Another typical winter morning, so. I held off long enough to let dawn near.

Didn't write a ramble yesterday because I saw our neighbor's beloved cat get hit right in front of us and die, and I couldn't pull together a set of conflicted thoughts and feelings.

One of those rambles left unfinished, it was mulling the quandary of death.

This morning was certainly warmer than Friday morning when it was so cold with an air temperature of 5 degrees and a real wind chill, that I shortened our walk to the regular 1.5-miler.

This morning, I stretched it back out to the extended ramble.

The Canada geese were cackling on the lake to the west. I checked yesterday and they have still been swimming open a small hole. Even with that small hole, there are something like 200 geese on the water and ice.

Last evening, right at sunset, they came flying over over in Vs and strings, wave after wave.

Another typical winter dawn, a bright red ball coming over the tree line by the train tracks to the east.

With the cold this week, the 1.5 inches of snow we got Monday afternoon and evening, hangs on and one. By now, there are so many tracks by the fencerows, it looks as busy as the intersection of Clark, Broadway and Diversey on Chicago's North's Side.

I exaggerate, only for effect.

A pickup came flying up as the meathead and I neared the bridge over the neckdown between the two old clay pits. I suspect he was an ice fishermen checking if others were ice fishing.

Still only a handful of holes in the ice, including the first one I drilled on shaky ice Monday morning.

Promised the youngest two that we would try ice fishing, probably today when it warms up some.

Coming back toward town, more than 15 mourning doves were either on the wires by the feed mill outside of town or flying over us.

It's one of those mysteries of life. Where have the doves been. I had not seen doves in weeks, then I saw two yesterday and now the 15-plus this morning.

Near home, I heard, then saw, one of the resident Eurasian collared doves.

That kind of morning, small mysteries.