Ramble with Storm: One flap up

Mulling things on my morning ramble with Storm, our family’s mixed Lab.

The west wind–stiff enough to push the flags above the fiire station straight–perfectly funneled between two buildings, just before the side rail separating the town from the wildness of the town pond, and caught under the meathead’s left ear, lifting it up.

It looked ridiculous, perfect for a meathead.

And I thought of Jeffrey Leonard’s “One Flap Down” home-run trot in the 1987 post-season for the baseball playoffs..

Then it struck me that was 26 years ago, which means almost no one under 35 has any clue what I am talking about.

It was so long ago, I did not expect to find it on YouTube. But I did.

All the same, time sneaks up.

I could hear a few Canada geese on the lake to the west as we neared the town pond. They stayed there.

Makes sense. This is not the time for seeing wildlife.

And I did not see much. Not even tracks at first. Usually a nice tracking snow is perfect for seeing what is roaming around. The snow we got yesterday, less than an inch, was perfect tracking snow.

But I didn’t see any tracks until we crossed the side rail separating the town from the wildness of the town pond. Then Storm began sniffing and following a set of fox tracks.

Both old clay pits were completely covered in snow on the ice. I didn’t trust the ice enough to try it with the snow cover. Tomorrow morning, we will roam around the ice.

Then, on the south end of the south pit, rabbit tracks were everywhere. So many were on the old rail bed, now a trail, above the south pit that they almost packed their own trail.

Back on the edge of town, mice tracks cut across the rail tracks by the grain elevators. So did those of feral or free-ranging cats, those slaughtering machines.

Squirrel tracks trailed around the decorative fruit trees a street over. They came after we set out before dawn, so I guess gray squirrels were out hopping around, but I did not see any.

More tracks of feral or free-ranging cats, those slaughtering machines, were around the trees, too. They are out looking for something to kill.

Winter settles in.