A Journey

It was only 4.7 miles around the little man-made lake, and yet in the couple of hours it took us to walk the circuit with the dog we witnessed a hawk dive into the leaves and fly off with some poor little squeaking rodent in its talons, and beheld a great blue heron wading near the shore dunk its head into the shallows, remerge with a wiggling fish, and swallow it in one gulp. Dozens of giant trees stood snagged and splintered by the huge windstorm 2 weeks ago. We spotted an eagle's nest, plenty of Canada geese, mallards, and cormorants, and the marsh whistled with red-wing blackbirds, while the woods buzzed with Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice. People ran, jogged, limped, rolled, and strolled with us and against us. A bearded man svengalied his four dogs with rap music so that he could snap a pack photo on a little dock. The sun was out; a cold wind gusted; leaden clouds filled the sky; it snowed; the sun returned; it snowed again. And 9500 steps later we climbed into our car and headed home.