Goose Lake in winter

Hi everyone,

It’s 4 degrees above zero, up from 3. Goose Lake is icing over yet the geese remain on the water, silent…unmoving, somehow alive when a human would soon perish. When the sun comes up, the geese will take off in groups to spend the frigid day in nearby fields and lawns, making the best of it living on winter vegetation.

Farther down in the water, fish move in slow motion, turtles lie buried in the muddy floor of the late. In thickets nearby, warm blooded, short-haired deer lie together, moving as little as possible. Finches and sparrows fluff out their feathers, their dainty claws locked around limbs in barren trees or tucked into shrubs. Ants, worms, frogs, toads, mice, voles move deeper into the soil. I may not see them as often these days, but the opossums are there, skunks, too. Raccoons. Foxes. Rabbits. Squirrels. In dens, tunnels, tree holes, under decks, in attic hideaways, in fence cracks, nests, and under rocks, life lives on its own terms.

I look out my window and see a desolate scene. Weeks from now, Goose Lake will prove me wrong once again.