Silence in the woods is priceless

My dog Belle and I went to pull and check traps this evening with the weather turning bad. It was one the evenings in the winter that I love, with the woods were silent graveyard dead , no sound at all, no birds chirping, no water running in creeks, no wind so silent that your ears hurt. We walked around the point at out on the end I could see the far ridges about a mile away and with the snow I could see it as clear as the woods I was standing in, no movement anywhere.We turned and started back up the backside of the ridge and as we neared the saddle between to ridges I brushed the snow off a down log and sat down, Belle sat next to me and we just sat listening, she had her ears perked up and was listening for any sound but like mine none came. We sat there about fifteen minutes my mustache and beard with frozen beads of water in it , and Belle whiskers and drops of frozen moisture on the ends. I reached down and rubbed her side and said we better go girl we still have some traps to pull. She took the lead as always . As we topped the ridge there we caught the the smell of wood smoke coming from the cabin, we gathered the remaing traps and headed for home and our spots next to the wood stove. I think Belle and I will watch Jeremiah Johnson while we defrost our beards and warm are feet or maybe just listen to the wood crackle in the stove.