Mea culpa — today’s header image is from yesterday, a cropped version of a photo that appeared in my last post. I like the way it frames Hall Mountain on a brilliant winter day. Besides, it shows what a great job Deb’s cousin did plowing our road Friday afternoon.
Our Sunday sunshine was hazier than Saturday’s. We again topped out well above freezing, at 48°F. Snow has sloughed off of the trees now, and what remains on the ground is soft and slushy (until it re-freezes solid overnight).
We skipped laundry today. Walmart wasn’t accepting curbside-pickup orders this weekend. With none of the usual reasons to go out, we stayed on The Mountain.
My own day began with the dogs’ first business trips, shortly after 5am. The calls of two creatures drifted toward me on the heavy, frigid air — the howl of a lone coyote, from the northern flank of Hall Mountain; and the deep booming of a great horned owl, perched in the trees behind the shed.
Early this afternoon, I felt the pressing need to get out, to be in the quiet places, simply to breathe. I excused myself from Deb, threw on a woolen shirt-jacket and my fedora, picked up a walking stick and set out for the east slope of The Mountain.
I paid particular attention to the tracks I came across as I made my way through the woods. Rabbit. Squirrel. Bobcat, I think, though distorted impressions in melting snow can be hard to identify.
And whitetail deer, of course. Their habitual trails and bedding spots were revealed to me. Track patterns told of gait, and gait of behavior.
Four hoofprints clustered together was a spooked deer at a gallop.
A walking deer, browsing or perhaps looking for a place to bed down, left an orderly set of tracks, each rear hoof falling into prints left by the front. Even in the soft snow, I could see the mark of an especially unthreatened whitetail — the dragging of hind feet as it moved forward.
Eventually I reached the place where Deb and I intend to clear a getaway spot. I wanted to sit and be still awhile, but a wet, cold ass didn’t appeal to me. I unsheathed my belt knife — today a Bark River Bravo 1 — clipped several branches from a cedar seedling and placed them on a snow-covered log.
There I sat and let the winter woods come to me.
I wrote myself a prescription for peace, close at hand. And it was just what the doctor ordered.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB