bear tracks at our front door

Black bear photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

This morning Bill and I went for a walk down our lane. Even though it’s not exactly what you’d call a big adventure, the dogs enjoy these walks and taking in the smells of the deer, racoon, opossum, and all the other critters that roam the woods and fields under the cloak of darkness.

Somehow we missed seeing them on our way out, but on our return, we noticed paw prints in the mud…big paw prints. As we got closer, we could tell the tracks were those of a black bear. February in Virginia has been unseasonably warm, so the bears have come out of hibernation and are searching for food. Naturally, I didn’t have my camera with me so I couldn’t take a picture of the paw prints, and now they’re covered with snow. Arghh!

To see something different in nature, take the same path you took yesterday. — John Muir

welcome to my world!

I woke up this morning to the sun rising over the Short Hills Mountains. With no other sounds to drown them out, I could hear the individual calls of chickadees, titmice, sparrows, bluebirds, and a host of other birds emerging from their roosts.

Finding the lure of their singing irresistible, I put on a jacket and went out onto the porch to take in the morning. My presence was soon noted by a red-bellied woodpecker who greeted me with a rolling churr, churr, as if to say, “Fine day, isn’t it?” In the background, I could hear South Buffalo Creek, hurrying to join the Maury River. Standing there, it came to me that this really is just another day in paradise.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. — Aristotle