Solitude

I was sitting on my ATV on the roadway at the pond awaiting something to happen when I realized it was happening all around me, and I wasn’t really watching as closely as I maybe should have been.  While I watched for the appearance of a beaver, muskrat, goose, or other creature, I was noticing other parts of nature, but not really letting them register on my senses.

In the far distance, somewhere, I could hear the lonesome call of the yet migrating geese, but I’ve become so accustomed to it in recent days, I wasn’t really hearing it.  When I took notice and began using my limited hearing, I also could hear the breeze sighing through the needles of a big pine a hundred feet away.

While looking at the pine, which is what one does while listening to it, I noted that the birches not too far away were budding, and would soon have their summer finery ready to show all who might care to see.

Scanning the pond once more, I noted a turtle sunning on an old log sticking up out of the water.  It’s the first I’ve seen this year, and it must have recently arose from its long winter hibernation in the mud bottom of the pond.  While spying on the torpid turtle I half heard but half sensed that the tiny peeper frogs were sounding off as a background beat to the activity surrounding me that I was overlooking in my quest for the other species.

Shortly a pair of ducks, squawking their disapproval of my presence, arose from a hidden nook in the pond, and with that I left for the warmth of my home serene in the knowledge I had paid a little more attention to detail than I had on other occasions.