My younger brother and I have made 4 trips to northern NH so far in the past year, with the sole purpose of each trip being to find moose. We've both gone "moosing" separately, but I've never seen on my own. Tim, my brother, has seen a total of 10 moose in the past 8 or 9 months, and I consider him to be an expert on the matter. These trips are among my all time favorite memories, partly due to the good company, and partly due to the sort of magic encountered in the search.
I love the excitement of driving into the first well justified moose x-ing zone on the Kancamagus Highway, the car immersed in that barely detectable dim blue light that exists before the sun peers over the horizon. Once we reach a known spot (where moose activity is evident by either past sightings or the presence of tracks), we silently sneak down a trail to an opening, not even letting our heels touch the earth. Tim, the real brains behind the activity, has spent hours in trees overlooking an open patch of forest while the sun rose, waiting patiently to see anything. The pure hope you feel in scanning the woods for a moose is untouchable by any other experience of that day, unless, of course, you actually see one. In terms of my sourdough journey, on Day 6, the sun hadn't yet risen, fresh tracks littered the mud, and branches were crackling nearby.
When the time came for my cultures' evening meal, I opened the proofing box to find an exhilirating suprise.
The culture was actively bubbling when I took thisThe culture had exceeded the required three inches by an immeasurable amount, but this was a full 12 hours after the last feeding, and Ed Wood's instructions required this level of activity to occur within 3 hours, so I fed both cultures and went to bed, dreaming of fermentation on a volcanic scale awaiting me the next morning. I hadn't seen the moose yet, though.
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