Night moves

We walk, as is usual, sometimes once a day, often twice a day. Morning, evening, in good weather and in bad weather. It is a needed therapy and exercise at the same time. this evening it is warm out for January, the temperature being in the seventies with a fair breeze. The moon, just past full is in a clear sky with a few high clouds passing it. The bright moonlight filtering through those clouds is magnificent.

A local wilderness trail, a belt of thick woods with steep slopes is along our route. in a cleared area, I cast the beam of my flashlight upon two eyes, a fox that casually observes us walk by, one of several that inhabit the wooded areas near our place. We move on and I dole out a snack for my walking partners.

As we get into it we walk through another neighborhood that borders the Apalachicola river with a broad belt of woods between a row of homes and the river which is hundreds of feet wide. There my flashlight sweeps across a more lightly wooded parcel and we get a glimpse of no less then six deer. Their eyes give them away as they blend into the wooded darkness. They seem interested in us and don't move as we walk by.

The moon guides our way and the flashlight is really only needed as a precaution. In fact it is actually easier to see into wooded areas by just the light of the Moon than when light is shined into them. The moonlight filtering through trees and undergrowth has a strange half visible aura. We move on through a street with less woods and only minutes after our first encounter, come across four more deer. they however were more skittish and quickly disappear into a nearby thicket. Me move on in a route that is well known to us, headed back toward our place.

We make our way up a completely wood lined street which is winding and fairly steep. We stop for a moment and my compatriots smell a recently used path for a forest inhabitant while I take in the Moon beams through the woods. I look up and marvel at he artwork that is the Moon and clouds and had the thought, Ive enjoyed this activity and these scenes elsewhere and in many years past and I think... as things were then, and how they are now a feeling of being the person I was then and now and am excited about what comes next.

We make it back after about an hour. I reflect a little on it, another adventure under our belt and hope that we get to do it again.