Fishing and Hiking in Feb.

We are coming to the end of what has been a six or seven day stretch of great weather. I took advantage of this to get in some hiking and fishing. On the fishing front I am batting zero for fish caught, but the only one that got hurt was the worm. I could almost hear him or her scream as they hit that ice cold water. I on the other hand had a great time. On the hiking front I could not have picked a better day, fifty-two degrees and bright sunshine. The trails were packed down by snowmobiles so I didn’t need snowshoes, that is the only good thing that’s comes from snowmobiles as far as I am concerned. The first trail I walked was not a snowmobile trail but had enough illegal traffic so it was still well packed down and easy to walk without the snowshoes. I walked about a mile out on this trail to a cabin I wanted to get a winter picture of. This is a cabin I have always like, it seems to blend in so well with the landscape. [picture posted to blog]
The second trail I walked was a snowmobile trail but I only saw about 20 snowmobiles in the two miles out and back that I walked. My timing was perfect, I couldn’t have picked a better day to walk the trails because it was Super bowl Sunday and most of the snowmobile riders were on their way home to catch the game. In my six miles of hiking I didn’t see any wildlife except the ever present ever pleasant, to both eye and ear, Chickadee. I can’t imagine what a walk in the woods would be like without them. I did see a sign that spring is on it’s way, about a million snow fleas. I have no idea where these little black hopping specks come from, but as soon as the sun gets strong enough to warm the surface of the snow they seem to mystically appear. I thought about looking them up on the internet but then I realized that this is one of the things in my life I want to remain a mystery. I think we all need a lot of magic and mystery in our life to tickle our imaginations. I think the things we call snow fleas could be visitors from another planet, or maybe visitors from another time or dimension, of course this is just speculation. But one thing I am almost sure of, snow fleas and only snow fleas are the creators of the mysterious crop circles, think about it, at a certain time of the year snow fleas appear out of nowhere, at a certain time of year crop circles appear out of nowhere, coincidence I think not! Although I saw no wildlife on the hike I did see a fox while driving to the place I intended to hike, it was just a quick glance but I noticed it still had its bushy winter coat on. In a month or so it will start to shed the winter coat it wears and begin to look like an animal with the mange for a few weeks. However this was a beautiful animal and I wish It would have stayed still long enough for me to get a picture but it was not to be.
Looks like it is going to rain all day here, so what else can I write about, ah, yes, my mountain bike came in yesterday so I made the 5 hour round trip to pick it up. It’s a nice looking well-equipped bike and I think I look rather cute on it. I’m posting a picture of me on the bike today so you be the judge. I got home early enough to take it for short four-mile ride. Not good! I averaged a disappointing 9 miles per hour and when I got off it at the end of what was only about a 25 minute ride my legs were quivering like two bowls of jello just out of the mold. Lucky for me this only lasted about two minutes. So once again I am asking my wonderful web buddies to help me out and tell me where I can find a really flat mountain so I can start riding my mountain bike. On the other hand after my little four-mile ride and considering my age and the fact that the only pedals I have pushed in the last twenty-five years are a gas and brake pedal this might not be such a good idea. It could be that this curmudgeon is biting off more then he can chew, much like an ant walking up an elephant’s leg with rape on its mind.
This is me saying goodbye to you till whenever.