A cold day, and much of my time was spent nursing the woodstove, trying to heat three rooms with it, happy for one warm.

Burning logs are mood pieces, relaxing, romantic to watch, devoid of significant BTUs.

Splitting down, and down, is the way to go, the only way to heat, but I haven't much been up to the task. It is cold outside, and bringing wood in to split donates too much effort to the floor. Need that irresistable force (mostly) of concrete outside.

My blood is 40-weight S.A.E. and I can't move in the morning chill. That's the morning chill in the house.

Thus it was after noon before I got out, getting on up to Pearson's Mill SRA. Sunny cold and windy - not much wind, yet enough to take the windchill below zero.

I did a short loop, skipped the boat ramp because of footing, or possible lack thereof, and made the trip up to the top lot, above the facilities.

Then back out on the road to climb the hill to the marker for the SRA.

Just down the road, I looked up to see a raptor cross the road south, towards the lake, then wheel back east along the cliff (okay, twenty feet) away from me. She (probably) stayed at eye level, as the trees along the road are necessarily low. The raptor showed much white, but I didn't make out head or tail, and surely not back. She alit in a tree about halfway to where the road breaks from the clifftop and turns up the hill.

I knew the hawk would fly again, and hoped to see her before she did, but the icy footing kept my neck bent and she was in the air before I saw her, eastbound, upstream.

Again, so much white, and because of her size and the way she flew (not the flap-flap-flap-glide of an accipiter) and the iced over reservoir (ospreys only feed on fish, and are long gone) I'm sure she was a red tail.

I've seen one up (east) the lake on the same shore a couple of times, so there's no surprise.

And immediately a pair of orange breasted birds I so wanted to be bluebirds, except, you know, they weren't blue, and were probably nuthatches, because of a noticeable crest, and wonderful, too.

Just before the turn up the hill, there were two woodpeckers, about forty yards apart, working very slowly. I couldn't find either.

Up the hill, and at the top a bitter breeze.

Don't know if there's a connection, but since my surgery my hands are cold. No gloves help, and I'm working them constantly. Feet are fine, core is toasty, while my hands stay cold. And get colder.

My big dog Abbe wasn't at the top of the hill, was nowhere to be seen. About halfway down, here she came out of a dump in a gorge at the bottom of the hill.

She came most of the way up, then found interesting dog stuff to do.

And there was water involved, because she came to the car with black decomposed organic goo up to her knees.

Homework.

Tonight there was an airing of Nature (PBS) featuring two of my very favorite animals - raptors and canids - gyrfalcons and wolves in the Artic summer.

My puppy scored a first, barking at the images of wolves on TV. My dogs have watched some tube, have sometimes reacted to a few sounds, but this was the first reaction to images.

Did McLuhan foresee this, too?