Originally published in the: It’s almost winter now, so if it didn’t snow last night (and it didn’t) much of the day will be spent enjoying the warmth of the fire. Our American Dipper has been here since yesterday, so there will be snow, more substantial than the foot that’s come and mostly gone recently, in the next couple weeks. For now we’re in that limbo state between ‘as ready as we’re gonna be’ and ‘now the real work begins’; the real work being, in coming months, keeping the snow from burying us altogether. The Dipper will go again before that happens; he visits every early spring and late fall for four or five days, bobbing leisurely along on the Creek, hopping out wherever the pickin’s look good on shore, and flying back to the top of our property again each time he reaches the bottom. I’m not sure why he likes it here so much except maybe that the banks are left largely undisturbed and there are a couple nice beach-y areas that invite fat night-crawlers to lay themselv...