GO TO LEONARD SPRINGS walk past the gush and then on the path that skirts the marsh with its families of duck and beaver and the overflights of swallows to the place where the dam broke and the stream from the marsh spills then back to the main path curving uphill and its link over to the road whose chunks of coarse gravel hurt the feet through their shoes descending to tall grass and walnut trees where the road becomes a footpath again crossing the stream where it runs shallow washing over the face of a rockshelf and up the other side dark pines ground soft with dead needles another curve uphill to the track by the edge of the abandoned quarry the earth's bones upended but covering themselves with green again and over to where the track thins and turns rough downhill tracing through briars to cross the lesser ditchy end of the stream and here a confusion as the path is so starved of traffic it blurs into the scrub but the dog finds the way and I follow until blocked by a tangle of rosebushes she can trot under but I can't press through I have to keep her in sight while I swing around the tangle through the woods to meet her where she's no surprise found the road again uphill trudge out of breath but in the open now the way back clear legs sore must look for ticks when I get home the dog happy though she walks a little shambly no wonder poor thing to go so far and in such excitement all the way