Indiana Roadsides

by
Jean Hughes
April 10, 1995

It is evening, and I am at the supper table. Two chickadees are at the window feeder that is only two feet from me. They are singing none of their usual songs. They chirp and gurgle to each other. I wonder what they are saying. Is she opting for a bigger house, and he mumbling in his beard? Or am I hearing, but not understanding, the poetry of chickadee love--a chickadee sonnet?

* * * As I walk down my road, I watch a long, low row of clouds, that are dipped in setting sunlight, spread gold across the darkening western sky. The hot-orange sun burns down to glowing embers and sprays clouds in the southern sky with pink ember-dust.

It is the month of the Frog Moon. Frog songs ring through the April-windy night. In dusky light, the tree tops sway to pantomime the music. I lie down in the field to enjoy the moonlight and the frog melodies.

This pudding is refreshing, especially following a Mexican meal or a barbecue.

Lemon Sponge Pudding

Beat: 2 egg yolks.
Add: Juice and grated rind of 1 small lemon.
Mix in: 2/3 cup sugar, 4 t. flour and 2/3 cup milk.
Beat until stiff, and fold in: 2 egg whites.
Gently, pour the pudding into 4 small glass baking cups.
Fill a 9 inch square cake pan with 1 inch of hot water.
Set cups in water and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
Serve warm, dusted with confectioners sugar.

* * * Wild geese call me out of bed this morning. Their honking sounds as if it is right above my house--which it is! The birds are flying just above my dooryard tree tops. What a beautiful racket! Stretching their long necks toward the north, and filling the air with their loud calls, they travel to their rendezvous with spring.

As the echoes of their calling fades, I hear the concert of a cardinal and a robin. The sweet, two-note song of a Carolina chickadee adds to the melody. A field sparrow spins its notes into the music. Crows, calling directions, add staccato notes. High up in the blue, a buzzard circles silently. This bird, my favorite flier, needs no sound. Its graceful flight is its rhapsody.

This afternoon I pull through a multiflora rose hedge at the woods' edge and step into a spectacular garden of violets. I sit down and soak in violet blossoms.

Time stops for me. I don't know how long I could sit here. Forever, I think. But today, I am pulled to the creek and the swamp-marigold bog. Along the way, I find salt and peppers, and hillsides covered with thousands of small bouquets of hepaticas in every shade of pink and purple, and of pure white.

Near the bog, I listen to the creek water working at its never-ending job of smoothing rocks. This is rock music! My kind of rock music.

* * * Today, as I walk through the woods, I stoop to run my fingers over the leathery velvet of one of the millions of striped fungi that grow on fallen logs. This one is a soft gray, with maroon and gold stripes. It is shaped like a tiny fan. It clings, along with hundreds like it, to an old tree stump.

Mosses, ferns and fungi of every shape and color grow on rotting sticks that lie all around my feet. Ah! There are two of my favorites--red cups. My nose almost touches them, as I lean close to the earth to revel in their beauty.

I like to feel close to the flowers. Often, I walk along seeing nothing. But wherever I stop and drop to my knees, I usually find a whole garden of beauty right before my eyes.

Several times every day, I walk my hills and roadsides. There is a wild stirring in me that cannot be denied. The hills give me a wildflower heart, and lying in a field, with buzzards circling over me, I feel I am up there, too.

This is true freedom. It is available to all who are willing to spend their time out-of-doors, pursuing the wildlings and haunting the wild places. And it's free!

Jean's book of ramblings and recipes "A Country Mile of Winter" and her book of poetry "The Earth's My Home" are available for $4.95 each plus $1.30 for postage and handling. Her nature letter "Diary of a Back Yard Naturalist", published 5 times yearly, is available for $12.50 per year. Ten of Jean's favorite recipes will be included free with each book or nature letter ordered. Order from...

Country Mile Publications
616 E. Monroe St.
Delphi, Indiana 46923

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