Wandering Aimlessly
It’s Time
by Phil Burkhouse
Mary and I did a fair amount of wandering aimlessly last week; it seemed like a necessary thing to do. We weren’t looking for anything in particular during our outings, and we also were in no hurry finding it.
We cruised down county several times in hopes of locating some of the bull elk we had been seeing over the past several months, and we also had hopes that the early warming trend might have brought in migrating ducks. Unprecedented temperatures in the 70s for several days were a nice respite from winter, but I am worried it might have an adverse effect on our tree bud development. Frosted acorn and fruit blossoms mean no mast crop, and this will be hard on all critters next fall.
Several times last week we saw large flocks of geese winging their way northward; I sure hope they know what they are doing. The most common duck, the common merganser, is back in full numbers and was present on the Driftwood, Bennett’s Branch, and the Fork.