I woke at sunrise this morning; Gus (the dog) woke me in his dire need to relieve himself. I donned coat and boots and took him out. The sky was clearing from east to west, so the sun came up in front of a light blue. Yet the clouds above reflected the golden orange hue of the sun on their lower edge, rising to a solid gray. Even as I watched it changed drastically as the cloud cover dissipated and the orange turned to yellow then white. Morning has broken.

This morning’s walk was quite lovely. It had rained yesterday and I guess some during the night. Many of the branches held diamond clusters of rain drops on their tips. –I find myself using man made similes; the rain like diamonds, the tracks like roads, the beech leaves rustling like rain sticks. Yet really I want to reverse the simile. What makes a diamond beautiful? Man has cut it so that it reflects light like a raindrop in the early morning sun. I want to rejoice in the basics and the beauty in the simplest of form, not in man-made complexity.

The ground was quiet, what with the damp leaves and most of the crunchy snow cover gone. The dog and I were able to move quietly. I stooped to investigate an old den, which seemed to have no activity until one day just after the last snowfall. Tracks went in and then out again. They looked like they could possibly have been a fox, investigating. Today, I again saw nothing; as I stood up I looked toward an old oak by the river and there staring at me was a rather small weasel. I could only see its face and front half of its body. Its face and ears were a deep chocolate brown and his legs and chest a russet brown. It stood there, sniffing and peering at us, trying to decipher what we were. Then it curled its body around and disappeared down the bank. I waited to see if it would reemerge, either in the water or further down the bank, but it didn’t. I walked to the oak and on the opposite side saw a hole in the trunk, which I am sure would have easily fit that little creature. I will investigate that tree again one day, maybe without the dog in tow.

I walked along the very edge of the river from then on. I was about ten or fifteen feet from the path, but just the slightest change brought on a new perspective. I was level with the river instead of up on the bank; it seemed wilder, richer and larger while I was up close and personal. At times I needed to skirt ice chunks for fear they would break or send me slipping into the water. Soon, I will be skirting the river more often in search of spring flowers and fiddleheads.