Field Notes

I wear hiking boots to walk my dog Toby, in our muddy season. Our daily trips to the park have been especially fruitful this week. On Christmas Eve, we stumbled on a grey-furred coyote, intently devouring its prey.

Moments later, the coyote began trailing us, stealthily tracking my oblivious, five-year-old (full-size) doodle around the park. We looped through the paths, trying to shake it, and walked straight into a small universe opening up on the lawn. Noah and Peter were setting up their giant telescopes.

As the sunset faded, they adjusted their equipment (Dobsonians, Newtonians, Schmidt-Cassegrains, and Refractors) and let the group take turns at the eyepieces to see the pocks and craters covering the surface of the moon. The moon! Its mottled scarred surface is a geography of collisions. Cool, quiet, real, it has a kind of pull. The temperature was dropping fast. Shivering, I looked at it a half-dozen times and really wanted to do it another dozen. We also saw an unforgettable, crystal-clear Saturn with its band of lovely rings.

Later they were hoping to line up the Andromeda Galaxy, Neptune, and maybe even the red supergiant star called Mu Cephei. I was wishing I had a scarf, a hat, gloves and a big blanket. Then, I heard a commotion erupt from the duck pond. Suddenly dozens of ducks took flight, rising en masse, out of the water and over the fence to the safety of the reservoir. Was it the coyote? Or the owl we saw the day before? The one that flew inches over my head, probably to warn us that we were too close to her nest.

Christmas Day we came home drenched and muddy, but happy.

Today, the sun is out, and it’s Boxing Day. I wonder what surprise awaits us. Maybe we’ll see folks doing tai chi, or perhaps the sword dancer will be practicing beneath the cedars.

Happy holidays!

Thank you for being here.