David Kralik Outdoors: Autumn and Winter's Chill

Autumn and winter’s chill?

This is, I admit, an odd subject to address considering we are past the middle of February and the mosquitoes are beginning to show their aggravating presence.

February, here on the Lower Coast, is the budding month. Though the calendar insists that Spring is yet a month away, things are beginning to pop.

It’s a beautiful time of year here along the 31^st Parallel.

A few days ago, we noticed a patch of huckleberries already in bloom. Spring may tarry in the Northern climates and leave folks wondering if it will ever arrive.

Not here. Its signs are everywhere. Even in the air … tree pollen.

We will yet have a few temporary blasts of cold air that will cause us to layer up. Another frost, or two, is not out of the question. We are, however, only a short time away from stowing the winter clothes as we prepare for the heat and humidity of another Gulf-Coast summer.

There is a lot of enjoyable outdoor adventuring to do before the heat and humidity of summer take us in their soggy grasp. There are campfires to enjoy. There’s good company to keep with other outdoor kindred-others. There are more memories to make. And we need to wear the new off of that new canvas-cottage Kodiak tent!

It is definitely time to get our Spring camping on.

64.

That is what I’ll be when Spring makes its official arrival.

One of the interesting things inherent in this thing that I refer to as oldering, at least where it concerns me, is that it causes me to be a lot more introspective. It causes me to examine and weigh priorities … maybe because I have had to wrestle with the reality that, though I still feel young as a pup at heart, the rest of me has begun to balk like a mule that’s been dragging a plow all day.

I can still pull the plow. I just can’t pull it as long and as far as I used to.

I lost both of my brothers over the past few years.

They were not what could be considered old men.

They were both in their early 70’s when they drew their last breath.

Reality.

Reality bites.

Those teeth marks, along with a few other sets of signs and indicators, are wake-up calls.

I am not ready to give up the plow and remain in the corral or in the shade of the barn! The way I see it is that I am just now entering into the prime of life. Life at 64 … retired life at 64 … is prime for doing what I enjoy doing. These are prime years to make memories. These are prime years to add to the legend.

Nessmuk was a colorful character.

There’s nothing in his outdoor articles to indicate it but, from what I gather reading up on him, he wasn’t much a family man. He may have indeed been a great outdoorsman but his personal kit was lacking in the tools necessary to entertain and groom his marriage and family. I’m not faulting him. I’m just saying. And my saying is just a simple observation from this far this side of when Nessmuk wandered the Northwoods.

I consider myself one of the most fortunate of men with a passion for being outdoors and wandering the woods. I’m married to someone who shares and entertains this passion with me. I think this is a rare commodity and I often scratch my head wondering how I became so fortunate.

A few of Nessmuk’s concluding lines in Woodcraft and Camping are some of the most striking in the little book.

“In a word, act coolly and rationally. So shall your outing be a delight in conception and the fulfillment thereof; while the memory of it shall come back to you in pleasant dreams, when legs and shoulders are too stiff and old for knapsack and rifle. ….. That is me. That is why I sit here tonight – with the north wind and sleet rattling the one window of my little den – writing what I hope younger and stronger men will like to take into the woods with them, and read. Not that I am so very old. ….. But, in common with a thousand other old graybeards, I feel that the fire, the fervor, the steel, that once carried me over the trail from dawn until dark, is dulled and deadened within me."