Making Tracks

Sunday was a day as I remember them to be as a child. It went on and on. The sky was brilliant; the temps were close
to 50F and the snow in the woods only inches deep. Not snow shoe conditions, but perfect for a
trek in the woods. I grabbed my canvas
barn jacket, laced up my hiking boots  (NOT Sorels..  it’s really warm and the
hiking will be easy), grabbed my camera, a walkie talkie (it’s a rule here that
if we work, walk, or do whatever in the winter woods, that we take a radio
‘just in case’) and a baseball cap to keep the glare out of my eyes and headed
into the woods. Tracking, checking to
see who’s out and about, is my absolute favorite winter activity. The snow was soft on top, granular in the
middle and days old. The single foot
prints had softened and left only the repeating patterns of each animals
stride. I checked the obvious and
easiest places first; my paths and under the hemlocks and balsams. The porcupines love the hemlocks, the fishers
love the porcupines and the deer and red squirrel have been foraging the pine
cones under them. The clear water spots,
where the streams meet the pond, have watering hole activity, always a great
place to stop and check.. sometimes an
otter will winter there and a pile of fish scales will mark it’s ‘bathroom’
area. No luck this year. The coy dog, fox and deer have traveled
across the frozen pond during the night. Not together, I hope. I pick up their tracks at the far end of the
pond, no apparent conflict. Good. My coat is open, it’s warm enough that the
only purpose it serves me is to provide pocket space for my gloves and lens
cap. In the deep shade I can turn my cap
backwards and have the sky in my face. After a while, I start to see the tracks as rhythmic patterns; turning,
twisting, not unlike the cables I knit.

As
I cross the dam I see the brown stem of the pussy willow has turned to a
beautiful orangey red and the pussys are peaking out.

Unbelievable! It’s so early for the plants to wake up and SO dangerous for them to do
so. At the edge of my driveway the
unplowed road (class 4 roads aren’t kept up by the town and they remain unmowed
and unplowed, dirt tracks through the woods) has boot prints I recognize from a
past winter. C joins me and we walk the
road; a neighbor has been out for a walk, the tracks show poles and ski trails
from an earlier outing. It’s a perfect
afternoon.

I knew that the Super bowl would provide hours of perfect
knitting time, so I popped a chicken pie into the oven and settled in to finish
plying the dark brown llama I’d been spinning on the Dixon. It’s very soft. It had a bit of VM that fell out as I skeined
it and threw it into a bath. Wood stoves
dry yarn in no time at all. Then it was
time for the game and many more rows of the MH sweater. I’m making a size large and am still
wondering if it’s going to be a tight fit. I’ll block it of course, and the merino will stretch, but it’s a snug
little pattern, hardly a large. The last
sweater I knit a size small.