When I walk the black dog Shady in the morning, I always go at least as far as Bass Creek, a half mile down the Peace Trail. I mean, you wouldn’t turn around before you got to the creek. It’s a destination that yields itself as the reward for walking to it. This January morning the creek was partly frozen, the best way to see a creek. Its in-between state gives you the feeling that anything can happen.
I was looking at the creek for a long time before I saw a great blue heron standing motionless on its edge. I’d seen this heron around, refusing, for some reason, to migrate with its kin.
Winter heron, I called him.
A movement caught my eye, and I watched a plump muskrat haul himself from the creek near the heron. It was fun to watch him slip on the ice skirting the frozen bank. He noshed on some tasty roots and ambled toward the heron. Just then I realized nature was about to go off script. This muskrat was about to get himself impaled by the long sharp yellow beak of the heron. And why not? Look at the yellow eyes of that heron! Don’t put anything past a creature with eyes like that. Maybe he stayed put for just such an opportunity as this.
The muskrat altered course, unaware of his audience. He slipped back in the creek and floated downstream like a fat cattail.
Just like that, his appointment with the sharp yellow beak was cancelled. Of course it was. That couldn’t happen. Could it?
What do you think, Shady? I asked.
Dumb question, her eyes said.
