Not much stirs on a sweltering mid-August afternoon. At Potter Meadow, the Trust’s 34 acre preserve at the corner of Columbia, Lebanon, and Windham, I see and hear wind in the treetops but can’t feel it. Two trunks squeak lethargically as they rub together. This combination of shaded woods and random bits of meadow feels well-used. Once a pasture, it’s now a mix of grapevines, invasives, Joe-Pye Weed, Goldenrod, black raspberries, – you name it. Every species of tree seems represented too. The sounds of nearby Willimantic are muted, but this spot where the Ten-Mile River (an over-sized creek) joins the Willimantic River has seen human intervention since before America began.
But now time seems to stand still. The rivers, both big and little, are bathtub warm and hardly flow. Seasonal stream beds are mere deltas of dust. This is perhaps the swampiest, wettest property conserved by Joshua’s Trust, but you’d never know it today. Even bass and sunfish hide from the sun in this heat. Catbirds whine in protest as I walk, and chattering robins dart through the underbrush; their nests must be close to the path. A lot of what goes on here does so in secret. Only one warbler gives himself away, and it’s far too dry for amphibians. Heck, there aren’t even any mosquitoes. What would a Fowler’s Toad find to eat today? One doe darts off resentfully; I’ve disturbed her from her nap. Everybody waits for evening, and time drags.
Somewhere in a dying tree, a Pileated Woodpecker laughs like a monkey. Thick air hangs in thick forest, and it is easy for me to imagine this jungle climate lasting forever. That’s a mirage, though. In the dark of night, an invisible line has been crossed. Sometime during the last week of July and the first week of August, the fireflies have retired, and they’ve now been replaced on second shift by katydids and crickets. Time doesn’t really stand still. A tumult of sound is in hiding, waiting to enrich the twilight, but the gentle dancing flashes of early summer (and they were great this year) are gone. I hope you saw them. You want more summer? It’s waning already. You better grab it fast.
~ George Jacobi