After listening to the morning’s forecast for high winds and heavy rain, I gather Aki from a cozy corner of the living room and lead her to the car. Outside. the trees in our yard dance awkwardly in a twenty knot wind. Rain obscures the car’s windshield. We must rush to get in a walk before the bad weather hits. 

            I choose the Rainforest Trail this morning for the storm protection it offers. But we must be out of the forest before the wind becomes strong enough to snap the trailside hemlock trees. The forecast only called for forty-knot gusts, which shouldn’t have to power to down old growth trees. But the grey morning light has made me a little paranoid. Sometimes weather forecasts are proven wrong. 

            The forest seems to absorb the storm’s power, we walk down to the beach unbothered by wind but still soaked by the persistent rain. The water between the beach and Shaman Island is empty of birds. I assume that the resident ducks are still feeding in the open water sections of our rain forest archipelago. Then a man fires his shotgun twice, flushing an eagle and several gulls into the air. The eagle joins two other eagles circling the treetops of Shaman Island. Aki whines and crouches close to the soaked ground. We return to the woods, hoping that the gunner is blown off the beach by the storm.