Winters aren’t what they used to be

As I write this, fog continues to lie heavily upon the land, and has been doing so for some days, bringing with it a damp cold, one that on some days you fear might last forever. The gravel road up on the ridge is a wet, muddy mess, however, I like it because when traffic passes I can’t hear it.

Silence prevails this time of year. Even the sound of gunfire has subsided, as shotgun season has finally passed and folks have put away their blaze orange, which they wear for their own safety, knowing that deer cannot distinguish orange from other colors.

The other night, traveling home from a nearby town I came to a stop just as I was approaching my lane, as an opossum slowly made his/her way across the now-head lighted road, unmindful of my presence. I believe we would feel differently about these creatures we mistakenly call possums if they had furry tails, instead of those rat-like things they have. If nothing else we should show them some respect, as they have been around for 20 million years.

Some years ago I helped someone get an opossum out of her garage, one that felt threatened, thus feigning its own death. Their evolution has allowed them to act, and even smell, dead. Such skill is unfathomable to me. We were able to pick it up and place it out of doors. On the day that someone finds me out here, smelling like I’m dead, please, believe that it’s so. “We thought he was just playing possum.”

One thinks of odd, perhaps morbid, things like that when living alone in the country, without any relatives near at hand, and few friends. Recently a friend informed me that I don’t, in fact, live alone. “What do you mean, I don’t live alone?” I asked. “You don’t,” she responded. “What do you mean?” I continued. Her response was priceless and not what I was expecting. “You have cats.” Uh, OK.

Two days ago a red-tailed hawk jumped from a spot high on an electric wire as I passed, and kept pace with my car for a hundred yards or so, as if we were traveling together, and I guess in some poetic sense we were, just as we all travel together with opossums, cats, dogs, and creatures both wild and tame while here on earth.

If you’re looking for meaning in life simply think of the animals with which you’ve traveled. When my cat Luna is not on my lap she sits at my feet, patiently (mostly) waiting for me to put the computer laptop aside, as she is doing right now. I look down at this beautiful creature and almost tear up, happy to have her in my life. My friend was right: I don’t live alone.

By the time this missive appears in print, the fog will likely have lifted but it doesn’t matter. Some snow would be nice.

Winters aren’t what they used to be, now seeming to lie dull and flat without interest on the landscape. It might be global warming, but I was never good at science, so I don’t pretend to know. And I’ve never been a fan of the heat of summer, but I do long for warm autumn days, days when I can sit out of doors with a friend, facing the woods, drawing the scene in front of us in black ink, handing her the finished product, hoping she likes it.

Have a brilliant 2025.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald recently published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here

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