I saw the black and white parked just beyond the gate as I walked through some oaks. I paused--maybe the police car was empty, but no. He got out and came toward me and said, 'Shall I unlock the gate, or do you want to climb over?'

I got a ticket today. I didn't get mad. I deserved it. I said to the cop, 'I'm a bad girl.'

Though I'm really not a bad girl, just a little misbehavior, hiking on the property of the water company.

I got out the same way I got in, throwing my back pack under, then crawling under after it with Officer Wilson waiting on the other side. A traffic ticket 25 years ago was the last time I got into trouble with the law. (Though for convenience, I've broken a few since like exceeding the speed limit, making u-turns, and snagging wireless parked outside of a school to read email...) But I don't know, squirreling under a gate to greet a policeman...it was undignified.

He was nice, as nice as someone doling out a ticket can be. As he was filling out the information, I saw a large revolver and a scarred steel billy club attached to his belt. He answered some questions about where to go hiking where there aren't so many people.

'No Trespassing' was posted in big enough letters. I crossed a barrier. It was wrong. I knew it at the time.

I saw 4 wild turkeys in the sun-bleached grasses, deer prints and fawn prints on the trail. I saw the scat of coyote, and of a bobcat, or whatever kind of wildcats they have there, and of one more predator mammal, smaller than the other two. Saw a harrier, another hawk I haven't looked up yet, some towhees. Heard the wind rattle through the dry oaks. Lay in the grass, listened to a fly quietly buzzing in the sunshine. Breathed the silvery fragrance of the pines.

I wonder, though, how much this ticket will cost.

I felt rather numb at first, then regrets about being a bad example, and then, oddly, I felt chirpy, this a new experience, and now...I don't know. My inner jury is out.