Snowshoe Trail

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to be active or spend more time in nature, then this last Saturday would have been a perfect treat! All through the summer during the farmer’s market season, Emily Stone (the naturalist at the Cable Natural History Museum) stops by to chat and snag a dozen eggs, a wedge of sheep’s milk cheese, or a cup of gelato. We share funny stories, garden conundrums, and chicken tips. Late in the summer, I mentioned how it would be neat to host some partnership programming at the farm, when the madness of summer quieted down.

We planned to get in touch in the fall, which is when I told Emily about the network of trails on the farm that have been used for skiing, snowmobiling, or driving through the woods over the years. We use the trails to pick up cut firewood, and one stretch holds the little rise that was the epic sledding hill of Christmas memories from when I was a tike.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to have a snowshoe hike?” Emily offered, and we pinned down a date to walk the woods and figure out a route that would give enough time (but not too much), with plenty of neat ecosystems to see.

But things shift around on the farm, especially when the weather casts her will into the mix. Mondays are quiet on the farm in winter, since the Creamery is closed, but it turned out to be the warmest day of last month, with drizzly rain. Helping hands were available, and the day was packed with projects. I was in the aquaponics greenhouse watering eager little plants when Emily called to check in.

“Are we still on for a walk this afternoon?”

“Oh, oops, um, well…we’re butchering ducks today. Is there another day you can come down?”

Emily decided she’d pass on the duck plucking adventure, and we found a free afternoon the next week. A lovely fresh skiff of snow lay on the ground as we strode past the barn and into the sugarbush to the west. We traipsed along the south edge of the field where my grandparents once landed their Cessna 182 airplane before catching a trail into the hardwoods by the dead maple scarred by Pileated woodpeckers.

We returned rosy-cheeked with a plan for a fun hike filled with nature’s workings and the farm’s history. We picked the first Saturday of the year for the event, planned hot drinks and a tasty treat, and began spreading the word for the upcoming adventure. It was our first time trying a snowshoe nature hike on the farm open to the public, so it was hard to know what to expect.

“Can I get directions to the farm?” a worker at the museum called to enquire. “We have ten people so far, but many of them haven’t been to your place yet.”

“Wow, that’s wonderful.”

A few days later, the number was up to 25, and Emily was calling to enquire if we needed a cap because of seating capacity at the Creamery! Who knew it would be of such interest. But the weather was going to hold in the 30’s, kids were still off from school, and fresh, fluffy snow made for perfect snowshoeing conditions.

As the cars rolled in, every mix from grandparents to little tikes emerged, eager, excited. The sun skipped behind light clouds as every shade of coat, hat, mittens, and snowshoeing gear assembled in the parking lot. Some parents even brought shiny silver sleds to pull the littlest ones along. All assembled, we posed for a quick picture in front of Farmstead before heading off down the road towards the farm.

Snowshoes can be awkward implements, causing a lumbering wide gait. On a hard-packed road, it seems ridiculous, even impeding. Like lumbering bears coming out of hibernation, we waddled past Lexy the donkey’s patrol spot.

“So, I wanted to make the main focus of this hike to be on finding food because what determines whether a species migrates, hibernates, or stays put has everything to do with whether or not they can find food. And this spot demonstrates one of the neatest piece of this farm in how they use the donkey to protect the sheep from being food for the local wildlife.”

Then ensued an interesting discussion on wolf predation threats and using guard donkeys to persuade the wolves to stay away. Then that brought up coyotes and cougars and all the other large predators that roam the area, priming the hikers to watch for tracks in the woods—who knew what footprints we would find!

Leaping ermine (weasels in winter), hopping tree-climbing mice, waddling voles and shrews, trotting deer. They all had intersected our path as we looked at the remains of pine cones left by hungry squirrels, the pairing of fungus and algae to make lichen, and how birds can find the eggs for insect larvae on the tips of tree branches.

We passed trees felled in the crazy September storm, burls and squirrel nests, flocks of nuthatches in the treetops, and places in the field where the deer had scuffed up the snow to get to the bits of frozen grass below. We even passed the steady-gate tracks of some large canid, though it was hard to decide if they were from a small wolf or a large coyote.

We returned rosy-cheeked and ready for hot cider or chocolate, along with the delicious apple cake Mom and Kara had prepared. It was fun to share bits of the story of the farm as well, like the white pine stumps at the edge of the field, which were torn from the earth with draft horses and dynamite back when the place was first homesteaded 100 years ago.

In all, it was a fun, family event, where people got to spend time in nature, learning about their surroundings and each other. It was neat to share the intersections of the Northwoods environment with the farming enterprise and how we work to have them live in harmony. It was also a wonderful experience working with Emily to make that all come together, and I hope we’ll be able to do something like this again, maybe even at different times of the year. Have you gotten your snowshoes out yet this winter? See you down on the farm sometime.