This is my favourite hat (circa Toronto, 2007)
I got this hat from Dufferin mall in Toronto, in early September about three years ago. I remember wishing and wishing for snow so that I could start wearing this white fluffy hat. It snowed and snowed that year. I wore this hat all Winter. It has matching mitts.
As I was thinning out my possessions while packing to move from the city last July, I came across my favourite hat amidst the Winter scarves and gloves and it did warm my heart. I thought of the coming Winter which I was gonna spend in knee-high snow in the country, skating, snow-shoeing, shovelling, cavorting around with my dogs, wearing my fluffy hat. Aaawww the joys of Winter in the countryside.
So when it did snow in December I was overjoyed and put on my hat, called the dogs and headed for a beautiful wintery walk in the wildlife conservation. Our friend The Farmer had told me where I could go and follow a path off the dirt road which would lead me behind the wetlands. I had never been in the woods here by myself before (most wooded areas around here are private property). When Emma, Chico and I entered the woods it was just gorgeous and I eagerly followed the numerous deer tracks into the forest, which was becoming denser and denser.
My hat kept getting caught in the branches so I just tied the strings around my neck and let it dangle at the back like a hoodie. There was no path that I could see after a while and my tiny Jack Russell Terrier, Chico, was having a hard time keeping up. Emma the Beagle's nose had lead her way ahead of us. I picked Chico up into my arms and decided to walk in the middle of the stream to avoid getting all caught up in the branches. That's when I heard the coyotes bark and howl and got frightened and decided to run out!
Oh Dear, I'm pretty embarrassed about how I get so easily spooked in the woods when I'm alone. I like to think I'm a pretty tough chicken. Stand me on the worst street corner in downtown Toronto in the middle of the night and I will be completely comfortable with what is going on around me! Gangs, drugs, prostitutes, drunken leering men and homeless people... it's all normal to me. But strange sounds in the forest? I guess it's a question of familiarity.
When the dogs and I safely got back to the road, I noticed that I had lost my favourite hat. I looked behind me and debated on going back to get it, but my imagination offered horrifying visions of packs of coyotes and wolves attacking and ripping us to shreds for a nice evening meal. Bears too. Yes, it's very silly. I figured I'd come back to get it the next day when I'd talked myself back into a rational frame of mind.
It snowed all night.
I went the very next day but couldn't find it under the snow (it is white and fluffy after all).
Over a month went by. I figured that it was either hidden in the snow and that I'd find it in Spring or (how romantic) that a small animal came upon it and took it to their den to use as an awesome sleeping bag. Then we had this wild and seemingly never-ending January thaw. Last Saturday, I asked Stuart if he could take me for a walk in the woods. As we entered through the path, my husband mentioned how since the snow had melted so much, maybe we could find my hat. I walked up the creek and found it, sticking out of the snow, white and fluffy! I tried to pull on it but i was completely imprisoned by the ice. I pulled on the string but the pom-pom was also stuck in the icy stream and the lace snapped!
Sunday and Monday (yesterday), we had a massive rain fall and Stuart and I went to the wetlands to look at how high the water had risen and how the creek had turned into a raging inferno. "Well, you've surely lost your hat for good now!" Stuart said.
We went to look for it and though the once tiny stream was raging almost as much as the large creek, there was my hat, all muddy and looking like some sort of road kill. Both the pompoms had broken off, and it looked nothing like my white fluffy hat but after a good washing with dish soap we were finally reunited!
Even my friend The Farmer took pleasure in the fact that...
The Hat Came Back:
This is my life in the country.
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