The Silk Worm Awakes and Eats the Mulberry
May 21–25, 2021; Amherst & Princeton, MA, USA
Seasonal Memoir #4
It’s more than a bit disconcerting to take your dog for a walk, and then pull off about 20 ticks, because if you do the math for the geography you covered, you’ll realize there are trillions and trillions of ticks out there in the grasses. Ticks are proliferating due to a variety of reasons, and our vigilance is warranted. Such small animals that can carry such debilitating diseases, perhaps only rivaled by the mosquito.
The famed Amherst Farmers Market started up again on Saturday, and will provide an assortment of foodstuffs and other products to the Pioneer Valley inhabitants. Covid-restrictions withstanding, you sensed the muted joy the patrons felt to have this routine back in their lives. And how can you beat fresh $3 kale or $5 pea greens? The European lifestyle — buying enough for a day or two at the most — is most conducive to healthy-living, and a nice alternative to the big box supermarkets and their processed foods and excessive plastic.
Speaking of routines, Tina and I are walking regularly, usually in the morning, on the Norwottuck Rail Trail. There is a stretch where the trees completely enclose the bike path, to a height and width of about 15x40 feet. It’s a tunnel of shaded green. Lovely.
We were walking and talking, and then noticed a large hawk coming at us from 500 feet up the path. It was flying gracefully, flapping its wings only when necessary. It was coming right at us! We stood mouths agape, and just watched. It passed about 10 feet over our heads, its wingspan immense. We turned and watched it continue down the leafy corridor for another 500 feet until it settled high up on a large maple tree.
We’d like to think that this encounter was auspicious. Soon after the hawk passed us, we both remarked that it was a shame we didn’t get our camera out in time to capture the events; it seems today we humans cannot experience anything without capturing it digitally. But the more we thought about it, we’re so very glad we didn’t get the phone out after all. In doing so, we would have missed parts of the hawk’s flight. Watching it in real time, in its entirety, and with our own eyes and not through a lens, was priceless. Though we didn’t capture the hawk for posterity’s sake, we both have the memory of that day when it was only us and the hawk. It made us feel there are higher power(s) in the universe.
