My woods overlooking three generations of Brewer's

I just came in from walking my woods and looking it over. I put a piece of Sassafras on the fire and hung my wet clothes on a chair next to the wood stove and my boots and socks up next to it to dry, I hate wet cold feet. I got me my supper a can of Potted meat and crackers and a cup of black coffee and sat at my desk to write. As I write the sound of the pop and cracking of the sassafras in the heat stove and the rain pounding the metal roof is very relaxing.
As I walked this evening thru my woods I reflected back threw the twenty-five or so seasons.
That I have hunted critters, dry land fish {morel mushrooms}, shed antlers, and Poke salad greens and myself. I have rode four wheelers, cut firewood and shared jokes with friends and family.
Each season in the woods something special is revealed. In spring they come alive they turn green as leaf buds burst open as if a rose, and the creek is once again a babbling brook almost deafening at times. The woods are full of life. The birds are singing, the occasional gobble or yelps from the turkey’s, or the squaking of a squirrel in the distance. My favorite parts are the symphony that the crickets and tree frogs put on every evening. The warm southern is breeze is fresh and time to begin anew.
The summer time the woods come alive at sunrise with the birds singing but as the heat increases the woods become quiet. All the rustling leaves in the warm breeze high overhead. This is the time that the Black Raspberries and Black berries turn ripe and ready to pick. The babbling brook is no more it has dried up as I lay there on its banks and look up at the passing clouds and wonder has anyone ever laid there before, to nap and dream of the past and things to come.
The fall my favorite time to be in the woods, I feel sorry for anyone who has not seen the sun rise from a tree stand in October they have missed life itself. To be there in that moment just before sunrise when it’s the darkest and the coolest. It ‘s like the temp drops a couple degrees and some how the black of night gets a shade blacker and the stars get just a bit brighter. The feel of the sunshine never felt better on your face and shoulders. To see the sunlight reflect on multi colored leaves as peeks thru the tree tops. The woods have such a wonderful smell somewhat like freshly plowed ground. And just then the wind brings in a hint of wood smoke from a nearby farm, and the scent stirs my soul. Then to watch the woods come alive, to watch a squirrel jump on a stump and eat hickory nut or hear one in distance. And then you hear a crunch in the leaves behind you and you become all ears and eyes is that a deer. No just another chipmunk they sound like elephants at times. The October woods like no other bring my senses alive it is a great time to be woodsman.
And then the winter with a white coat of snow on the ground and the complete silence.
It can be so quiet, that at time your ears hurt. The thrill of placing of a trap at the special place at the creek and the anticipation of what might be the next day And the lonely sound of the wind that ever blowing, never-ending wind out of the north,
My woods are a part of me they have give me food in every season from maple syrup and Poke salad to Paw paws and Persimmons. Fried squirrel, deer back straps to a thanks-giving turkey. They have watched me in my youth and now my middle age. They have looked over my son since he was eighteen months old and our first hunting, picnic trip together. They provided him snakes and toads as well as an occasional tarpin to catch and all the big game a four year old with a bb gun and a black lab puppy could invent. And they watched over my father in his twilight of his life with just him just sitting and listening to a beagle hound run a rabbit. I hope they will someday watch over my grandson and teach him the way of the woods just maybe he will nap and dream beside a creek in my woods in the warm summer breeze or sit in my favorite tree stand and find himself as I did. Even now as I draw to close here at my desk in the half-light of dusk the woods are peering thru the windows as the lonely wind blows. And trees are waving goodnight and goodbye to an old dear friend.