I had my scarf fastening tightly around my face.  My breath irritatingly hot, sweated up the inside of the scarf. I pulled the scarf down and took a deep breath of that subzero air. The intake of freezing air into my lungs hurt.  I regretted the move immediately and covered my mouth and nose.

Pheasant tracks, fresh, zigzagged ahead of me.   I caught up with the bird halfway to the back of the property. It turned to the south and ran underneath the fence and raced to the west.  Amused, I watched the bird clumsily hurry away. It had a grayish-beige body with a white ring around its neck and a dark sleek, purplish- black head. It leaped upward in an attempt to become air born. The pheasant rose nearly three feet off the ground, and pumped its wings hard and squeaked as it flew.  It sounded a lot like Uriah’s stuffed toy.

I watched the pheasant attempt to fly west. It plopped to the ground and disappeared behind a snow drift.

I continued on..

I stopped at the northeast end of the path. In that area I was slightly higher and more out in the open. Those gentle winds burned my cheeks and froze my eye lashes.

From this point, I could see where the water, only days before, had flooded the Bog Willows. The water underneath had dried up. The top of the water had frozen in place and connected to the lower branches of the trees.    

To me, it looked like someone had set up tables at a banquet hall.  There was space underneath the ice for chairs and the guest’s legs. The top of the ice was covered with a tablecloth of white crystals. In this frozen field, Mother Nature quietly waited for her guests to arrive…

With the wind at my face, my feet, and fingers and cheeks froze, painfully.  Reluctantly, I headed back home.

Somewhere above me a Hawk screamed.  I looked upward into that bright blue sky and I couldn’t find him…

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