Chasing Light

I chased the sunset down to the water’s edge tonight.

I couldn’t get the shot I wanted so I mustered my old balance beam skills and went out on a limb. This one, specifically:

I only had about twenty minutes of daylight left, so I jog-trotted through the snow looking for nothing and something.  On my way through the woods I smacked branches out of the way and threw shouts over my shoulder to ask the birds where they’d gone.  Wonderfully, an owl offered a sharp rebuke for my behavior, and I almost toppled backwards onto the ice in shock.  In fairness to the owl, I had been inspecting owl pellets, and probably that seemed overly familiar.  (The pellets looked like squirrel.)  This owl was incredibly close – spitting distance, I’d say, if I could spit 100 feet into the air.  Spent ten minutes trying to make the owl yell at me once more but I never did find him (her?)

I eventually remembered that I need to let a picture go and move on.  Ducks were laughing around the bend and beyond sight.  I haven’t heard that noise for months and I always laugh when I hear it.

These pictures are the open water on our end of the lake – the same channel I paddled last summer when I happened upon the loon on her nest.