Now that I’m stuck in lock-down, I realized that my already sketchy exercise routine needed a revamp. So earlier this week, I decided to tear myself away from my keyboard long enough to whip my stiffening muscles back into shape.

A couple of days ago, I rolled out my yoga mat and spent a little time trying to touch my toes. My fingertips got closer toward the end of my practice, but still didn’t quite get there. I have a lot of work to do to get back to flexible. As usually happens when I practice, I felt amazing afterward.

I also decided that after living on this property for eighteen years, it’s time to explore what’s really out there. We own not quite twenty acres of land in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a sort of pie-shaped plot that is mostly meadow with a steeper wooded area. Not all of the property is easily accessible.

Because I have no idea what lives over there, I made sure I was armed. Somewhere on the mountain, lives a bear (seen it), a bobcat (seen it, too), a mountain lion (haven’t seen it, but it’s seen us), a pack of coyotes (hear them hunt), and other wildlife I probably don’t know about. Not anything I want to encounter while out on my own. And for all I know, the bear den is on our property, so I took the dog with me. He wasn’t happy.

Anyhow, I made it a point to check out an area that I’ve been curious about for some time. What I found surprised me. We have a gully that separates the meadow from the wooded area. I decided to hike over to the head of that gully and see what I could see.

What I discovered surprised me. Instead of one gully that runs from a culvert, it is actually two runoff paths from uphill and a smaller one that converge to form a more significant cut. I know that in one spot, the gully is about ten feet deep, but no water runs through it unless we get a lot of rain or snowmelt.

I found a snow-covered clearing with a beautiful view.

There’s more to discover. I can’t wait to explore further.