The thaw continues

Neither rain nor snow fell upon us last night, but we did get the dark of night. Part of us thinks we got lucky. A different part thinks "we'll pay for this." We can, and do, get significant snow storms in April in our North Country. We hope we won't still be shoveling blowing snow come May of this year to make up for the minimal snow cover we have today in fields and woods. At least we haven't had, so far, much in the way of really cold temperatures driving frost deep into the soil. The picture below captures what a January thaw looked like before the township paved our road. Blacktop absorbs more heat when the sun shines on it so much of the icy coating has melted and, for much of the road, we're back to bare pavement. We didn't cover our driveway with impermeable asphalt and it spends most of its time shaded by trees on the North and South sides, so it is now a puddle and ice covered hazard. Even the dogs were walking a little slower today while on the drive.

January thaw on a gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

In anticipation of the eventual arrival of Spring, we've been reading one of the books we got for Christmas, Dave Hughes' Essential Trout Flies [ETF]. Over the years we've read a multitude of books on fly-fishing, especially for trout. ETF is the first one that presents the information in an organized way that makes sense to us. Maybe we needed to have read that multitude of other books for this one to make sense? [When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear.] Our strategy for 2019, of focusing on bread, fly-fishing for trout, and poetry, seems to be working. We knew we had become too much like the old description of the Platte River, "a mile wide and an inch deep." In fact, that phrase and river links us to Nebraska, which links us to Ted Kooser, of Nebraska and his friend and fellow poet Jim Harrison, who had a love for the Sand Hills and set some of his fiction there. From what we've read of Harrison, Hughes and Kooser (no, it's not a law firm), they are "plain spoken" writers with a deep-seated appreciation of the natural environment. That's the kind of company we like to keep. If you share that interest, see if you can find a copy of Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison (2001) or Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003). Below is Kooser's poem from Winter Morning Walks for this day in the Winter. It could almost be describing our place, if we had had the forecast light snow last night.

whitetail deer track in melting snow

Photo by J. Harrington

january 7

five degrees and light snow

An elaborate braiding of deer tracks
close to the house this morning early,
within a few yards of our two dogs
asleep on the porch. A dozen or more
walking soundlessly east in the night,
a half moon rising before them.
I like the long deft brush stroke
as each hoof swung into and out of the snow,
and the little splash kicked out ahead
as they stripped sweet bark from the darkness,
afraid of everything but not afraid.

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