A groundhog saw its shadow in oncoming headlights

On a recent cold, dark night, I was driving the two-lane toward home, singing along with a beautiful tune called “Gringo,” by the band Little Feat. You may not know the band; however, they have been around since the late 1970s, and you may recall one tune that received serious radio airplay, a fun thing called “Dixie Chicken.” One of the lines in “Gringo” is one to which we should all pay attention. It goes, “Something tells me we really oughta come out of the dark.”

In the middle of the tune, I had to slow down, as a groundhog was racing across the road in my headlights. She is supposed to be hibernating this time of year, but there she was, a big furry bundle of black and gray. A half mile further down the road, an opossum lingered for a split second on the right-hand shoulder, its left eye reflected in the high beams. As I entered my lane, a rabbit scrambled out in front of my car, thought better of it, and hightailed it back to the hedges from whence she came. I was happy to arrive home without killing or maiming some creature or other.

Canada geese have begun their journey north, which seems a bit premature, but I expect they know more about these things than I. A group of five deer moves past my house on a regular basis, only now there is one having a difficult time keeping up with the others, as her left rear leg just hangs there, so she tries to negotiate life on three legs. Deer have such slender legs, and I’m surprised I don’t see this more often. She likely broke it in a fall.

The Winter Olympics continue unabated. I have enjoyed the scenery but not the constant onslaught of advertisements for drugs, insurance, autos, and credit cards. Can’t say that the sports are all that compelling either, although ice skating interests me. I became a skater as an adult and have laced-‘em-up in many places: Chicago, New York, Munich, Salzburg, and, closer to home, on a once-thriving marsh north of a nearby town. I was not one to slip or fall when skating, but I never learned any of the fancy skills that truly good skaters enjoy. Consequently, watching Olympic skaters doing what looks to be impossible keeps me wide-eyed. My skates now gather dust in the basement, just one more thing for my poor executor to deal with when I am gone.

When I do pass from this earth, I’ll be the last of my family from anywhere near the area. The hills along the Maquoketa River are not filled with Ullrichs or, in my mother’s case, Maiers. They never were, as we were from elsewhere. I have siblings remaining, but they have long since carved out lives in, well, elsewhere. And when I’m gone to the place Bill Shakespeare (it’s OK, we’re friends) called “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns,” I, along with my name, will be rather quickly forgotten, and I don’t mind, as I won’t be around to notice. Thankfully, the final departure gate is at the far end of the terminal and not yet in sight. And besides, I have things to do, people to love, words to find.

February is a silent month out here, especially if snow blankets the hillsides and the gravel road is empty. Sometimes, at dusk, that time when the poet Shelley’s “moonbeams kiss the sea,” I arrive home, walk from my garage to the house, and the silence is broken by a familiar two-bar, eight-count call of a Barred Owl, floating upward from deep in the hollow, telling me that, at least for that moment, all is well, that night will close early.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County and hosts the “Rural America” podcast. It can be found at https://www.ullrichruralamerica.com