EIGHTEEN: BEFORE WINTER STORM

Wide open. Nobody around. No central place, no nexus. The wind subsides and it’s like a movie about nature. The sky an interesting and blue tumbled canvas. Odd foreign seeming trees not seen or noticed before. Walk away and into the middle more. Now the wind comes. Dogs run and prance and play and fight but light-heartedly. Farmer’s fields and loam to the right. The CN train booming along down to the left. But far, you know. Even the gun range can be heard; - the reports come across, bellowing and then echoing all through. Tracks from deer, rabbit, and coyote. Each step, - then…to the woods. Thickets, glens, pines, - the feel and scent of winter. Day blinks off to night and then the night stretches out and the animals dream in dens. Constellations are there, and soon blocked for a storm comes. High snow. Wind. It will leave ice and frost, danger and even a four legged agile type might find itself slipping down a slope.