Cross Country Skiing in backyard.
Breezy and cold about 20 degrees with partly sunny skies.
Me and my Father crossed Shaker/Somers Road and skied along Terry Brook Marsh which was running strong underneath the ice where reeds were bent and frozen. Bull rushes and cat tails stood over the snow along with the bare tree trunks. Marsh birds flitted about including one American Tree Sparrow picking through the reeds at the edge of the brook. A small hairy woodpecker knocked for wood boring insects. We followed deer and snowmobile tracks with fast conditions for skiing and hard packed snow. Old rusting lubrication drums colorful against the white snow. I had a little snow blindness while making my way along the wide open field expanse. I watched a single page of the daily newspaper tossed by the wind get blown into the deep pine wood.
One Pine meadow was littered with several large piles of old tractor and car tires, some whitewalls from the 50's. Me and my father made our way around the back of the Rushmore Farm property. Under the tree line of stately pines were various neatly arranged farm implements in disuse including old plows and trailers, metal refrigerators and generators, children's tricycles and Tonka toys and a red wagon, and bales of wire. A flock of crows fought in the distance.
Wrights Brook wound around farm property and we made notice of large animal tracks.
Crossed Somers/Shaker Road again and skied hard straight up corn field to small knoll overlooking Bald Mountain and Perkins Mountain off in the distance. I caught my breath under a rustling oak tree and took in the sunny expanse of the vast bean field in snow with cloudy blue big sky.
We skirted the adjacent tobacco field following along Terry Brook past a huge compost heap stinking in the midday sun and past maintenance sheds to Trout Pond.
I fed the two farm geese stoned wheat crackers before crossing frozen over pond into the field in our backyard and headed home.
