I went outside with my dog, Bailey, this morning because he has broken my trust. He’s taken advantage of my good nature too many times and used his morning bathroom break as an opportunity to take a 2-3 hour tour of the neighborhood.
It was cold this morning. In fact, I don’t even think it was above freezing, and the sun had yet to rise when I wandered outside in my ratty white bathrobe. Almost immediately when we walked out, I heard a crash come from somewhere. It sounded like nearby in front of our neighbors’ place. Bailey and I wandered down to the edge of the still frozen lake to investigate, but there was nothing to see to explain the noise. I stood with my coffee sending up tendrils of steam as I looked out over the lake and listened. It wasn’t long before I heard another crash. This time it sounded like it came from far across the other side of the lake. Soon after, I heard more crunching, crashing and gurgling which told me that in spite of the mottled white surface of the lake that appeared static, there was a lot going on underneath the ice. Even though it was still too cold for me to see active melting taking place, all I had to do was listen.
Eventually, I got cold, and my coffee got cold, and the dog rooting around in the leaf litter newly emerged from beneath snow banks already vanished was making enough noise that I thought perhaps it was time to come in and get back to what I was “supposed to” be doing.
As I sat in front of the computer, my thoughts kept causing me to look out the window. When the sun finally cast an orange-gold glow across the faces of my children sleeping on the couch after a pre-spring-break slumber- party-for-two, I could no longer resist the temptation to go back outside.
Bailey and I went for a walk down to the boat ramp in the crisp spring morning air, and I justified my time away from “working” by telling myself that the journey would offer the clarity I needed to go forth and conquer. We walked. I broke open puddles that had frozen closed overnight while Bailey sniffed everything and peed on much of it. I noted that the robins were becoming increasingly less illusive, but I imagined that they were likely not particularly impressed with the chilly morning temperatures.
I heard something crunching on the road and looked to see a big white pickup. I think it was my neighbor because the truck stopped at the mailboxes on its way to wherever it was going. I stood in the road further down toward the boat landing. I didn’t move a muscle as I tried figure out the source of the strange rustling I’d heard in the stand of birch trees across the road. It didn’t take too long before my eye caught sight of one piece of birch bark that caught the wind and was flapping like a flag in the chilly breeze that, up until that point, I hadn’t even noticed.
I wondered if the person in the truck was looking down the road at me wondering what I was looking at. Bailey and I continued on, and I noticed how much less snow encircled the parking lot at the landing. We didn’t explore the beach side because it was on the shady side of the point at this time of day. We didn’t walk to the end of the point because I knew that I really did need to get home before it was time to go to work for real.
As I walked over to the boat ramp, I noticed that the post to the left of where the dock would soon be, held so many more signs than I remembered being posted there last fall. The many colors on the signs that were meant to educate anglers about invasive species and proper boat launching procedures created a rainbow of information that likely went unnoticed or overtly ignored.
I didn’t throw a stick for Bailey to fetch from the ice. Normally, that’s something we both enjoy, but I figured it would be a long cold walk home for him this morning. We took turns, instead, standing at the very edge of the water that had frozen back over in the night. The surface broke into shards of thin ice with our weight and Bailey chased an air bubble that raced through a fissure between two chuncks of ice still trapped beneath the surface. Eventually he freed a chunk of ice and pawed at it with the same enthusiasm that I will soon exhibit towards eradicating the ice sheet once there’s enough water open for me to float a kayak.
After this, we headed back home and discovered the wind that had made the birch bark flap like a parade penant as it was now in our faces. The crisp air made my nose cold enough to quicken my step, but it was okay to go home now. As I suspected it might, my morning walk with the dog gave me the clarity I needed to go forth and face the day secure in the knowledge of the direction I needed to go. Nature is good like that – don’t ya know?