Dog's joy

Imagine you woke up in the morning, looked out the window, and saw an almost clear sky after yesterday's snowfall. What would you do? I decided to walk the dog. That's what the dog's eyes told me as it looked at me from its kennel. It took me 10 minutes to get ready, grab the dog, and leave the yard for the forest. Now the happy dog is running through the snow, its eyes shining with joy.

Well, friends, let's walk together on the pure white snow while we still have the opportunity to walk across the snow-covered ground directly to the river. The dog has already run down the hill. She always runs ahead of me and stops at the fork in the road, turns around, and asks me, “Which way are we going today?”

Last summer and early fall were dry, but October brought heavy rains. And now a large puddle has returned to this spot, which always makes it difficult to walk along this road. It disappears only during periods of severe drought, when the “water truce” described by Rudyard Kipling in The Jungle Book takes effect.

It's alder. A tree used for smoking meat and fish. It grows in damp places, close to water. But for some reason, it's the only tree in our valley. Strange.

I put on my warm winter boots so that I could walk comfortably in the snow. Now these boots will be my main footwear until spring, until the snow melts, for my walks in the forest.

I like this place, I like this dry tree with branches growing in one direction. The tree is already standing at the very edge of the bank, and as soon as there is a big flood in the spring, this tree will fall into the river. But for the past two years, there has been little snow in winter, and the water level in the river rises little in spring.

My faithful companion on my walks, who motivates me to go hiking all year round and keeps me from getting lazy.

Due to heavy autumn rains, the water level in the river rose by almost 1 meter and covered the sandy island that forms in this section of the river. But with the onset of frost, the water level will drop again, and the island will reappear. It grows every spring, as sand moves downstream and builds up the island. When the water drops to its lowest level in summer, the island merges with the shore.

Nature is preparing for winter. Weather forecasters are predicting the coldest winter since the beginning of this century. I don't want to believe it; I don't want a cold winter because it brings many problems. But we need to be prepared for it.