The Free Radical

A tiny skiff of snow had fallen in the wee hours of morning. I was breaking trail again. It didn’t take long before I caught up again with Brother Bear. He had preceded me by just a few hours, having walked the western edge of my path during the early morning snowfall.

His tracks are difficult to discern because of the roughness of the terrain beneath the snow, the inadequate depth of snow, and the fact that it was still snowing when he passed this way– partially covering the tracks. Again, he was headed straight up the western slopes toward his winter denning site. Hopefully this time he will feel content to initiate the long sleep without needing to tend to any last minute details on our behalf. The forest does feel especially peaceful this day.

With Brother Bear gone to bed I can continue my winter forage without much guilt. Granted, the pickings are rather sparse. Each day now tends to yield only a handful of juniper berries, bear berries and a few rose hips along the way.

The great thing about it though, is that the flavours are amazing! The rose hips now taste strongly of ripe apples. The juniper berries have perfected the sweet cinnamon taste of their new fifth-dimensional expression, and the biggest, fattest bear berries are loaded with sugar. The combination leaves a spectacular taste in my mouth during these daily adventures. I am still gratefully in awe.

And now there is a new adventurer joining the Daily Forest Report team. Her name is Sitka. She’s two months old and eager to learn the wisdom of the forest. If I can teach her how to type, I may surrender the writing duties to her in the future. We’ll see.