I walked in the woods at dusk today. It had freshly rained, and I took the usual route from my street through the woods up to the reservoir, up past a point called Cellar Hole where a structure had once stood and only the dilapidated stone cellar remained. I crossed the bottom of the dry reservoir along a colonial-era dam, usually underwater at this point. As I crossed over the long pile of stone and rotted material, I noticed a flicker of life below me: salamanders have found refuge in the boulders below my feet. I tread carefully, wary to shift the stones lest I crush some small innocent creature by my clumsiness.
The rain began to fall again. Luckily I was well shod for the occasion and made it over the rocks without much delay.
I mounted the shoreline, and I walked into some fishing line wrapped around a tree branch. An old lure had gotten stuck in the tree, and the forlorn angler had cut it lose rather than attempting to retrieve it. Though the rain was picking up, I broke the line, and knocked the lure out of the tree with a stick.