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| Maggie |
Our
younger German wirehair, Maggie, is game to go. She loves winter and rolls in
the snow daily. Colby, our older girl, will pretend to want to go, but after I
leave she’ll curl up quite content beside the wood stove to dream of summer.
From
the house, Maggie and I head down into the softwoods, snow squeaking with every
step and our breath in a cloud. She bounds through the snow with enthusiasm. In
the shelter of the spruce and fir trees the snow is hard, crunching beneath the
snowshoes despite the dusting of fluff on the top. Maggie can easily dash about
atop the snow, following the confusion of snowshoe rabbit tracks.
Deer
have passed through, punching deep imprints in the hard snow. The coyotes barely
made tracks, but traveling on top with such an advantage over the deer.
Our
favorite brook trout stream is silent, capped over with ice and snow. It is
hard to imagine trout fishing and I wondered where the brook trout went for the
winter. Surely they are not in the same riffles as they were in July, but
probably in the deep dark holes where the current is slow or nonexistent.
We
follow downstream. Maggie shows no interest on going out on the ice, which is
what I had hoped. I like smart cautious dogs. They seldom get porcupined or
skunked more than once.
Snowshoes
on crusty snow drown out any other sound. Mice tracks, squirrel tracks, rabbit
tracks, all create a puzzle. Fat well-spaced trunks of conifers cover the plateau
along the stream, making travel easy.
We
pass where the coyotes killed a deer the previous winter. Maggie sniffs about
and I wonder if there could still be scent after so much time. Dogs amaze me
with their noses and nothing seems impossible. She squats to urinate, to say to
the coyotes “Hey, I was here”.
Leaning
alders, bent by the snow, block the path and I crouch to walk under them. A busted
fir tree, broken by an early winter wind, demands a detour. Another fallen fir,
this one uprooted, reaches out halfway across the stream. Eventually the stream
pinches against a steep ledge to cut off our course, so we turn back and inland
to follow the edge where the softwood trees of the lowlands meet the hardwoods
of the hill.
The
snow is deeper, but Maggie still flies about, first up the hill then down into
a thicket beneath a cluster of firs. She points, relocates, points again, and
then zips off to hunt still more.
Grouse
tracks cover the snow where she stopped. I stare up into the trees, hoping to
glimpse one, but see none. I did not bring a shotgun. With the extreme weather
I really don’t feel like bother them and seeing the tracks is enough for me.
Heading
uphill and back toward home, another shattered fir tree blocks the path. I
trudge around it beneath three big softwoods. Ahead of me, Maggie again points
for a moment before charging onward. Grouse tracks go every-which-way where she
stopped. The bird never wandered far, but created a tangle of tracks beneath a
cluster of young maples, all in an area the size of a large dining table.
I
search among the tree limbs, but again find only empty branches. Hopefully the
bird is sitting somewhere safe with its belly full. We are close enough to the
house, so, if this one is a male, we will sit on the deck and hear his drumming
in the spring.
A
late day chill reminds us it is late. The low winter sun has slipped behind the
hills early and the sky has dissolved from blue to the color of steel. Up the hill
we find a skid road that takes us around the bottom edge of another softwood
stand. Water runs beneath the snow, creating a murmur that is almost impossible
to hear. In the summer mud would be everywhere, but a pristine white blankets
everything. The deep snow makes breaking trail work, but Maggie still bounds
about. Eventually, the road leads to the far end of the field behind our home
and I can see smoke wafting up from the chimney.
There
is no place I would rather see or be.
Nice..
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