It’s a cold start on an otherwise perfect day to ride from Brewster to Hopewell Junction on the Maybrook Trail. The sky is clear and the air dry and crisp. The trail has few travelers giving the impression that I am alone save for the sound of the wind rustling the seed heads of dormant plants and squirrels chasing each other in the leaf litter.
It’s late in the season with only mugworts and thimbleberries having any sign of greenery. Conifers are scarce; a few straggly white cedars grow along the trail and in the tracks of the old railroad bed I follow.
The leaves carpeting the surrounding grounds have lost most of their color, transformed from a multi-colored vibrancy to a dull brown and gray. But this gives me the opportunity to see the skeleton and framework of my surroundings that are impossible to view when the trees are clothed in green. Abandoned telephone poles are in open view looking similar to their living albeit taller neighbors.
The lake to my left is much lower than would be expected for this time of year exposing mud flats and the tips of water lilies approaching dormancy. A lone beaver lodge houses mammals with little to do given the current unusual seasonal dryness.
Low in the sky, the sun creates distinct, sharp shadows dancing in and out of the trail. No water trickles out of the stones in the sunless mountain cuts I peddle through. A long downhill coast reveals waterless creeks to my right and left.
Fields of dried corn stalks, most likely to be used for fodder, surround a prison to my right and its cemetery. Black chain link fences separate riders from inmates and guard dogs.
A stand of oriental bittersweet is trying to take down a line of native trees that are struggling to keep their independence. But the bright berries will be welcome food for any birds remaining this winter.
Approaching the end of my nearly 50-mile ride, the shadows are longer and the temperature lower. The sun hits a stand of phragmites, illuminating the thousands of seed heads. The cotton-candy like clumps of exploding cattail heads do not compare.
