Karl and I “got back on the horse” so to speak. Although yesterday afternoon we did go through the area that caused Karl concern in the morning, it was still our “short loop” walk and we missed our normal midday longer walk. Back in the Woods post has the plat and Google Earth for our normal long walk.

Today, was again sunny and clear, so off we went.

The first loop, our short loop walk, is a ridgeline around a “bowl” to the west and a drop to a valley to the east. The “bowl” is protected enough that deer bed down many places there. A deer died either from a car or hunter near the tree branches in the foreground. The carcas was there Thanksgiving morning and gone by the afternoon. Karl has found bits down in the bowl so something(s) drug it down there. One walk, the ravens swooped down around us, apparently upset that we were too close to their “food”. One of my guesses about yesterday is that perhaps there was a fresh kill and Karl picked up a “vibe” or scent or ?. He made no move to go down in the bowl today and I prohibited it yesterday.

Above, Karl heads down from the ridge to a gulley area which is about the halfway point of our short loop and where I stopped yesterday. The point he turned around is just a bit further as the path starts up again.

Above – deer tracks which is all we saw other than our own.

Our path emerges from the gulley at the end of one of the lots in this large acre subdivision. Around the bend and dead ahead about 350 yards is the house.

For our long walk we skirt the northeast corner of my property and enter the 40 acre parcel of state land. The state land was logged several years ago and is a fairly open wooded parcel. It is mostly flat, but drops off steeply on the north and west edges to other properties.

Above is a typical view on the state land – open woods with glimpses of the mountains to the west, north and east. Karl and I have been able to walk parts of this land that we normally don’t. In the summer the high grass, weeds, piles of sticks and downfall force us to stick to game trails. With the amount of snow we had in December, that melted down, compacted and then froze, the walking and snowshoeing is easy and we’ve been able to explore areas we’ve not been before and then take the direct route home. Today, we took an hour and a half to take a really long walk.

By the time we returned, a rest in the shade felt pretty good.

Karl left the bedroom closet about 2 hours after we returned from our walk cut short – and asked to go outside. He went out and picked a usual spot in the snow to lie and survey his territory.

Later, we set off for our usual late afternoon walk. He stopped at the spot where we turned around earlier. I stayed quiet and let him decide. He went on and I followed. I did not see any tracks that were not mine, his or deer but he stayed on my snowshoe path and kept his nose to the ground. When we got to a spot maybe 250 yards from the house he got excited and started off the path. The deep mushy snow was too much – I called him back. He seemed grateful to be called. He was not anxious or overly alert – more curious…sniffing the air and the ground. So…I don’t know, but something was “off” earlier and it appeared there were remnants of it in the air, but we completed our walk uneventfully. If not for the earlier unusual return, I would have thought nothing of his attention to the area near home.

While nothing of note “happened” on the walk, the scenery was spectacular:

And on our return, as I fired up the grill – from the front porch:

This may be the closest I get to a full moon photo. The forecast does not look good for the night of the full moon. But tonight, it is a beautiful evening and we had a walk completed.