Those who know me know how excited I was to wake to snow. So excited in fact, that I awoke early, saw that certain glow in the sky through the window above our bed, and jumped up, not wanting to miss the day dawning.

At just before 6am, I turned on an outside light for a minute and opened the door to receive the quiet that the flakes created.

It snowed for a couple more hours before turning to rain and by the time I shoveled the driveway it was heavy cement.

But still the world glowed. Especially the beech trees that are like spots of sunlight on a gloomy gray day.

Into the woods, I trudged, though I didn’t plan to go far because I suspected hunters would be as excited since they could more easily track deer, so decked out in blaze orange as I was, I stayed in our woodlot, with the intention of checking on my friend, Red. His caches have grown this past week, so I knew he had food in the pantry.

What I didn’t expect to spy along the way was this: White Pines foaming at the mouth! What really occurred: sap salts and acids that had accumulated on the bark’s surface mixed together in the dripping snow and formed soapy suds or pine soap.

Pine soap on the tree and snow disturbed by plops of falling snow at the base of the tree offered a contrast of textures.

Much as I’m mesmerized by fire, I’m equally mesmerized by water, and especially in the form of droplets. I’m actually surprised I eventually dragged myself home.

But first, I had to watch the droplet elongate.

And eventually (which was only seconds later), fall free. Although, was it really a free fall?

I suppose it was, but it landed on another section of the bark and continued the process of mixing with the sap salts and acids.

The other cool thing about the pine soap–its hexagonal forms–worth a natural engineering wonder.

As it turned out, it wasn’t just the pine soap that was flowing down the bark. Some trees had started peeing. Do trees really pee? It’s actually sap and I think given the temp, that rather matched a March day, sap was flowing, giving the melting snow a yellowish tint.

Eventually I reached my friend Red’s favorite hangouts and though the snow conditions had deteriorated from the point of view of a mammal tracker, he’d left plenty of sign on top of the white surface to tell me he had dined.

A lot. But then again, every scale on the cone protects two tiny seeds and one needs to eat a lot to attain nourishment from them. That’s why he has to create caches or piles of cones to last throughout the winter.

I didn’t actually see Red today, and surmised that he’d decided to make an early day of it and was probably snuggled in somewhere under the wall, using the snow and leaves as insulation. I know from watching 315 15-second game camera videos a few Christmases ago, that Red Squirrels rise with the sun, follow much the same routine all day long, eating pine seeds, dropping scales, leaving behind the cobs, dashing along to the next cache, returning to the first, dining again and repeating this activity over and over again during the course of the day, before disappearing about a half hour before sunset. Each day. Every day.

On this eve of Thanksgiving 2023, I recall some sketches I did in 2019 at a workshop at Hewnoaks Artist Residency in Lovell, Maine. The presenter offered us a variety of materials to work with as we saw fit. My fascination with squirrels and pine cones is not new and that day I chose to sketch one in three stages and then highlight the scales of the opened cone with pieces of mica.

In the end, I give thanks for being present for today’s discoveries of pine soap inspired by snow, and tree pee (that reminded me of yellow topaz), knowing full well that not every moment is as bright and shiny as muscovite mica. And snow does melt. But here’s hoping more will fall. And I’ll head out the door and be present again. And again.

May you also have plenty of reasons to give thanks.