Hiding

I fell asleep to the glow of fox eyes seared in my brain last night. Our regular visitor is back...and I found fresh puma scat right by the camp trail this morning too, full of gray rabbit hair and bone. It is another day of pouring wet assault dripping from the eves and running in rivulets, no, make that streams down the trail. A metamorphoses of sun to shadow, earth to mud, and water to mist evaporating off the hide of the hills. Cabin fever doggedly persists while I chitted and chatted, deliberated and idled, sipped and munched, read and wrote until I just had to get out.

I hiked out full circle around the mountain top of our camp in search of purpose and groundless intent. The mist and rain cleared long enough to find Hannah and Leah in the burned over South-west slope making transects. I leant a hand and tried helping label and tie various species of half charred woody plants until the boredom drove me away to check on the others. Continuing on my loop I looked for Ryan and Seth near the pines but never found them. Walking up hill into the full force of the wind, ruminating alone with eyes to the ground over tussock clumps past the dumb goggle-eyed cud chewing gaze of alpacas back towards camp.

I searched for Sierra amongst the thorny puya beds as the wind blew stronger and found nothing for my travails but a cold nose and numb fingers as it began to rain. And then I arrive back in camp just in time as the wind began to moan something terrible and water fell in buckets from the sky...again! Accepting this muddy aqueous fate beyond my control I made the most of it and snuggled up in my sleeping bag as the patter of the rain purred over the rooftop lost in a book.

...and with the first sleepy blips of the frogs at twilight I was summoned from the cusp of sleep to go frog hunting with Sarah and Bonnie by headlamp through the paramo. It is an amphibian adventure of frog amour reverberating in monotonous drone over the hills by the light of a crescent moon and stars. Peeking out just for a moment as the clouds cleared overhead before disappearing again in shadow.