The weather in Missouri was just about perfect last weekend for walking in the woods. We didn’t. Instead we drove to Kentucky to help my mother celebrate her birthday. I took the day off of work on Friday so we could have a longer weekend, and we were on the road by 6:30 a.m. Good thing, too, since we had a nine-hour drive ahead of us.

A sensible person might have taken the seven-hour route from Kansas City to Paducah, but I think I’ve proven here sufficiently that I am not always a sensible person. The “sensible” route is to go directly east on I-70 for four hours to St. Louis and then along a succession of highways down southern Illinois for three hours. But I’ve driven that St. Louis run far too many times, and it bores me every time. Plus about half of the Illinois miles are nothing but tedious, flat farmland from horizon to horizon.

Instead we took the route across southern Missouri, driving three hours south to Springfield, passing, it must be noted, within six miles of Roundrock but not stopping since we had many hours ahead of us and a scheduled appointment to surprise my mother that evening. From Springfield we headed more or less east on Highway 60, which took us all the way to Paducah. This took us through the heart of the Missouri Ozarks, but we only diverted one time (resulting in the photo above, which I’ll tell you more about — with video — on Saturday) since we had that whole appointment thing looming before us. We crossed the Mississippi River, spent about twenty seconds in Illinois (at the very southernmost tip), and then crossed the Ohio River and entered Kentucky, land of my idyllic boyhood summers. From there it was only about a half hour’s trek to Paducah, to find our bed and breakfast closed.

I don’t know if the whole town takes a nap, but just about everything was closed from 3:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon. Siesta? The B&B was in the two floors above a Mexican restaurant in the historic downtown. You can see a link to it here. (We had the entire second floor.) The restaurant was closed, and we couldn’t find any wifi for me to get online to get the number to call. We could have poked around (the mostly closed) downtown for another hour, but we decided instead to call my aunt and get the surprise underway.

At her condo my mother was sitting at her computer, sorting out some insurance business. I was able to walk up behind her and gently suggest some solutions to her onscreen difficulties. She leapt from her chair and gave me a big hug and kiss. She was quite surprise and pleased. We sat and visited for a while, and then my aunt announced that a friend of theirs was having an art opening at a gallery in the old downtown area. She said that usually these things had free food, so we might be able to snag some free dinner that way. By happy coincidence, the gallery was in the side room of the very Mexican restaurant where our B&B was.

We went there, did, indeed, snag some free food, ordered some drinks (Margarita’s for them, brandy for me — won’t do that again!), admired the art, and eventually got around to checking in to our nice weekend apartment. What a sumptuous place it was! We had two bedrooms, a large sitting room, a very up-to-date bathroom, a huge kitchen (the first B&B I’ve been to that stocked Jim Beam for its guests), and even our own steaming hot tub on the second floor deck. The group of us sat around in this lovely space (everything was top of the line) and marveled at what we were getting for such a low price. (It really was astonishingly cheap compared to every other B&B we’ve ever stayed in, which numbers close to twenty. An anonymous room in a chain hotel by the freeway would not have been less expensive.)

The next day, after a sensible breakfast of oatmeal, yogurt, and dry toast, we visited the National Quilt Museum for which the town is gaining international recognition. Quilting, I’ve come to learn, is an art form, calling for as much craft and skill as every other type of creative expression. Let me just say this, if you ever find yourself within 100 miles of Paducah, Kentucky, change your plans and steer yourself to see this museum. The work is astonishing.

It was also handy for keeping my mother distracted while part two of her surprise weekend was organized. My brother, his wife, and their two boys, arrived from rural Missouri to surprise her as well as she walked out of the museum. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, there were smiles all around, and I was handing out gold dollars to my nephews.

The boys, being boys, needed to be fed, so we jumped into our cars and drove to a Thai/Asian restaurant. My two little nephews (ages 7 and 2) have done more international traveling than I, so a Thai lunch was not a problem for them. I had a noodle arrangement with chicken, but I also had my first seaweed salad ever. (I had thought that I might have eaten seaweed before, but I’m sure I would have remembered given the haste the salad made to get through my digestive system.)

After lunch the boys just happened to spy an indoor playground a few doors down from the restaurant, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon there as they frolicked about the jumping stations, the climbing stations, the yelling and hollering stations, and the arcade games. I think Grandma enjoyed her birthday there nonetheless.

When we thought the boys had had enuf fun, we packed ourselves in the cars and drove back to my mother’s place where — surprise! — cakes and presents were waiting. Thus we spent the evening visiting and nibbling.

Knowing we had a long drive ahead of us, we said good-bye to everyone and excused ourselves at about 8:00 p.m. to return to our B&B. We fell into our king-sized bed and were lulled to sleep by the barges on the Ohio River two blocks away, coupling with loud clangs.

By 6:00 a.m. we were back on the road home, reversing the order of our trek, but still spending only about twenty seconds in Illinois. On the last leg we passed, it must be said, within six miles of Roundrock, but we did not detour to visit. When we got home late that afternoon, having been in four states by then, Flike and Queequeg were overjoyed to see us. (They were in the loving care of #2 Son while we were away.) We took them for a walk around the neighborhood and then began unpacking our things to return to our mundane lives.

No, I didn’t get to visit any of the old boyhood haunts: my grandparents’ farm, the lake, the many tourist traps that had so fascinated me as a kid, the town of Benton where I practically grew up it seemed. But those remain allures to bring me back.

Missouri calendar:

• American woodcocks begin courtship in northern Missouri; at dusk, listen for “peenting” in brushy fields.

One of the reasons I’m now keeping the cabin locked is because we’ve begun decorating it. As you see above, I’ve hung some plant identification posters on the walls of the cabin. Homey touch, don’t you think?

The one on the left is self explanatory, but the one on the right is reproduced too small here to figure out. It’s common wildflowers; I wish I saw that many out in my woods and fields! The trouble with these kinds of guides is that they don’t tell you the identity of the specimens they don’t list. I pretty much already know all of the trees that are identified in the left poster. It’s the ones not there that have me perplexed. Sure, I have plenty of guide books, and they’ll probably migrate out to the cabin in the coming months as well.

Our decorating and furnishing efforts are moving slowly though. We achieved such a fine look in this corner of the cabin that we don’t want to rush in with anything less fabulous.

Missouri calendar:

• Time for ticks to appear.
• Field sparrows are arriving.

This is what the fire ring looked like when we arrived at Roundrock last weekend. Well used and a bit weary. It has been my intention every weekend this year to dismantle this fire ring and set it off to the site for the time being, but since I had only been out to the woods one weekend this year, my intentions remained only intentions.

I want to dismantle it so that the man who will fix my dam and road can spread gravel in the area to make it more level. There are plenty of hidden rocks and holes in that leaf litter, and the ground slopes just enuf that you can’t sit easily in a comfy chair without falling out of it (to the front, back, or side). So the ground is due for a makeover. But before that could happen, I wanted to disassemble the ring and set it aside. The road man said he could do it for me, but I knew that the bricks were fragile — we broke two just putting out our last fire — and I wanted to preserve them as best as I could.

(BTW, that green swath you see running across the top of the photo above is the lake. And that’s Flike you see in the top right corner, heading toward the cabin. Good boy!)

This is what the fire ring looked like when we left Roundrock last weekend:

Libby and I made quick work of disassembling the fire ring. Some of the blocks were frozen together, but a little nudging separated them. We were careful, but even so, we managed to break three more in the process. The thin ones were the ones that broke, and we simply added their pieces to the rubble we’re collecting along the east side of the cabin where we will have some gravel spread to make it more level as well.

Once the gravel work on the road and around this campfire area is completed, I intend to rebuild the fire ring in about the three o’clock position in the photo immediately above. That will put it about in the center of a graveled area so it will be better separated from the trees and the leaf litter.

Then it will be time to make S’mores.

(BTW, that’s the tail end of the Prolechariot you see in the top of the picture immediately above. And I’m pretty sure that’s a bag of peanuts, unsalted, of course, sitting on the open tailgate. For the crows, of course.)

Missouri calendar:

• Bluebirds begin nesting.

We’ve slowly begun furnishing the Cabin at the End of the Road. The map and the chunk of colored glass sit on a small, round drop-leaf table in one end of the cabin. The map is of Roundrock, of course; the Central Valley is evident, and the dark straight lines show the existing fence. There at the top is where the fence only reaches across half of my southern property line. The chunk of glass is there just to look nice in the sun. I intend to sit at this table and think thoughtful thoughts. (By the way, I’ve begun locking the cabin when I leave.)

The latest edition of the Festival of the Trees is up over at The Voltage Gate. If you haven’t been by, be sure to head over there and check out all of the fascinating links. After all these years, the Festival continues to collect fresh and interesting posts about trees in all their forms.

The next edition will be hosted by Vanessa’s Trees and Shrubs Blog, part of the About.com universe. By amazing coincidence, her edition will appear on April Fool’s Day. Vanessa is contemplating a theme of “humorous trees” in honor of the holiday. Her deadline for submissions is March 29. Send your links to treesandshrubs (dot) guide (at) about (dot) com. It’s always best to put Festival of the Trees in the subject line. (I’ve already sent her one.)

If you’re looking for a way to spend even more time surfing the internet, you should go to the Meet Up page and search for groups in your neighborhood. I’ve put my ZIP code in the search function and found several dozen pages of groups of all interests and descriptions that meet regularly in my area. So far I haven’t found one I’m dying to get involved with, but I like to keep my options open.

We’ve had more than a week of dry, relatively warm weather here and down at Roundrock (if the weather reports can be credited). The man who will fix my dam and road said he needed the ground to get dry so he could bring in his big equipment. It looks like the work might commence soon (and perhaps already).

Since I know you’re just dying with curiosity, let me tell you that I am currently reading The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch. I’ve been reading her novels in order, grabbing the next one every few months, and I’m down to the last half dozen. I’ve told myself I’ll simply start reading them again from the beginning when I’m finished, but maybe I’ll check out some writer I’ve never tried and commit to his or her complete works.

My 100 plants from the Missouri Department of Conservation are scheduled to arrive next month. If I remember correctly, they were several weeks late last year. I’d like to get them in the ground while they can still benefit from the spring rains.

Missouri calendar:

• Eastern cottontail rabbits bear first litters this week.
• Bald eagles begin incubation.

During our hike in the woods I saw this little story laid out on the ground. Sometime in the winter this old oak was topped by a storm or ice and came down to the forest floor. I’m glad I wasn’t beneath it when it fell, but I would like to have been nearby to hear it.

The crunching noise you do hear is from Flike poking about in the leaf litter.

Notice also the sky above the tree. When we arrived in the woods we had a perfect vault of blue over our heads. As the day progressed, though, the gray, scudding clouds converged and ended that brief bit of beauty.

Missouri calendar:

• Wild onion and garlic are greening in pastures, woods.

Dawn on Sunday, February 28, 2010, somewhere over Kansas City. We were headed for a fine day in the woods, and this sky was a harbinger of all that goodness.

Missouri calendar:

• Red maples begin to bloom.

When we were at Roundrock on Sunday, I had left my post in the comfy chair on the shady porch overlooking the sparkling lake to attend to some business back at the truck. Libby said that while I was gone, a pretty-as-a-picture wood duck drifted across the lake. It’s the time of the year for wood ducks to begin searching for nesting sites, and it would delight me to know that a pair had chosen my lake to start a family.

But I missed seeing it (though four unidentified flying ducks did make several passes over the lake as I was there). What we did see there, however, made me just as happy:

When we walked onto the dam, which is our common practice upon first arriving in our woods, Libby spotted the pair of Canada geese you see above swimming in the water across the lake. It took her breath away. Of course, the geese saw us as well, but how could they not with Flike galloping here and there and barking about every new smell he encountered? Flike did not see the geese, and to make sure he didn’t, I turned our steps back toward the cabin.

We’ve known that waterfowl visit our lake from the droppings and feathers we find. We’re along the migration route between Mexico and Canada, so it’s not surprising that they would come. We’d simply never actually seen them. It is likely that the two in the photo above are on their way somewhere else and have merely stopped here for a break. Still, there were only the two of them, not a flock, so maybe these two have separated themselves in order to nest and raise adorable little goslings.

As we went about our business that day, we’d find our way back to the comfy chairs on the cabin porch and gaze onto the lake. And there the geese remained. Sometimes they slept on the shore. Other times they paddled about in the water. I thought that our presence, even on the other side of the lake as we kept ourselves, would eventually drive them away — the massive Corps of Engineers impoundment is only a few miles away (as the goose flies). Yet they stayed. Flike continued to bark (and his barks echoed from the opposite shore in full vigor).

When we return, I hope to see the geese still there, but I suppose that’s not likely. The lake is big enuf to support a nesting pair — I’ve seen smaller lakes in suburubia support several nesting pairs — but I worry about the foxes and coyotes, who need to feed their babies too.

I suppose for many of you, Canada geese are mere yard birds. Regardless, I’m pleased that the lake and woods of Roundrock are doing exactly what I hoped they would: nurturing the wild things.

Missouri calendar:

• Barred owls are nesting.
• Wood ducks nest around wooded ponds and backwaters — time to put up next boxes.

I’ve begun another observation in my woods at Roundrock. Long-time readers will recall that for several years I watched and noted as three plastic grocery bags of various compositions bio- and photo-degraded on a boulder. (My results from that were inconclusive.) Now I’m beginning with this spoon you see above.

One day when Libby and I were out exploring the heart of blandness (suburbia), she recalled that a certain yogurt shop somewhere in the area offered the novelty of fixing your own cup of the sweet stuff. Rather than have some hapless teenager pull the lever to extrude the yogurt from the vat, you get to do it yourself! (You may recall a funny line about this kind of thing in the film Lost in Translation.) Of course we had to try this novelty, but we weren’t exactly sure where the place was, so we made an emergency call to New York where our daughter lives. She had visited the place when she was last in town, and she managed to direct us there.

The yogurt was unremarkable, the seating was uncomfortable, and the hapless teen working there was uninformative. When I asked about the odd shape of the spoons, the hapless teen said they were biodegradable, though he couldn’t say just how that worked. Something about how they would “disappear” in the landfill, which is pretty much the state of everything that goes into a landfill. So I decided to begin my experiment. I will see how long it takes this plastic spoon to degrade.

You see I’ve screwed it to a tree in front of the cabin. There it will get full sun (remember the sun?) for a dozen hours each day. It will be exposed to any precipitation and well as the full range of heat and cold. I wouldn’t be surprised if some critters got to it as well, though I wouldn’t consider that part of the experiment.

So I guess on subsequent visits I’ll check the status of the spoon and report back. Stay tuned.

Missouri calendar:

• Begin setting up bluebird nest boxes.

If you look closely at the calendar in the photo above, you will see an asterisk marked on the very last day of the month. No other day except the very last day has this symbol, and for those of you in the know, you realize that this means we were finally able to get out to Roundrock on Sunday, the very last chance in February to do so.

You may recall me saying that Libby has asserted that we were going out to the woods “every weekend.” I countered this by saying, “Not so.” To settle our dispute, we decided to hang this calendar on the wall inside the Cabin at the End of the Road and mark each time we visit. So far this year, the calendar has been marked twice. Rather than “every weekend” we are averaging “every month.”

It was a quiet visit. Although the birds were singing joyously at the 40+ degree day, there was nothing in bloom and no leaves yet emerging. The man who is going to repair our dam and road had called me on Friday evening to say that he hadn’t been able to get out because the ground has been too wet and muddy to take in his big equipment. Fearing this, I decided to travel light in case we had to walk in, but it turns out I could have carried a load of bricks. We had no trouble. The road is rutted, but it was dry. (I had intended to bring along the two-wheeled dolly to help me haul some large blocks of sandstone around, but I left it at home, which spared me that chore. Nice!)

We did meet with some pleasant surprises, and I’ll babble about them in the days to come.

Missouri calendar:

• Muskrats breed through September.
• Great blue herons begin arriving at heronries.

How is it that I’ve gotten so far in life and not tasted quinoa? (Or absinthe, for that matter?)

When Libby and I were at a fancy night at the local culinary center as our Valentine’s Day observation, the chef, who was demonstrating the preparation of our tasty dinner, also took questions from the crowd. One woman, a vegetarian, asked him how she could get more healthy protein in her diet. The chef mentioned quinoa, saying it was about complete as a protein.

For a couple of weeks Libby and I looked for quinoa, and it finally turned up in an unlikely place — one of those big box department-type stores. We bought a bag, thinking that if the stuff was wretched, we could just add it to our bird feeder. So Libby cooked up a small pot, eschewing the many suggested additives, like parsley, onion, kale, and just about any other green, leafy vegetable. We wanted to taste the base flavor of the food before we doctored it.

I loved it. There are many ways to prepare it, but ours, as you see above, was something like oatmeal. I could have added milk or butter or brown sugar or (as Libby did) raisins, sliced apples, and cinnamon. Quinoa in its base form has a nutty taste, though it is not a nut (nor is it strictly a grain). It was yummy without any additives, but after I had sampled half of my bowl (shown above, though there is nothing special about the spoon), I added some honey to it that came to me all the way from a private honey ranch in Augusta, Missouri. Next time we have it, I’ll probably sprinkle on a spoonful of flax seed. (Flax seed has been finding its way into a lot of food I’ve been eating lately.)

So, unlike absinthe, but much like kale soup, I recommend quinoa as a flavorful addition to your diet.

The Missouri Natural Events Calendar tells me that in my woods I may hope to see the following blooms beginning in the month of March:

• Harbinger of spring
• Spring beauty
• Hepatica
• Rue anemone
• False rue anemone
• Bloodroot
• Rose verbena
• Aromatic sumac
• Pussytoes
• Dutchman’s breeches

Missouri calendar:

• Ducks and geese migrate through mid-April.
• Harbinger of spring blooms in moist woods.