The first thing I saw as we hiked out from the Cabin this afternoon was an eight-point buck bounding across the face of the woods, and of course Oliver gave chase. When we reunited at the leaf-carpeted clearing (I saw dug-out hoof indentations in the soft dirt all the way up the hill) the dog was still roving in circles, nose stuck to the ground. He seemed pretty pleased with himself.
After the Chase
In the clearing, a blue jay muscled around from branch to branch around me, showing off. I saw a building foundation down the slope that I’d never seen before, and realized I was standing atop a berm created by a wall of giant boulders.
On this particular dreamy afternoon, it would have seemed almost normal to run into some gargantuan natural apparation, like the Stratosphere Giant of the Redwood National Park in California, 370 feet tall (the Statue of Liberty is 305 feet).
