Digger

Digger was shuffling through the leaves. They had started to turn red and yellow. He raised his nose to smell the cool breeze coming down the mountain slope. It smelled of snow, an early snow. The sky was still blue, but the air was crisp. It's not the biting cold yet, but soon, thought Digger.

He went on keeping his eyes on the terrain, searching and observing. His ears always attuned to the natural sounds of the mountain, his mountain. He hadn't been born here. This place had called to him a few years back. He thought back to the family he'd left behind. Mom and Dad had taught him all he needed to know about the woods. How to survive even the harshest winters. "Hole up" they'd told him. This year he might have to do this sooner than he figured.

He adjusted the fur coat on his back a bit. Took a quick whiff of air and went on down the trail he'd made over the last few years.

Off to the side was some half sized boulders. Digger went down around them to the south side. He softly moved the leaves aside to uncover the small mountain potato plants. He discovered these last autumn and had been waiting in the spring to see if they were going to reappear. When they did he was glad. He knew they were good food to keep a body healthy in the cold times.

He went and dug only one up. He brushed off the dirt and smelled it. It was ready, at last. He took a nibble. Oh, it was sweet. Digger let the flavor sit in his mouth as the sun warmed up the rock behind him.

It felt good to be here this morning. He took some more nibbles as he watched the sun slowly gain in height. The cool breeze, the warmth of the rocks and the sweet potato were some of the many pleasures in his life. He liked to savor them all.

As he put the remaining piece in his mouth to suck, he went back around the rocks to his trail. It was an easy trail, not too steep. It gradually went down to a nice little beach at the stream. This was good water. The water was from a spring which came out of the rock cliff higher up on the mountain.

The sun was almost over head when Digger reached the bank. A cool bit of water tasted fine after his trek. He wandered around a bit looking at who had been here. He saw rabbit tracks and the deer.

The mother's fawn was growing up. The baby wasn't hiding its track in the mamma's track anymore. Digger knew the fawn would again if trouble came along, but for the easy times it would be going its own way, making its own tracks in this big world.

Digger liked to watch the baby during the summer. Its playful curiosity trying to figure out a hopping frog or chasing the flying locust it scared up while running through a field of clover. The unhindered joy of the young brought Digger undeniable pleasure.

Across the stream, Digger saw the vixen's tracks. He'd been waiting to see if she would bring her kits out. He knew she'd been teaching them to hunt, but would she risk bringing them to the watering hole. That was the question.

Digger had paid attention when mothers of all kinds kept their young away from the main highways in the woods. Too many dangers. He had watched the mothers take a full belly of water back to their young to lick from their snouts or teach the babes to lick the dew from the grass and leaves in the early mornings before the sun poked up its mighty head. As Digger pondered on these thoughts his eyes had found many different plants to "graze" upon.

He wandered along the stream for a while before heading back up his mountain. As he thought of the wonderful sights and sounds, smells and tastes of the day he realized he had a good life. One where he was content. He was glad to be himself. When he reached his burrow, he crawled in and dreamed sweet dreams of the coming winter and sweet potatoes.

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When Digger woke the next morning it was darker than normal in his burrow. The sky had turned grey with thick clouds. The smell of snow was heavy in the air.

He yawned and stretched. It would be a good day to look for more food that would be soon hidden by the snow.

He crawled out of his burrow and looked at the sky. Watching the clouds, he saw they were not moving very fast. They were thick, though, and this he knew meant they were here to stay for a while.

These clouds were rain clouds, with maybe some sleet mixed in, he thought. They didn't have the snow drift look of ones that brought the heavy snows.

The sun was starting to rise. He would know more when it came up. The sun would always tell him when the heavy snows would hit. The sun he knew, would have a rainbow halo around it when the heavy snows were coming. The closer the halo to the sun, the closer the snow. When the clouds showed rain and snow it usually meant sleet.

He wondered if the southern gorge had been grazed by the deer and elk yet. He knew they preferred to go there in the later part of the winter when the snows were deep on other parts of the mountain. They would graze the hills out in the open or in the valleys where the snow and the cold hit the hardest and save the protected valleys for the harshest part of winter.

He set off in that direction for he knew those animals knew if this was to be a heavy or light storm. He, then, would know if he needed to uproot some winter stock to keep in his burrow.

He was glad to make this trip. He always liked being there. In this gorge the wind hardly ever blew through. So for winter it was an ideal place to be. Although during the summer months, it was so hot and stifling he didn't go very often.

As Digger walked along he watched the birds circling overhead. The eagles and hawks were floating on the breeze quite low today, he noticed. The storm was getting closer. With the wind picking up, they were picking places to hover, to watch.

He stopped to "graze" a bit on some berries. He looked up in the trees and saw the acorns and pinenuts were almost ripe. This was a good sign. The squirrels and chipmunks would be gathering them soon. Soon he would go collecting too.

Digger shook the cold off and started walking again to warm himself up a bit. A little more and he'd be at the edge of the gorge. Just over this next rise, across the little creek, then down the slope to the cliff side of the winter feeding grounds for many of the animals on this mountain.

When he reached the edge, he peered down, looking up and down the gorge. It held a small spring fed seep that dried up in the middle of summer. After that the only water there was from the rains until autumn when the earth gave forth again the cool drink to the thirsty landscape.

(not finished yet)