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It was sunny again Wednesday morning and there was no way I was going to stay home. The snow would look gorgeous in this light and I figured that the roads would be, if not good, at least better so I fired up the FJ and headed out again.
This time I headed straight for the river. So glad that I did.
Thick frost covered everything, the cold overnight temperatures freezing the fog rising from the water and coating the cottonwoods, saskatoons, water birch and buffalo berries along the banks. Mallards — the majority of ducks back along the tracks — and goldeneyes splashed among the chunks of mushy ice floating by. Canada geese hugged the far shore, dipping their long necks underwater to grab snacks from the bottom.
And the eagle was back in the tree.
This time, though, the tree was rimed in frost and blowing fog hampered its view. But it sat there as magpies flitted around it and watched the river go by.
The sun got higher and they fog dissipated, so I pulled out and kept heading down the river. Sunshine glared off the snow in the fields and little tendrils of mist rose where it heated the patches of bare pavement and sublimated the packed snow around them. Animal tracks led off from the ditches like Morse code dots and dashes on the white fields.
The snow thinned out a bit as I rolled east, the side roads less packed and stubble showing through along the roadsides. A wind was coming up, too. Unlike the day before, though, this wind was out of the west, not the north, and the day was getting much warmer.
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