Wisconsin Winter Walk

In the afternoon, the stinking rain finally called it quits, but everything outside was soaked to saturation. Even the accumulated snow was nothing but a large slushy, in some cases a yellow slushy. None of it looked worth touching.

Last night the cold returned and in the morning the entire landscape was crispy and displayed a ridgidness. The slight dusting of snow at least removed the wear, hid dog deposits, disguised the dirt roused by the snow blower and shrouded the soggy gloom.


With the new winter feeling in the air, this evening we decided to walk the trail on the north end of the mill pond. The old berm has a packed surface but the rain had created a condition were there was a quarter inch of ice over the old, one inch of snow. The crust was capped by the dusting of light snow. In the woods the new thin ice was over six inches of residual snow, so venturing there was down-right hazardous but the trail passed as fair game. However, each step created a resounding crunch that would have made Dr Zhivago forget about the fur clad Tonya. It was deafening, but at least we had a walk and it wouldn't be across the steppes of Russia.

We passed over the bridge looking for the resident River Otter but apparently the river's gloom bound him to his bankside home. Not a ripple to be seen on the quiet, glassy, untouched, steam, not even a giant Brown Trout lurking. But on the other side of the river, on the edge of a thicket, we found a fresh track of an animal we have yet to identify. We have seen this track before. The beast, of say ten pounds, partially drags its body as it moves through the snow leaving a trough. Here and there a track does show itself. Tonight, I intend on identifying the fellow traveller.

Like us, I suspect he was happy to be out.