Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 12, 1946

The morning sun up full and strong – a robin in the poplar tree just outside the window.

B + I to Gowanda to get maple syrup. Pleasant to be out a fine March day.

Stopped at Taylor’s sugar camp – but no syrup for us. (“Many people had orders in for weeks, or even months, and it is going to be a short one from all signs” etc.) The glory of their “bush” a knoll, dense covered with fine trees, the sunlight passing in, an excitement and beauty that makes my heart ache with longing –

On to Gowanda. Park in the center of town + for a short walk – the old Victorian homes. Lunch at “Main Diner” – a smelly busy place, but the food was good. For short walk again afterwards, then up to the Quaker road. Parking by a power station. I rush to show B my find of a couple summers ago. A messy spot on the edge of the cliff, with a fine view s.w. down the canyon.

After a climb thru sumac tangle, enter the pine + hemlock woods. A fine place  - the rich damp smell coming up from the rotting needles, just melted, and a soft roar of the wind thru the feathery hemlock boughs; the pale cobwebby glint of sunlight, as it sifted in here + there, on the parting hemlock needles. How good it was to have Bertha by my side.

Countless walnuts, gnawed by squirrels – I over shot the mark + we reach the canyon to the west of where I had intended – great masses of ice on the north walls of the canyon – a strong wind – hunter green berries, a trailing arbutus plant which I dug up for B – wandering thu the woods. Coming out into an open place, protected by the wind, we find it almost too warm for comfort –

Home by way of Quaker Road + northward – not coming back to route 62 until Eden.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 12, 1946