Amber beech leaves, curled and crispy from autumn’s bitter cold, lay on the forest floor over the many acres of this farm. Sprigs of verdant princess pine poke through the thick layers of leaves in places. Silvery reindeer moss clasp steadily to boulders cropping out of the earth. Creeping wintergreen drifts along the pits and mounds of the woods ground, twining among bunchberry growing here and there.

Climbing up, up, upward, away from the security and familiarity of the open fields, scrambling over the old stone walls just inside the tree line, ascending toward the ridge’s highest peak, delving with every step deeper into the forest, one feels a strange combination of freedom and reluctance. For some, a primal instinct signals the daunting risks of going into the woods: namely the possibility of getting lost among the haphazardly arranged plant life growing there.

Sure, there’s a comfort in being in woods that are familiar – “You know the tote road that drops you off near that big cluster of fir,” or “past that big boulder that juts out onto the trail near the birches,” we say to one another when we’re about to relate an experience in our woods.

Yet, however familiar, there is always a definite and accompanying thrilling element of the unpredictable in the forest. A deer could jump out at any moment. A chickadee could land on a branch 3 feet from your head and sing rambunctiously at you for a minute or two. There might be bobcat tracks in the soil along an old tote road. One could spot bear droppings. Sometimes we’ll see bones signaling the unfortunate demise of some forest-dwelling creature.

If you’re watching, signs crop up and stories are unveiled in an unpredictable and exciting “nature thrills me to the core” sort of way. Thing is, the forest yields these little gifts of nature’s wonder the same way the garden does. But the garden is purposefully orderly, and this makes all the difference in the world. In the garden there’s comfort in manipulating and knowing your ground. And there’s really no danger in the garden of being unprepared. If in the unlikely event something dreadful happened to us there, we’d probably be able to work our way out of it. If not, someone would most definitely come along and save us.

But in the deep in the woods, it’s easy to feel small, inadequate and, on some base level, unprepared. Deviating for a bit off the well-known tote road, alone among the towering maples and oaks, one might think too much about those bobcat tracks. One might wonder just how long those claws are and just how far those critters can leap. “Do they perch in trees?” we wonder as we glance nervously into the branches above. Tucked snugly among the spruce and fir, without much of a long-range view, one might think too much about those bear droppings. “Just how tall are they when they stand on their haunches,” we think as we scamper quickly back out onto the trail. “I’ll do just what they say and calmly back away,” we think confidently, as we simultaneously, oxymoronically wonder just how fast we can run.

“They’ll smell you a mile off. You’ll most likely never see them,” real woodsmen and -women tell us. But still, imagination can be a funny thing when you’re alone in the woods. Intellect, logic and analytical thought congregate for a party in the deepest, unreachable recesses of the mind, and the colorful illustrators Nonsense and Fear step forward to play recklessly on center stage.

Even so, you may find yourself, during these winter months, called time and again into the woods.

Ah, though gardening is perfect and delightful in its own way, it doesn’t embody the thrilling disarray of God’s garden – the woods. On those first treks into the forest for holiday greens in December, and later on snowshoeing and skiing forays into the far-reaching woodlands in January and February, it’s impossible to overlook and not take enormous pleasure in the beautiful diversity of the forest – both the plant and the animal life there.

This time of year, when the garden beds are lazily frozen, their paths neatly frosted over, the stubby stems primly waiting for time to pass, go into the woods for your plant fix. Leave imagination behind by the wood stove and brewing hot cocoa, and quietly witness the wonder that awaits you just beyond the field’s edge.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.