As a southerner, walking in my winter wonderland was quite different from the song. No sleigh bells rang, but there were cows lowing, squirrels barking and crows crawing. And almost never did snow glisten, fog and wet glittering leaves were much more common.
Treks in the woods were more stalking than walking since my trusty .22 semiautomatic, a gift for my 8th birthday, was always with me. Squirrels were my usual target but just about any wild critter was fair game, if in season.
Those trips were always learning experiences to a curious boy. I learned to identify green briar, which we called smilac, as one of the few green vines in the gray and brown woods. There was scattered honeysuckle, too, and later I found out how much deer depend on them for food in harsh winters.
Often, I could smell a cedar tree before seeing it, especially after as rain. And I did seek out thick cedars as protection from a sudden shower. I still got wet, but not as soaked as I would have without the tree over me.
I had favorite places to sit and watch for squirrels, and I often time traveled from them. Some of those travels were fantasy, some based on history. Although no cave men ever lived in my part of the world, I could imagine crouching on my rock grasping a club waiting on a sabretooth tiger.
A little more realistic were the times I would have my bow and arrow, dressed in a loin cloth and hoping for a deer for the tribe’s dinner. At times I could be dressed in gray, clutching my rifle hoping to spot a hated Yankee in his blue.
My favorite were the times I imagined my coonskin cap topping my head, with my flintlock rifle that never missed any target. I did carry a small hatchet and pretended it was like the one the frontiersmen carried.
The woods had moods, too. When the sun was bright and the sky clear and cold, everything seemed to sparkle. Even the drab browns and grays of winter seemed happier on those days. The branch gurgled louder, and everything seemed more lively.
On rainy days, the world was subdued. Colors were almost nonexistent and sounds muffled. Footsteps didn’t crunch in the leaves and even the branch seemed to sigh over limbs and rocks rather than have a happy gurgle.
Foggy days were different still. Like on rainy days, everything was subdued, but familiar objects became strange. The big white oak still looms large but seems threatening as it disappears into the gloom. That tall stump you leaned on yesterday now looks like a scary figure with the limb behind it an imagined raised arm and knife.
In fog, everything is muffled. I could actually move through the woods as quietly as I imagined I could as Davy Crockett. Leaves that still fell ghosted down without a crunch. And the branch gurgles were deadened by the thick fog.
Most winter days required a fire as some point, to either warm hands or cook a kill. Dry days were no problem, just get some leaves and twigs to start slightly bigger sticks.
But on foggy or rainy days, it was a challenge. I would first find a fairly flat rock to keep my effort off the soggy dirt. Then I would gather bark from a cedar or pine tree, peel some of it off to get to the dry under layer and carefully protect it from the wet. Nothing on the ground was suitable since twigs and leaves were soaked. So breaking small branches off a dead tree was the option. If I was careful enough I could get a fire started even on the worse days.
I always wanted to start my fires the same way as the imagined people of my mind, but flint and steel never worked for me, and a bow and stick never produced even a whiff of smoke.
To be prepared I always had some strike anywhere matches, heads carefully dipped in melted wax to seal them, with me. They were usually in a small pill bottle in my pocket and in the bottle were some cotton balls soaked in the same melted wax. The waxed cotton would burn hot for a few minutes and start a fire on even the wettest day.
Some of my best meals were eaten over such a fire. I liked roasted robin, they were easy to shoot and clean. And they tasted good, even if as tough as an old shoe after roasting on a spit to too well-done chewiness. Squirrels were also a regular feast roasted on the fire, but for some reason never tasted as good as the ones mama fried with gravy or made into squirrel and dumplings.
Trying to find other things to cook was interesting. I read about cooking and eating acorns but every way I tried they were so bitter they were inedible. Later I found the acorns needed to be ground up and soaked to remove the tannin from them.
Mushrooms popped up like magic throughout the woods after a rain, and I wanted to try them but was always afraid of them. It was drilled into me that toadstools were poison, and I never learned to be sure enough of the ones that were edible to try them.
Fish were in the branch and I caught them regularly, but they were never big enough to cook on a fire. A dozen of them cleaned and boiled barely made good stock for a fish stew. I never tried to cook fish in the woods.
Try walking in a winter wonder land around here this year, and take a kid with you if possible, to enjoy the imagination of the young.