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Eventually the sun ducks behind the trees
or clouds, and the breeze becomes more
noticeable. Hefting my gear and returning to
the van, I prepare perhaps a toasted cheese or
tuna-salad sandwich to browse, along with
celery sticks, cherry tomatoes and a plate of
baked beans. I slip on a pair of loose cotton
slacks, socks and walking shoes, and exit
through the wooden gate across from a
splendorous, rambling wild rose bush. This
graveled road saunters along Pudding Creek,
past the abandoned orchard that in the fall is
thick with yellow apples. For three quarters of
an hour, I walk until Ramsey Ridge Road
divides and both forks head into the hills
where I usually turn around for the amble
home. There are days when no vehicles,
bicycles or horses traverse this stretch of road
and one may spot a fox or bobcat or a young
coyote crossing the road, or, on one of the
oblique skid-trails, the tracks of a mountain
lion.
The sun setting behind the ridge has
burnished the sky, silhouetting the trees; and the
airclean and sweet in any seasonhas cooled
by the time I unlatch the gate. Unlocking the
cottage door, a swallow darts past from its muddaubed nest in the porch eaves. With a coffeecan scoop, I carry dog kibble from a bag in the
utility room and dump it into an old dishpan in
the yard. Someone, sojourning in this cabin a
few years before, abandoned a mongrel puppy
that has since grown into a handsome,
longhaired shepherd-collie. Wolf, as the folks
call him, quarters in a gutted stump behind the
wild rose across the road. The folks feel a
responsibility for him and have arranged his
daily feeding. Whenever I am away, at a hired
house-sit, they drive out from town to feed him.
He is to be respected for his independence:
although a ward, he is not obsequious. He
allows himself to be seen, but not to be
touched. A true lone wolf, he has not come
within a human arms reach since he was
abandoned. I sometimes have glimpsed him
following me on my walks, tracking me distantly
as perhaps a curious wolf might do. He appears
to be alert, healthy and contented. And he is
providentially cared for by a source which he is
not even expected to pay obeisance to.
Reentering again my twenty-foot
domicile, of three years, I fix a cup of coffee or
a country road,
wild roses grow
that need my
special care;
A cheerful brook
on a mountainside
is sad
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