Idle thoughts

Out of my window is a Hemlock tree---the State tree of PA. They are stately (no pun intended) large evergreen trees with "soft" needles that are almost like leaves. Looking at the one outside my window I see a ring of deep snow around the outer circumference of its lower branches and beneath their reach a circle of very limited snow.

It prompts me to recall how many times I sought refuge and comfort under the limbs of a big old Hemlock when the falling snow made deer hunting difficult. I would crawl into that place of calm and felt protected and even warmed. On occasion, I was joined by others seeking the same escape that brought me there. Once, a ruffed grouse came looking for something to eat under the shallow snow beneath the tree. It never knew I was there and walked right over one of my boots. As it went about its mission it clucked---clucked like a chicken, something I had never heard before or since. On another occasion I was treated to a visit (or was I the visitor) from a chickadee. He was a comical sort as he sat on the barrel of my rifle, looking at me as he tried to figure out what I might be, tilting his head from side to side. In an apparent effort to make a closer inspection he flew up and landed on the bill of my cap. I could see his tiny toes around the edge---and then he rotated and was staring me right in the eye---I haven't a clue as to how I didn't laugh out loud at that moment. Eventually, he tired of me and wondered off somewhere above and left me with not only a warm memory but a story to be told when I got back to the cabin that night.

While those memories are warming---I think I shall stay in the house and look through the window and let my mind take me there.:cool_one: