Night Noise

Something four-legged walking in the frozen leaves. Probably the bob-cat. I was sitting in the dark, thinking about an attachment problem, and there was a noise outside. A finite number of critters it could be, so I listen closely for a few minutes, then flip on the outside floods and catch the cat, a deer in the head-lamps, for a couple of seconds before it slinks away. It's a male, I think, in beautiful winter coat, a female would be pendulous, this time of year. Within a couple of acres I know where he lives, that gusset of land, a triangle, between the driveway and the ridge, bordered, at its base, by the power-line easement. My wildlife refuge and ginseng farm. It's two or three acres, the boundaries are so crooked it's hard to tell, either a very large or a very small space. It's densely populated because I don't let anyone roam around in there, and it provides me with a great deal of entertainment. The last time someone asked me what I did with my time, I asked them if they'd ever watched a fox eat an apple. The natural world, books, my habit of writing, cooking and eating, take up most of my time; certainly, if I had a TV and cable (which I can't afford) I'd watch cooking shows, soccer games, the history channel; also, implication is, I'd have high-speed internet, and I could reference things more quickly. Which is handy, but not necessary. More snow, I knew this was coming, I could tell from the ring around the moon. St. Patrick's Day starts with snow, then sleet, then rain, ground fog in the trees. A quiet day with no wind. A long slow breakfast, hash, shirred eggs, and toast; coffee at my desk while I finish reading some book reviews. Late afternoon it gets dark early and rains harder, and I just retreat into my nest; a little thunder so I save everything, but I stay open in my writing program. Yesterday and today I find I'm reading about people I've never heard of, I don't even know what they do. One thing is that they make way too much money, a pristine 1938 comic, first appearance of Superman, went for 3 plus million, a Paul Revere personal bell, to call a servant, you can't imagine. It's sounding serious, I'd better go.