The weather is slowly letting us know that we are getting closer to winter. We are still hanging in there without much in the way of precipitation, but there has been some ice on the area ponds and lakes.

The terrible tragedy that took place in Anoka County this past week is a harsh reminder to us that the ice is not safe to walk on at this time. We should always use caution when venturing out onto the ice, even in the middle of winter.

I remember the times I spent as a kid exploring the freshly frozen slough that was a short distance from home. I, along with a couple of my buddies, would venture out onto the clear frozen water just to see how far we could go. The water wasn’t very deep, but that feeling of your foot going through the ice and your four-buckle overshoe filling up with icy water always seemed to stay with you for a while.

I remember my mother telling me to sit by the heat register and warm up before I caught my death of cold. I would put my feet against the heat register, hoping to speed up the warming process. The first sensation I felt wasn’t the warm fuzzy feeling of the register’s heat, instead it was the pain of your feet trying to establish some sort of feeling and the feeling it established wasn’t good.

There were times my feet and hands hurt so bad I would have sworn there was permanent damage to all my limbs. I learned one thing fairly young: If you want to avoid falling through the ice, stay away from the cattails and bull rushes.

The farther we got into the winter, the more we would explore the slough. It was fun to see the critters and where they lived in the winter.

One year we had gone across the slough to what seemed like a really big hill to some little adventurers. There we were, sleds in tow, hoping to slide down the big hill where we would build up speed and go for what seemed like a mile.

When we arrived at the hill, there perched high in this big old oak tree was a great big white owl. It was the prettiest bird that this young guy had ever seen.

We were in awe of the size and the wingspan of this creature of the wild. At that moment I think we all felt like we were really on an adventure in a little part of our neighborhood that hadn’t yet been tamed. I’m sure the bird in all reality wasn’t of the gigantic proportions that we envisioned it to be at the time. But it was an exciting experience that I will always remember.

That little piece of my childhood still lies pretty much untouched on the east side of Bridge Street where the old &uot;crick&uot; still flows under one of the busiest streets in the county. It used to be called the State Game Refuge when we were kids. I know it is a designated habitat area and, hopefully, it will remain one little piece of nature that doesn’t get disturbed in the name of progress.

A couple of weeks ago I was taking a drive out by Helmer Myre State Park and I happened to see something in a nearby field. As I got closer I could see that it was a beautiful red fox that was busily trying to dig its supper out of a field mouse hole in a freshly picked bean field. As I drove closer, the fox noticed me and slowly turned and trotted into an adjoining cornfield

I guess I always get a certain good feeling when I see any wild animal in its natural habitat. Wild animals and birds, especially birds of prey,

have a certain mystique about them that always leaves something to the imagination.