Walking in the Rain

Walking in the Rain
February 08 & February 10

It was an impressive sight as almost the entire complement of 23 people who had registered for an interpretive hike at Massassauga Point two weekends ago, had actually decided to come, and stood huddled together in their rubber boots, rain gear and umbrellas.
The weather forecast had promised rain for that day by noon, and it began to fall gently as we started our trek at 1:00 p.m. But the dedication to the walk was not surprising. Those who appreciate and understand the outdoors are aware that any weather condition will offer opportunities, and one learns to seize them as they appear.
I have a friend in Peterborough, now in his eighties, who has inspired all of us for many decades. Had he been on this hike, he too would have revelled in the weather, snatching every opportunity to talk about something the weather had produced. Several years ago, while many of us sat transfixed in front of our TVs, mentally counting down the days until spring, he was busy outside documenting the season. The result was a praiseworthy book on winter, its offerings and its abstracts, and included spectacular photographs of the season at its best, and its worst. Even the subject of ice in its many forms was accorded several pages.
It has been through the inspiration of people like him, that outdoor enthusiasts have learned to embrace the seasons, for each one is special in its own right. The hike on January 31^st, planned while September rains were falling, was envisioned as a cross country ski or snowshoeing event, but the unlikely conditions encountered during our walk provided a different sort of experience. How often does one get a chance to study vegetation in late January? Yet, the leaves of this spring’s dormant yellow hawkweed were there for us to enjoy along a ridge high above a rock quarry. As we stood atop the quarry, we could imagine the cluster of side oats grama, its seeds hanging like miniature Christmas ornaments from the slim leaves. It was there somewhere under our feet, waiting for warmer spring temperatures to bring it on.
The elongated and slightly notched leaves of a single Chinquapin oak lay on the ground where they had fallen last fall, remarkably different from the round lobed leaves of the bur oaks that dominate this 60-acre conservation area. The matted leaves of the Deem’s oak, a short walk away, were a curious blend of both bur oak and Chinquapin oak characteristics, for this single tree at the edge of some buckthorns and red cedars, is a hybrid.
The mud of the day provided no animal tracks to explore. However, the absence of snow allowed the spindly twigs of fragrant sumac to show through the bleak background of the limestone rock upon which it was trying to establish itself among the staghorn sumac nearby. A broken twig released a powerful fragrance, but noticeably different from that of the nutmeg scented spring leaves that appear in late May.
A few chickadees cavorted ahead of us at one point, and a gray squirrel announced his presence with a series of loud chatters. A week earlier, a lone yellow-rumped warbler occupied these same trees as it searched for small berries to take it through the winter. These amazing little warblers that can change their diets from insects to berries at the flip of a switch, depend on the fruiting berries of red cedars and other bushes during winter.
A deserted mourning dove’s nest had disappeared from the leafless branches of a buckthorn where I had found it a week later, likely due to wind tunnelling along the trail at the entrance to the quarry. However, the offerings of Nature are seldom sedentary. There are no guarantees. Features present one week, may be gone and replaced by something else later on. Sometimes a visit to the old rock quarry here reveals a red fox, other times a groundhog, and for us on this day, it was nothing. But the brown creeper, spotted by one pair of sharp eyes, was unexpected.
Massassauga Point shines in its ability to produce spectacular wildflowers. Some like the early saxifrage, early buttercup and prairie smoke are peculiar to this area, as they are prairie plants. It is a bur oak savanna, and among the oaks with their fringed acorn caps, there is humour. We came across the intertwining branches of one shagbark hickory and a bur oak locked in a passionate embrace that is symbolic of the inter-relationships among the inhabitants here that make this point of land along the Bay of Quinte shoreline the fine tuned ecological paradise that it has become.
We have the Friends of Massassauga to thank for their help in maintaining the network of trails, so visitors, and there are many every week, can witness and enjoy this landmark.