February Grays

It is an overcast day with very little wind. I took a walk and decided to go into the woods, rather than walk along the muddy road. There's nearly a foot of snow, but it's heavy and wet and packed down. You can almost walk on top of it, sinking down just a few inches. There's a path through our woods. It goes down and around one side of the pond. As soon as I left the yard and entered the woods there were paths crisscrossing each other in every direction. Many more tracks than I'd expected. The yard is covered in tracks form our dogs, a beagle and an Airedale. But we have an invisible fence, so they can't go into the woods.

Many of the tracks, I realized were made by turkeys. I had seen them this morning when I got home from taking the kids to a dentist's appointment. The turkeys had been in the road and turned into the woods as I crested the hill. They had headed down toward the pond, wandering here and there, sometimes moving parallel to one another, other times crisscrossing back and forth, like young children playing soccer.

In among the turkey tracks was another set of tracks. It looked like the tracks made by our dogs. Had a dog passed through? Maybe it was a fox or a coyote. There are both in these woods. The canine tracks went down toward the pond as well. In fact, they continued right across the pond, which is frozen and snow-covered. The turkeys went around, but the dog went straight across. I didn't test the ice to see how strong it was. It's been incredibly cold, way below normal in the single digits and negative some mornings.

As I got closer to the pond, I noticed long tufts of grass sticking up through the blanket of snow. They're golden with a hint of red or ochre at the base of each leaf. The leaves droop down and each forms a spiral, like the curls on my daughters head. Curls that I adore and she detests. I wanted to save the stalks of grass and bring them back to the house, but thought they would loose their beauty inside, away from the pure white background of snow and the stark trees.

Except for those tufts of grass, the world is in black and white with shades of gray. The sky is gray and overcast, almost silver in places. Tracks in the snow are the gray of shadow. The trees a darker brownish gray, bare and spidery. Behind the trees and off in the distant are the blue-gray hills, rolling on an on. When you concentrate on the color of the hills, the trees seem more brown, with a hint of red that I hope will soon turn to buds.

It's quiet. There's more wind at the end of the pond, where it opens into a field. As I turn back toward the house, I hear a bird. What is it? A chickadee, I think. Ah, yes and there's another. A single shrill note. No idea what that one is. Before I can locate its silhouette in the trees, I hear teh demanding barks of our dogs. Woof. Woof. Why did you leave us? Why didn't you take us with you? Woof. What are you doing down there?

I turn right and head up the hill toward our log house. The hill is steep and I pant a bit. It feels good to breath hard and push through the snow. The dogs jump and prance, weaving back and forth , tryin got rbe the first to reach me. They are held back by the invisible fence. They don't want to get anywhere near it. I wonder if their collars are ticking out the warning sound.

"Stay back," says the collar. "Don't go into the woods."
"Woof Woof. Hurry up, Mom! We're waiting for you," say the dogs.

"Alright, here I am." I say. "Good boys. Come on. Let's go."

I look down to check their paw prints. The terrier's look too big. I think the ones I saw in the woods are the size as the beagle's. He's pretty small. I'm surprised the prints are this big. So, I suppose, well, I guess I still have no idea what made those tracks. But, something was wandering through.

~ My assignment is complete. Another writing exercise finished.