May 27, 2010 - Remembering a day in the woodsSUFFOLKTIMES.COM I MAY 27, 2010
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KememDerin
in t e woo s
One thing that age orings on is memories ui use
past that are strongly set in our mind. One exampl
f this was years ago when, I remember, I was sit-.
ing down quietly in a warm and comfortable spot
a the woods away from everything. There was
Lothing special about this spot; most would never
lave given it a second thought, including me, but
hen time gave me a chance for a closer look.
And here is where the story begins. My eyes picked
ip a spot of white that shouldn't have been in an,area
where there was noth-
:OCU$ ON NATURE ing but trees, bushes
yti�o ai /„
and dead leaves. I got
,ova; up from my com-
fortable place in the
sun and walked over
to check it out and
there, partially hid -
den among the dried
PAUL STOUTENBURGH leaves, was some-
thing from the past. It
>eemed to have cried out to me, "Here I am, over here!"
What appeared to be just a spot of white from a
iistance turned out to be a beautiful flower. I bent
sown to see if I could identify it and it turned out
o be a Star -of- Bethlehem blossom. I was familiar
with these flowers because my dad had some grow -
ng around our house, but what was it doing here
n the woods away from everything and everybody?
The Star -of- Bethlehem is a small, hardy plant
that belongs to the lily family. It is a native of Eu-
rope but for many years has been grown in gardens
in America. Named for its star- shaped flowers, it
has six petals arranged roughly in a star shape.
The delicate petal -like parts are white but have
green stripes on the outside. It flowers in May or
June, and recently we found three of these delicate
plants growing in our lawn. At one time we had a
few plants along.the edge of our woods. They are
gone now, but after the blossoms, little black seeds
form and are dispersed in the area and spread
more plants around. That is what happened in our
lawn and perhaps that is what had happened in the
The Star of Bethlehem, brought long ago from Europe to
America, is a delicate flower grown from a bulb or from
seeds dispersed by the plant.
woods where I found that single plant by itself.
I found a few bricks with the imprint "Sanford,"
which could have come from the Sanford Brick-
yard in Greenport, where red clay bricks were once
made. The brickyard is no longer there. It is now a
marina. When they were making bricks they shipped
them out by railroad and coastal steamer. They also
brought in cord wood from Connecticut to fire the
kiln in the days before they used oil. You can still find
Sanford bricks around if you look for them. We have a
few in our walkway we found years ago.
As usual, my eyes and ears are always looking
and listening for that special bird, and, in my spot
in the woods, as my binoculars scanned the area
in the treetops, a mass of purple caught my eye.
Focusing more closely, I realized it was that beauti-
ful climbing vine that blossoms this time of year,
the wisteria. This particular vine must have been 50
to 100 years old by the size of its trunk.
Things were beginning to fall in place. What I
must have stumbled on was the site of a homestead
from years ago. Perhaps there had been a farm and
a farmhouse here, and workers working in the fields
and a family that was enioving the aood life.
s 1 continued to walk, searching for more c ues,
I heard some rustling in the leaves and looked until
I found what was causing it. As I moved the leaves
away there was a large box turtle. Box turtles actu-
ally live to 60 years or more, so this particular one
could have been around at the time the family lived
here. Perhaps the children had seen this very turtle
and kept it a few days to observe it and let it go.
Turtles do not make good pets. It is best to watch
them for a while and send them on their way.
Box turtles usually stay in an area the size of a foot-
ball field or a few acres all their life. When disturbed
or moved or the land changes, they want to get back
to their original familiar place. Many of you have seen
box turtles or other turtles trying to cross a highway. If
possible, try to move them off the road a ways in the
direction you found them moving. If you do not, they
will only return to try to cross the road again.
I his happened to us the other day. Friends of—
ours found a turtle that had evidently tried to
cross our long stone wall driveway and had fallen
into the roadway. They brought it up to us..We
put it down to photograph it and then thought it
might like to move farther away from the problem
of the driveway, so we put it farther back in the
woods away from the highway and road. Don't try
to out -think a turtle!
The next day the turtle was back in the driveway
and trying once again to make it up the other side
of the two- foot -high stone wall. We cooperated this
time by picking it up and placing it over the wall
and on the ground, and off it went. It appeared to
be a female and has probably dug a hole and laid
her eggs by now. The box turtles you observe out
and about are either females looking fora place to
lav their eggs or males looking for a mate.
now noes the song go, "Memories are made of
this... "? Here is one example of how one's mind
works as we get older. Along life is full of adventures,
and here is just one from my book of memories
about that day years ago when I sat pondering about
what I thought was probably someone's homestead
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