An early morning walk with birddogs in last week’s -5 degree weather made me painfully aware that we had moved into winter. This morning’s pre-sunrise walk with the grim hand of the thermometer on the deck pointing to the -30 degree mark? That made me think we had moved to a different planet.
The Winter Planet resembled the Earth in most ways. The constellations fading into the brightening cerulean sky were the same stars we see from Earth. Except for the trunk of one elm tree that had cracked in the cold of the Winter Planet night and now hung dangling over the driveway, the woodlands appeared unchanged. Yes, the landscape was covered with almost two feet of powdery snow that had accumulated from three recent storms, but that is not abnormal in the North Country. The windswept limestone bluff bordering the west side of the county road was the same formidable wall of rock and ice. My neighbor’s barn was a familiar black silhouette against the eastern sky.
BLOODED. Not sure when or where I first heard that word applied to an item of hunting or fishing gear, but its meaning was clear. Blooded meant that the piece of gear in question — a rifle, shotgun, bow, knife, rod, hook, lure… — had been successfully used to take game.
A BRACE of game birds: plural, two wild birds of the same type that have been killed for sport or food; from the Middle English or Old French word brace (brah-say), meaning “arms” hence a pair; a sporting term that dates back to about the year 1400.
Dispatches from a Northern Town 