Attack of the forest monsters!
July 13, 2008
Normally, I only write about runs, not walks, so this is exceptional. Then again, so was my experience in the woods yesterday.
Instead of a jog, I chose to go for a walk. That’s not so strange, I often walk down to the stream in evenings to get some fresh air and to clear my head.
Yesterday, however, I just put on my shoes and started walking. Regular readers will recognise that I started off on one of my well worn paths. After crossing the stream at Nymølle, however, I went off road. Actually, it was off path, and on road – on what used to be one of the main north-south roads in this area. These days it’s not much more than a deep, washed out gully, and it seemed like the most traffic it gets was the millions of ants that were swarming all over it. I’d never seen so many.
Once the path got to the top of the hill, I vaguely recognised where I was by the two burial mounds. I crossed over the main path and headed back into the woods in order to get myself lost again. It worked, and before I knew it, I was someplace I had never been before. (Thanks to the preschoolers for letting me sit on their outdoor sofa while I contemplated which way to go next.)
I must have been lost in thought, because I nearly jumped out of my skin when some kid on a bike passed me. It always surprises me how alone you can be when you are walking alone in a suburban wood. At one point a heard a noise that sounded vaguely like a muffled cry for help, but decided that it wasn’t anything but the sighing of a tree bough.
After wandering around in what I knew was more or less the direction I wanted to go, I came to a fenced off pasture. It had an electric fence, but no gate, only a grate in the ground to prevent hoofed animals from walking over it. There is a similar pasture in the area where I know there are cows – and a bull, so I tried to make my way around this one.
I walked in both directions but came to the conclusion that 1) there was no way around, and 2) if it was really dangerous, there’d be a sign.
So, with Song of the South on my mind, I crossed over the grate.
In addition to turning around every few steps to see if there was a charging bull, I kept looking down to see whether I could determine from the droppings what kind of animals lived here. Here and there were clusters of small round poops. Deer droppings, no doubt, I thought and continued along the path, which had now left the open pasture and was taking me down a narrow forest lane.
That was when I could hear them. It wasn’t anything more than shuffling from the underbrush to start with, but then it was on both sides, and I could sense that something was moving up ahead as well. Just as I was about to turn behind me I could feel something brush up against my leg. Jolted by what at the time felt like a slimy tentacle, I stopped my turn half-way and lurched forward.
As I scrambled, I caught sight of flashes of white just behind the trees lining the path. From behind me, the one that had tried to grab hold of me let out a warning call, that caused the others to stop their munching echo the call. Finally realising what these beasts were, I knew there was nothing I could do to save myself but laugh.
“Baaa,” they said. “Ha,” I said, red faced.
Sheep may be the most docile animal in all of creation, but they are certainly sneaky little bastards. I’ll remember this the next time I sit down to a leg of lamb.
Today i spent most of the day sanding window frames. By the time I was done, all I just enough left over for a short run with a boring name.
