We wake up to sunrises like this sometimes. We linger at our windows high above the ground to possibly see a wolf, coyote, deer, mink, or fisher across Mikinaak Creek. Maybe, in turn, they linger by a tree to look for us.
Those many days when clouds dominate the sky and obscure the brief glorious sun, they obliterate our enthusiasm for getting out of doors. The blue of shadow and snow, the gray of the skies, the dark outlined conifers stand out in our color-robbed minds to the point where we readily accept beige as an welcome accent.
Woodland denizens possibly pay no mind to standing trees nor think of when there was no snow upon their fallen brethren, nor snow being deep on the ground until they walk past a fallen limb with a sprig of green moss on its end and everyone takes notice.
It smells of spring. According to the tracks, everyone takes a whiff breeding a faraway memory of familiarity.
A dormant poplar tree is broken off by high winds. Its trunk appears strangely naked; its top lays beside it covered in snow.
"Just put on warm clothes and go!" I said to myself -- a dozen times.
So I took my camera and a fresh battery back-up and crossed the creek, where the deer have worn paths along the ice. It was during this little activity, I was reminded of the fact I am very fortunate to be able to do this, and not cooped up in a city apartment and neighborhood somewhere.
I'm fortunate to be a writer, an avocation that serves me well in this confining time of our global-pandemic lives. I'm fortunate to have a walk-out basement office I can go to write, leaving the whole upstairs of the house to my wife. She visits family on Facebook and through phone calls, so this works out very well for both of us. We eat our meals together upstairs in the dining room just to say 'hi'.
For more photographs from WannaskaWriter on his winter wanderings, click here. Definitely worth the visit!
ReplyDeleteAh, the winter doldrums. Some people escape to the colorful south. Didn't you go down to Florida a few years back? Can't do that till the pandemic fades.
ReplyDeleteThanks Woe for the link to WW's wanderings.
No wonder you linger at your windows with that first view. We may have the Forest close around, but that open space you have has its own appeal - reminds me of my childhood days on the Wisconsin pseudo-prairies.
ReplyDeleteYou say, "I'm fortunate to be a writer, an avocation that serves me well in this confining time . . ." Isn't it great to say, I'm a writer?" We aren't making a living wage - or any wage for that matter - but we ARE writers! I've been saying just lately that "being holed up in a cozy log cabin, surrounded by a vast Forest, living with the person I love most in in the world + two great pups. . . well, sheesh! Things could be a whole lot worse, but they don't get much better.