WE ONLY SEE WHAT WE THINK WE SEE

Wednesday, 9:15 AM.  9 degrees F, cold enough to cause my boots to squeak on the hard packed snow of the road.  Wind W, calm.  The humidity is 88%, high enough to make some of my joints  squeak as well.  The barometer is 30.42 in., high enough that the sky should be clear but again the clouds of steam rising from the warmer surface of the lake water into the colder atmosphere coalesce into great gray clouds on the eastern horizon, which fade imperceptibly into the blue skies of the west.  The result is a not unpleasant day but it would be greatly improved with some sunshine.
        The birds are emptying the sunflower feeders pretty rapidly, the thistle feeder not so quickly, probably because there haven’t been many goldfinches around of late. 
        Wishing to get out of the house a bit yesterday we drove around our usual haunts and came upon four turkeys, all either hens or juvenile birds, walking very sedately down the middle of Torbick Road. 
        We drove up quietly behind them and they picked up the pace a bit, waddling uncomfortably along in front of us for a while, but they decided they did not like the situation and scuttled off into the woods and stood there motionless, magically turning into broken and blackened stumps poking out of the snow, all right before our very eyes.  We only see what we think we see, and if we had stayed there staring at stumps long enough we would not have remembered that we had seen turkeys at all.
        We had a nice if quiet Christmas, got phone calls from all the family and several other very welcome calls.  I think we are entering the stage where folks say, “We really  have to call Art and Joan and see if they are O.K.”  We pretty much are but it’s nice to get the call anyway. 
        Andy and Judy Larsen called.  Their son Eric is bicycling to the South Pole, and still has 500 miles to go, and then I guess to go back.  By himself.  To trace his progress go to ericlarsenexplore.com.