The other night, a red fox passed through our backyard. It barked a few times, sounding a bit like a cat trying to sound like a dog. The next morning, I saw unmistakable fox tracks in the snow among numerous rabbit tracks. And for the next two days, I often thought of the fox and of another, earlier time when my wife Julie and I saw a fox at our Quiver Lake cabin along the Illinois River valley.
We were relaxing on the cabin’s screened front porch on a late summer afternoon, quietly looking out over the bluff side and lake, getting ready to head back to our home in Macomb. Reluctant to leave, our attention was unfocused, trying to absorb the scene one last time before packing up the car. So when a fox ran across our view, quickly out of the brush and then back into it, we both looked at each other as if to ask, Is that really what we just saw? The sighting made the entire day stand out against an already unusual year (2020): warm memories to reflect upon during cold winter days. The recollection made me want to visit the cabin again, even though it was shut down for the winter.
So on the first good day following the weekend’s winter storms, I quickly dispensed with the few errands that demanded attention and headed for the Illinois River valley, nearly an hour away. The town roads and rural highways were clear, but the surrounding countryside was blanketed in a continuous layer of snow and ice, and the exceptionally bright morning sun glared downward, reflecting off a glistening plain of white in every direction as far as I could see across the barren farm fields. As I approached the Illinois River bluffs, the thickness and pervasiveness of the ice cover increased. Tree branches drooped from the weight; fallen limbs lined the roads; and with temperatures just above freezing, ice and melt water literally rained from roadside trees, every now and again crashing down in great cascades upon the vehicle’s windshield as if I were traveling through a melting glacier.
At the cabin, raccoon and squirrel tracks ran up and down our cement walkway leading to the sandy beach far below. But fox tracks, I did not see. So I focused my attentions on the blue sky, the half-frozen Quiver Lake, and distant floodplain forests, all covered in ice, across the lake and at Chautuaqua National Wildlife Refuge. A group of Wilson’s snipe, which had been foraging in the seeps along the water’s edge, took flight as I emerged from beneath tall cottonwoods; across the lake, a bald eagle perched near the top of a tree; Canada geese and greater white-fronted geese lounged on the ice; and within minutes, a group of common mergansers executed flawless soft landings in the water near the geese. I could have stayed there all day, reveling in this classic winter scene, but cold breezes off the lake were already beginning to penetrate my thin clothing.
Quiver Lake with trees glazed in ice, January 5, 2021
With an extra jacket and hood, I ate a sandwich on the cabin’s front porch, much quicker than I normally would have. My bare hands became colder by the minute, but I enjoyed listening to the honking geese, searching for an elusive fox, and watching ice fall from trees. And with every crystal changing from solid to liquid, with every drip, it was one more step toward spring, still many weeks and winter storms away.
Comments