�ݬ� �� A Country Mile

July 17, 1995

�ݬ� �� By Jean Hughes

��The green wall of leaves around my house becomes thicker every day. It is hard to see the birds that fly through the

tree tops. This morning, a blue jay stops near my brush pile. It drops into the green maze of leaves and emerges with a

berry. It sits on a fallen limb to enjoy its feast.

��Across the road, I see a female Baltimore oriole in the mulberry tree. A beautiful bird, her breast is yellow with a slight

tint of orange.�� She is subtle rather than dramatic in color. After 60 years of calling this oriole a Baltimore, it is hard for

me to use its new name, Northern. I always have to think twice. I wonder if my Amish friends must constantly translate

their Pennsylvania Dutch words when they speak to me in English?

��It is late on a cool afternoon, and I am walking in the Killbuck Marsh. The rains have made all the plants grow to

capacity and the pathway is like a tunnel, but the water is not high. Yellow-fringed loosestrife and white Canada

anemones, mixed into bushes of pink Carolina roses, make the path edges into swaths of color. The roses even climb into

the small trees.

��Above the flower beauty, two yellow warblers flit through the lower limbs of the trees. Nothing I see in nature is softer

looking to me than the velvety, creamy-yellow of the feathers of a yellow warbler.

��I am serenaded by warbling vireos as I stroll along. The aroma of rose-purple swamp milkweeds follows me.

��I have been looking up, but underfoot is creeping white clovers, the kind we used to tie together to make necklaces,

bracelets and hair bands when I was a girl.

��Farther along the trail, tree swallows fly around tall, dead trees. Wild columbines, scarlet with yellow centers, and

looking like small turkish caps, brighten the green background. A great-crested flycatcher moves through the trees,

keeping ahead of me as I walk. Song sparrows sing and fly around me.��

��One small bee-like creature tries to annoy me by buzzing around my head. It lights on my hand and sits there,

contentedly. I soon discover why it is satisfied.�� I feel nothing, but this little Dracula is having me for dinner.

��Far out in the swamp, the roses grow in bowers. The sea of green, accented by mounds of pink, is spectacular. At one

spot in the path, I walk through a garden of white sweet clover. The plants are crowded and are six and seven feet tall.

The scent is heavenly.

��All along the way, I have been scolded by red-winged blackbirds. One bird shouts its threat. Blackbirds are very

protective of their territories.

��As I turn to walk home, a gravely-voiced white-eyed vireo calls to me. A chickadee comes near, but does not call its

name or sing. Banjo frogs plunk their strings, and a frog, whose voice sounds like a tiny policeman's whistle, startles me

and makes me laugh. It blows its alarm over and over.

��In the center of the path, a small blue forget-me-not blooms, and nearby, a creeping yellow moneywort is in flower.

I can see the tracks of deer and raccoons.

��I have not been bothered by mosquitoes this evening, and I have yet to see a snake here, but there are song sparrows

to sing me back to my car.

��There is no more beautiful time in the marsh than early summertime, the time of the roses.

�� 1995 Jean Hughes��