portrait of A Living Marsh and enjoy it with them.

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