It's the Weekend: Buffleheads

 I run my fingers over the back of the other hand, balled into a fist, pressing down in the gaps between the metacarpals, over the rounded knuckles and down into the gaps between the phalanges, stretching the skin, pulling it together. Blue veins run underneath the thin covering of skin, still freckled after all these years, a scar here, another there. I have heard they are my great-grandfathers' hands, but they remind me of my grandmothers. I turn the one hand over to look at the palm, different shades in the sunlight, more scars, calluses where four fingers extend away. I flex the fingers and watch the tendons and muscle pull tight and relax again. 

Satisfied with the examination I pull the gloves back on, one hand then the other, grip the handlebars and, as I kick off with my free foot, stretch the one finger of both hands out to the brake lever. Starting to pedal again, I make small adjustments in my grip until all is as it should be...

my wheels roll over the ground, picking up speed down the hillside, over rounded rocks and down into the gaps between, sliding over a lip where running water has eroded a shallow channel, running down hill. The low hills, at once so very familiar also seem changed, rougher, rockier, smoothing soil scarred and etched away. Satisfied in the warmth of the afternoon sun I can watch as my front wheel passes over newly fallen leaves, spotting the ground red and yellow as I begin another upward toil.

'Twas a great afternoon for a ride, and it looks like there will be two more before the weekend is finished. Make the best of it!

and these, I believe, are Bufflehead Ducks