A small light on the far end of the north old clay pit reflected off the water this morning.

The town pond is natural area for nefarious things, natural and unnatural.

The town's police chief knows this and knows I do a morning walk around the town pond most mornings. So, some years ago, he asked me to keep my eyes open.

Well, I do. But what am I going to say?

A couple times a year, there is a pickup or car with a young couple doing what comes naturally or drinking beer. Or both.

One morning, a few years, I found our best babysitter with two of her male friends in a small car buried in a drift. To the credit of the guys, they were trying to dig it out. All the while beer cans are spilling out of the car.

I would love to say that I said something adult, but the reality is that I remembered doing something very similar nearly 40 years ago.

So I said I would come back with shovels and they just better hope the police don't get there before Storm and I do.

When I came back with the shovels, the guys dug it out. But it still took all of us to push their car out.

Sandpipers called this morning in the darkness. It had a rattle in the call, which makes me think they might have been upland sandpipers, but they are endangered and not that common in Illinois.

Maybe somebody will read and know.

On a frosty morning--normally this is roughly the time when our first frost comes, but I think this was our fifth or sixth morning with frost--I did the extended walk. A wood duck flew off from a tree near the other lake.

As I came back toward the town pond, I noticed a vehicle parked near the old launch.

Uh-oh, I figured I better make a bunch of noise when the meathead and I neared them.

Three muskrats dived on both sides of the bridge over the neckdown between the two old clay pits.

As I approached the vehicle, I noticed another and a trailer. Ah-ha. I had my answer on the light.

Somebody must have been setting up on the far north end to intercept Canada geese coming off the fields. The central zone youth waterfowl hunt ends today in Illinois.

Which made me wonder if somebody read my ``Ramble with Storm'' a few days ago about smart hunters figuring out how to capitalize on geese coming off the cornfields.

But that might be grandiosity on my part and it may just be that somebody else figured out where the geese would go and got permission to hunt that side of the pond.

Things to consider.

Back in town, I heard a red-headed woodpecker at our neighbor's elm. That's something I haven't heart in a long time.