Saturday, November 14, 2026, 33* F, 88% RH, 29.67 BP, 0758
Ice a wide ribbon extending from shore where stream is shallow enough for crossing. Sky silver. Earlier, a bright orange streak marked the horizon. Two American Crows, one chiding, one laughing across the canopy. One flew, still chiding, towards the house next door, the house I can’t see through leafless trees, the house where an unknown dog barks, turning heads, lifting ears of the three. Below the chiding, below the laughing, randomly, an American Goldfinch, an American Robin.
Yesterday, splashing, a large black duck, a loner, taking a bath, preening, drying wings, blending with the scenery. Late afternoon, a person with long dark hair appeared on the other side of the stream, just standing there. I went inside, the moment just as unsettling as the November I was home alone in Norway, Maine; looked out the kitchen window to see a man standing guard with a rifle. If I had not stopped for water, the dogs would’ve been out the door already. Bruce pulled into the driveway behind an unfamiliar truck, spoke calmly with the three men that had come to load more than one deer someone had shot.
The person standing across the stream, an illusion of light and shadow, or was it?
Photo: LJ Austin
