A Hill With a View

We got another 6 inches of snow today and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to get out on my snowshoes again. The sky was a magnificent blue with big puffy, dark-tinged clouds, which hung heavy with more snow. I didn’t make it all the way up to the top of the hill, but the view from half way was just as pretty. Right in front of my house, which sits on Fish Creek, is a congregation of about 150 ducks and geese that are over-wintering. But the gathering on the water was smaller today; perhaps they had flown west to the Saratoga Lake, or maybe east to the Hudson River. I’ve noticed that they appear to move back and forth, perhaps to take advantage of sunnier locales as the sun moves across the sky.
As I stood there, looking across the water, and then up into the woods, I felt a sense of jubilation. The air was crisp; the snow was blowing out of the trees, creating a spray of snow that was then carried off on the wind;Lily, my ever-faithful, and enthusiastic, companion was there at my side; and the geese honked noisily in response to our noisy approach (my snowshoes squeak loudly, sounding much like a honking goose, in fact) and at that moment, there was no other place I would rather have been.