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cantilever at the top of the cliff
Monday, April 6 2020
It was a nice day today, so at a little after 3:00pm when Gretchen came home from her pandemic-rules shift at the bookstore in Woodstock, she demanded that I come with her on a walk. She wanted to go to the abandoned quarry northwest of Reichel Road, so led us straight through the woods directly west of the Farm Road, mostly off-trail. We passed the big boulder where I'd placed Charles' corpse and continued all the way up to Reichel Road. Then we just walked on Reichel until we came to the path that Gretchen knew led to the quarry. It passed across the east end of a large wetland, the place where Gretchen had seen a wood duck and a bat flying in the daytime. I don't think I'd been through that way before, as it looked unfamiliar. Once we got to the quarry itself, I knew where I was (even though I hadn't been there in over five years). As we walked along the edge of the artificial cliff where the bluestone mining had ended, a raven appeared and made several passes overhead. After we'd made it past the place where the top of that cliff cantilevers out for two or three feet, I turned around and saw the raven swoop up to just below that overhang, probably to a clifftop nest protected from the rain. Meanwhile Neville had somehow found his way to the top of that cliff, which prevented him from getting down to where we were due the lethal 30 foot vertical drop between our respective levels. Dogs are smart enough not to go bounding off cliffs, but I still had to look away so as not to be overcome with anxiety, especially when Neville was standing on the cantilevered part. Eventually, though, Gretchen went up a side trail and called to Neville so he'd find his way back to us via a relatively-gentle slope.
While in Woodstock today, had gotten more food at the Garden Café, so I feated on a potato-kale soup followed by a Beyond Burger with salad. Whoever makes the salad there these days puts far too many raw onions in them, but I ate them all anyway, figuring they might make me more resistant to the tiny spiked balls of coronavirus that I may eventually encounter.
Ramona this morning with another toy she stole from Crazy Dave's dogs somewhere along the Stick Trail (where they like to leave toys randomly).
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