Sleepy Hollow, Whiting Ranch Wilderness

Posted on March 14, 2004 in Biomes Hikes and Trails Journals & Notebooks

It’s the season of emerald, when swatches of Ireland break out in the bottom land and the bee trees just begin to buzz. The only part of Sleepy Hollow that creeps me out is the point where the trail rises over the dam; by the lower pond which is stuffed like a mule with mulefat. The hollow is overdue for a trim: they need to bring some livestock in there to graze the cane down or allow a Native American crafts society to harvest the arrowweed. They say there’s a pond there, but I haven’t seen it. I’ve stood on my tiptoes at the top of the dam and haven’t even seen mud mixed with the clawed feet of the oaks or at the bottoms of the mulefat’s long stilts.

So, I am an atheist when it comes to the existence of the lower pond. You can show me the hole in the land, but until I see the glint of brown water, I shall not take the faith. It’s a lie that the mulefat tells to keep the rangers from cutting a trail through there. If there was water, the path through Sleepy Hollow would be pocked with tracks: deer, puma, bobcat, birds. The quack of ducks would stomp the air, leaving impressions in the lingering like the cloven hoofed deer leave their feet marks in the earth. This vale is silent. I see nothing when I go there except the trees, the flowers in their seasons, the green grass in the spring, and the pale oak leaves lying on their backs, their cups turned upwards to catch the rain.

Could anything make a life in those cellulose indentations? I can imagine microscopic frogs, a species yet undiscovered, jumping into the small waters, mating, and leaving their pearl strings of life. The tadpoles would have to hatch fast; the cycle from egg through tadpole to toad so rapid as to be over in only a day or two. The frogs could hop about, catching bacteria on their tongues, then, as the heat bruised their wetness, retreat into the ground via nematode tunnels, living with those transparent worms as burrowing owls live with gophers and prairie dogs.

I’d invite the ghost of Stephen Jay Gould to go there with me. I’d say “Can’t you see it, Stephen?” He’d admit that he could; and the two of us would sit on a log and wonder why this dream of life had never been.