By Rick Houser
In a way, it feels very much the same as it did when I was a boy. It seemed that the more the temperature rises so also does my energy. It did as a youngster and to my surprise, it still stirs some new energy within me. The past few days the sun is shining and the temperature is up into the 60’s in the afternoons and the feel of the breeze is one that is undeniably coming from the spring season.
So today, it was comfortable without a coat and the sun has been out a few days so the yard was dry enough to walk on. This lured me into taking the first walk of a new season. I like to stroll over my place and look to see if anything has changed since last fall. Fortunately, not much had.
As I walked, I would pick up branches that came down with the winter rain and snow. Compared to the year before I did not need to pick very many up at all and to me that is a good thing. I’m out on a spring walk and not looking for work this time around. In my initial spring walk, I mainly piddled. After about an hour of walking and bending, I realized just how out of shape I really am.
As a boy living down on Fruit Ridge on the farm, I could hardly control myself from that very first trip outdoors. I would follow along the side of the creeks on the farm and walk to the ponds, of which we had six. None of them were large or grand in design but on a spring day, you were guaranteed to hear a few bullfrogs singing their approval of the new season. Along the edges of the ponds and maybe in a slow spot on a creek, I would see tadpoles just beginning to evolve into the little frogs that they would become. They were just like spring, both changed with the season’s progress.
Depending on the day and my mood, I would either walk through a field or two and walk the woods last, or start with the woods. A field in the early spring can be deceptive as I would walk into the field only to find that it was still very wet and in no time at all I was covered in mud from the soles of my shoes to my pants and maybe even my shirt. I think I had an allergy when mud would find me and just jump onto me and this would cause a scene at the house when my Mom saw me. I think mud caused her to have high blood pressure. Still, I usually saved the woods for last. I loved walking the woods most of all.
Since we had many wooded areas around and on our farms, I had a lot to survey and with that, much land to cover. There was sure to be much more that had changed over the winter months. Even though the trees had yet to show any leaves, one felt like a cover was over you with just the treetops. Most of our woods were in the fields we used for pasture so I would see the cows and they made sure the grass and weeds had been eaten.
Walking under the large bonnet of the trees was special to me. Being there all alone with all of nature and myself was and is still a special feeling. Folks if you cannot feel the world in its entire splendor when out on a spring walk, it could well be you never will grasp it. However, I feel to some degree large or small you will have a good feeling.
Sometimes I would travel over to the Marshall brothers’ place and we would walk down in the woods behind their house. I always have referred to it as the “hundred acre woods”. Here was a place where the cattle would pasture and there was almost flat land to a big creek to extremely hilly land all in one place. Down on one corner of the woods over 100 years earlier there had been a house that had been built into the side of the hill and that was about all that was left. In front of where the entry to this place had been, was an artisan spring that the farmer had developed into a place for the animals to drink. This was as far away from the house as we could be and we would kneel down to the side that was screened away from the animals and get drinks of water and as we sipped the icy cold spring water, we thought of frontiersmen and just how we might be as rugged as they had been. This was maybe the first outdoor thing we did and I must tell you I sure did feel like Daniel Boone!
I will say it again. On my own or with the Marshall brothers I felt I was with all of the world and its glory. Back in my youth that first trip out into the world in the spring took so much longer but then we had so much to look at and we were so much younger. I think I would head out to explore right after lunch and be out until it was suppertime, which at our house was five o’clock. Therefore, I could be out for over five hours and I really do not think I was bored for a moment. My trip now is about an hour, along with a good bit of a rest period after.
Where I walk at these days and how long have changed quite a bit. So has the amount of land I have to explore. It might also be that I am a year or two older and I do not walk nearly as far as I did as a boy, we all know little boys will walk until the soles have worn off their shoes. Still there is one thing that has not changed at all and that is it is the first walk outdoors. I find myself looking for the same stuff I did as a boy but just not as long and hard. The spring air regenerates us and gets us in the mood to be outside. Here is the bottom line folks. It sure feels good to get outisde and leave winter behind.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you would like to read more of what Rick has written, he has two books for sale and he can be reached at houser734@yahoo.com. Or just write to Rick at P.O. Box 213 Bethel, Ohio.
