When the clouds finally moved off and the sun came out, the world outside turned into a kaleidoscope of colors. The sun bounced off the new powder snow, creating prisms of light everywhere I turned. I took a much needed lunch break and then went for a trudge through the woods.
I slogged along in over eight inches of snow and at times, where the wind had made deep drifts, wished I had had the foresight to dig out my snowshoes but it was good exercise and I didn't really mind.
My path took me up a slight slope, past an old log cabin that stands on the edge of a large field that has mostly grown in now with young fir and poplar trees. The sun came through strongly along this field and I stood for several moments with my face turned to the light, basking in the slight heat. Then, I turned north along the edge of the field and hiked up a steep grade lined on both sides with fir, maple and birch trees. I stopped at the top of the field and looked back over the valley. Wisps of pinkish gray clouds swirled across a brilliant blue sky and I managed to catch my breath while standing there.
My path wandered through an old clear cut, now grown up in young maple, fir, beech and oak. The beech trees still had their brown curled leaves on them that jiggled in the wind, as if the leaves were shivering in the cold. I saw two separate sets of rabbit tracks, one a long, slow lope and the other a quick hop, hop, hop as if it had heard something and been spooked. Then I crossed a partridge track, each footprint carefully attached to the one in front and the one in back of it, making a continuous line of prints.
In another spot, a snow blob had fallen from a branch and rolled, creating tiny little round prints like a fingerprint in the snow that got progressively larger and larger until it ended at the snowball.
Everything felt softer, smoother on that walk, even when I stumbled on old ruts in the trail that were buried by the snow, it felt okay and good to be outside.
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