Ramble with Storm: Great horned owl & a broken reel

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

A great horned owl pulled me from half sleep about 2:30 this morning.The haunting hunting call drifted along the street enough that at first I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or what.

Then I knew I was awake and got up to try to find it. A couple winters in the 14 years we have lived here, I found a great horned owl, vivid and haunting, high in our neighbor’s elm with the full moon in the background.

That’s an image that sticks.

I had no luck finding the owl this morning. I think I finally pinpointed it being in our next-door neighbor’s evergreen.

A rabbit bolted from the garage downtown as we started off. The usual mourning doves cooing and flying around wires.

Several families of Canada geese grazed and crapped all over the town ball field. I finally put together why they hang to graze and crap in short center and short right fields. A few years ago, they redid the infield and part of that was planting some of the dirt infield.

So I assume that grass on that edge is sweeter than the long-time outfield grass. Think of tips or early shoots of asparagus vs late woody stalks.

A family of Canada geese held on the north old clay pit, then flew off.

At the bridge over the neckdown between the two pits, there was what looked like a broken spinning reel or at least one that had been spooled.

I was going to pick it up and throw it away, then I thought otherwise. A lot of kids go and play fish during the day at the town pond. As a dad, I can imagine a kid telling his dad that he left a broken reel at the town pond and the dad getting pissed off and telling the kid to come back and get it.

So I left it on the bridge. Maybe the kid will be back.

Hey, maybe there is a story there of a fish–pike, channel catfish or carp?–big enough to spool a reel.

That thought makes me smile.

Back in town, a half-grown rabbit bolted across the alley and into the safety behind the fence around the woodworker’s lawn.

Back home, a blue jay squawked down the street.