Timber King or Food?

First of all a big thanks goes out to Darth for being the editor and impetus for this blog. I haven’t done much riding since we have received much rain in Indiana unlike my friends in Illinois who got clobbered with snow. The rain has all frozen and the ice patches are quite treacherous. But all is not lost I have been hiking with the family in the frozen woods.

Saturday we all donned our winter gear and headed up to Pokagon State Park in North East Indiana. The Baby was a sight to see, she had no winter boots so we layered her up in a couple pairs of daddy’s wool socks. The bike trailer came in handy as a baby transport and carry all for our gear and as you can see when the dog got too cold we tucked him into the back with FGB’s down blanket. He rode like a mini emperor in his human drawn carriage. Now something’s definitely wrong with this picture.

The changes in a deciduous forest in the fall and winter of the Midwest are drastic and beautiful. The leaves all fallen and brown, the greenery that usually fills the ground with life, and color, and insects all but gone, and the sun setting between the trees all lent itself to a somewhat melancholy feeling. I was reminded of the fragility of life and yet even in the midst of apparent desolation we saw the beauty of life. A falcon landed in a tree just above our heads and hopped from branch to branch showing its agility and grace.

As we hiked around the back end of the park we began to hear the exuberant howls of elated children as they raced down the toboggan run. It is a tall run that takes a good 10 or 15 minutes to walk up and mere seconds to fly down. FGB begged to go down the run but I hadn’t brought any money to rent a toboggan with so I promised him a trip as soon as we had some proper snow. I don’t know what they were sliding on. I guessed that the park either made snow or iced it down with water.

On the home front we have a pair of rough legged hawks down from somewhere in the great white north of Canada to over winter in our bean field. They are awesome birds with a wingspan of about 4 feet and all the majesty of a great bird of prey as it soars on the updrafts and swoops low across the fields in search of unsuspecting rodents. We first noticed them when Marie let Timber out the back door to go potty. He ran over to the tall weeds growing above our septic field and began to root around in his normal way. Marie was watching him from the sliding glass doors when she noticed a large bird from across the field heading in the direction of our house. It took a moment but she soon realized it was a bird of prey and it was heading straight for Timber. Thinking quickly she called Timber to come and eat and always eager for food Timber charged into the house. As soon as Timber got to the doorway the hawk wheeled and went back to the bean field to continue his hunt. We’re not sure if he would have really tried to take down the dog but as Timber is the size of a rabbit were not taking any chances from now on he’s on a short leash or we go outside with him.