Good morning everyone on this beautiful Saturday! I do hope you are having a good day. There is not as many birds around this morning. Especially the number of grosbeaks is way down from normal. The other birds seem to be about the same though I think there are fewer chickadees as well, and not even one blue jay this morning. Must be the cold weather. We fell back down to the bitter cold again, down to -40 overnight. At that temperature it is the same for degrees F and C. It is just plain cold again.

My deck, which is made of wood, was booming and banging so loud last night it kept waking me up. And tonight will be another cold one, then it levels out to more normal winter temps again. At least we will not be getting as much snow as originally forecast for tomorrow, so that is nice. Maybe this week I will make it down to the river again. I certainly do not want to fall off the path now, that snow is getting deep, too deep for me to get around. But the path will be okay now I am sure.

I noticed that people have been using it and the guy with the snowmobile has gone down there as well. It is just that last part where I have to break away from the main path. But I can check on it at least. Just being down there, walking on that quiet path is so nice and relaxing. And I am sure that Scramble is waiting for more peanuts. I will have to bring a larger bunch for him on my next walk, I did not have many with me the last time. It is nice to sit in his dark area of the forest and listen to the quietness. So often there is not a sound of any kind.

Even Scramble barely makes a sound when he runs around through the snow or even when he is in the trees. There were fresh rabbit tracks all over the last time I was down there, snowshoe hare really. I kept looking around whenever I saw tracks, hoping to see this little hare and hopefully get a photo of it too. That would be fantastic. A white hare against the white snow. It would be a great pic!

The trees are thick down there, that means there are lots of them. Black spruce, balsam fir, with tall red pine and white pine towering over them. In one area though, there are white spruce that are just as tall, with some taller, than the pines. They are the biggest spruce trees I have come across. Scramble finishes eating and starts to carry away the remaining peanuts. Time to move on again and enjoy some time by the river.

It is a lovely winter day, but still rather cold by the river, a bit of wind can be felt here making it somewhat uncomfortable. I move a little further down the path to get out of the wind, but still see the river. But, no place to sit here. I stay for a little while anyway to enjoy the quiet. It is calm here. And so very quiet. That is solitude. Time to return home and enjoy some hot coffee. Thank you for reading today. Have a most wonderful weekend everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin. (top featured image is at the river where I usually sit)

©2022 Steve McLeod.