Housatonic — I remember reading somewhere that a year indoors is a journey along a paper calendar; a year in outer nature is the accomplishment of a tremendous ritual.
Although my time outside now is less given to such an ultimate pursuit, I knew the better part of an outdoor year through rabbit hunting.
I hunted with the same two friends for a decade, the seventies, hunted hard from the start of upland game season in bright October into the frozen deadend of February. Forty years ago that month nearly never seemed to trickle mildly away.
Hunting in February was an entirely different experience from a hunt in October: no stroll in the woods, but a cold and crusty test of endurance many declined to take.
In the field, my friends and I leaned into a cutting, northwest wind, looking all the while like stressed tree-line pines.
The dogs, ears pinned back by the wind, eyes squinting in the ballistic light struggled to raise a scent trail from the dry, thin snow.
For their part, the rabbits ran a hard-bitten and bitter chase, looping out long and reckless over the frozen snow, elusive shadows racing time, running neck-and-neck with death. In February, they won the race more times than not.
But by the end of the month, the cold season sputtered amid higher, warming sunlight, mud and slush. Though the dogs were as ardent, the rabbits still spirited and elusive, our thoughts had turned in other directions.
Lounging on a sun-warmed rock, with winter tumbling downhill, we’d let the dogs bark themselves hoarse as the rabbits scampered to safety.
We knew, we felt, though the calendar still read February, some page had turned. It was time to move on.
