If someone saw me plodding along in a downpour at five in the morning they'd have me committed, but if I didn't go, I'd have me committed. The rain is deafening. Then in a wet eyed blink it was so quiet in the woods I think I could have heard a chickadee yawn, that is if one would do that. Maybe chickadees get up like I do, stretch abit, think about something to eat and then get on with their day. As the morning woke up I could hear single drops of rain drip from leafless branch tips and the downpour quit some time ago. It didn't slow down like twist turning off a faucet. It just quit. The water stopped falling and the wind quit blowing. Done, over. I'm sure if I'd have been in the house I wouldn't have noticed how it quit, and If it was colder, I bet I'd have been seated in a foot of snow. Well that's something to be thankful for because rain or snow, I had to be out in a today. Then from under one massive gray cloud comes two black pepper flakes that turn into a pair of ravens and I'm assuming they were both male ravens, flying single file overhead, one in the lead was croaking much more than the other tailgating bird as they floated over me and then the following raven must have suddenly got the punch line from the joke the lead raven told because it suddenly burst out in a chortling wing whirling display that only those sooty colorized birds can perform. In any event, that raven gave me every impression it was a happy bird. That set off a red squirrel I couldn't see, but his crisp little barks were unmistakable. He must not have appreciated the bird's sense of humor so early in the morn. For the better part of two hours nothing stirred, no other sights or sounds and just about the time my butt said it had enough of not doing anything, a breeze. I looked up and several patches of blue sky were a welcome sight. So I stretched for a few minutes, sat back down on my log and drifted off mindlessly thinking only about an afternoon of what I hoped would be warm and sunny. I felt really content. Then the sun came streaming through the tree tops and I closed my eyes pointing them at all that warmth. The next thing I knew, I woke up just after one in the afternoon. Something that looked like a rather large mosquito was perched on a dried sprig of withered and brown grass. I figured he was doing the same thing I was, in the same place. The trout whisperer