Aster and I escaped from the cats, got out of the house without any of them seeing which way we went. Caterpillar was napping on my bed and I had no idea about the others, where they might be.

I prepared the bag of things to carry on a walkabout with Aster quietly, one item at a time, having a cup of tea, hearing some quiet music, like not much is going on. It takes some stealth to fool three cats that like to go on walks too.

Today I wanted to cover some territory. The cats will not go beyond a certain distance from their home base territory. They get scared past certain boundary lines; then they're about as much fun as a child crying on a merry-go-round. It's lovely here where I'm sitting. The sun has gone far enough past the ridge behind my back it lights the leaves in the tops of the trees I'm facing up the ridge. It's like the lights are on overhead casting ambient green light onto the steep bank of flowering rhododendron. The water splashes over rocks below, flowing from one level to the next and the next with grace and musical harmonies.

This is the peak of the growing year. The fresh leaves in all the varieties of trees, the rhododendron, the ferns, the mosses are at their peak before the months of gradual fade. The mountain is in its fullness.

Aster and I headed up the road, then cut into the trees and walked up by the Caudill cemetery on our way to the Alex Joines knob. I thought I'd start there in my search for the place that said to me, here.

The view from up there goes three-quarters of the way around. I was looking at the long ridge with several humps in it, each one a mountain. Doughton Mountain, Cheek Mountain, Fender Mountain, Spicer Mountain, all run in a line with others that passes through Twin Oaks and behind Sparta, southwest to northeast. They're like vertebrae on a whale's back, a great green whale, just the ridge of its back above the surface.

I found a sizeable patch of wild mint in flower with butterflies and every kind of bee hovering over them. Here and there among the mint stood milkweed with tennis ball sized clusters of lavender flowers scented like lilacs and wisteria. I could smell it in the air walking by them.

We went into the woods in search of a small stream I like that trickles down through the middle of the holler and opens out at the stream below by a field where once cattle grazed when Grady Pruitt was living. The spring has dried up. After all the rain we've been having it's not flowing. It looks like the streambed is now a channel for rain runoff. Still, the big rocks were wet in places where water gathers, too slick to walk on safely.

I took the leaf-covered ground down the side of the mountain, over and under fallen trees, hat knocked off in rhododendron thickets, dried green-briar attaching itself to t-shirt, hanging on for the ride.

Near the bottom I visited a big square block of rock with varieties of lichen growing all over it, one big tree standing on top of it with roots growing over one side of the rock like squid tentacles covered with the silver bark of the trunk. A young spruce pine about three feet tall grows in the middle of the rock platform from a cavity of decomposed leaves. It's sending out root runners to set up a pipeline to the ground in advance of its need for more minerals as it grows. I followed the stream, crossing at narrow places, jumping from rock to rock, once walking a fallen tree trunk covered with a carpet of moss. It is life-affirming mountain spring water, water flowing directly from the source in its endless cycle from mountain by river to the ocean where it rises into clouds and rains on the land to emerge from springs into creeks and rivers on its journey to the infinite sea again.

This cycle brings to mind the word righteous. By righteous I mean a living manifestation of the spirit. It's the continuous recycling of our water, the earth's lifeblood, a cleansing, healing process in a perfect, self-contained living planet. It's the process of our planet's life, like the blood moving in our veins. The steady flow of the air along the channel of this stream that I feel on my face and bare arms, but stirs not a leaf, is righteous.

The light is indirect now, blue sky overhead and wispy-edged clouds flowing upstream. The clusters of rhododendron flowers stand out more against the darker green background in their pinkness. The shadows under the moss-covered rocks standing at various angles are darker now where water flows among them in small cascades, each uniquely itself.

Aster had a big day. We walked some bear trails earlier, which kept her nose going in overdrive. We saw several traces of bear. She thought one smelled especially nice and wallowed on her back in it with the smile on her face of bliss. Dog perfume. She's getting anxious now. It's approaching time for the night critters to come out. I estimate we'll reach the house in last light. It's uphill all the way.

Back to the Backwoods Beat/Waterfall Road Archive

Email: news@alleghanynews.com