Winter's First Snow

If it were up to me, the first snow of the winter would be a national holiday. I’d be quite content to spend the whole day just wandering. A fresh pallet of snow which fell last night provided an instant story board of every animal that’s come along. It’s as if someone turned on the lights and we can finally see what’s been going on all around us.

The trail cameras we set up near our pastures are wonderful, but they only provide a tiny glimpse of the whole picture. We put the cameras up where I think the animals are most likely to go – where I’d go if I were them. But if my best guess is off by just a few feet, the Abominable Snowman could stroll by without me ever knowing. This morning, though, scanning the freshly fallen snow, I could instantly see everything that passed by in the night.

A mouse, living in one of our wood piles made the trek to our barn, its tiny footprints (and tail) leaving tracks in the snow. It found its way through a hole by the door, past the sleeping pigs to where the hens were roosting. A chicken feeder half filled with grain awaited and was, I’m sure, well worth the journey. Once satiated, the mouse returned to the safety of its wood pile, the return trip also clearly documented by its tracks in the snow.

A squirrel had ventured out, tentatively moving from tree to tree, never out in the open for long, nor very far from the nearest tree. Trees, of course, are a squirrel’s quickest escape route from any danger.

A rabbit had scurried out from its hideaway within a massive yew, just to get to another bush nearby. Visiting relatives perhaps?

A solitary deer wove its way through a thick grove of maple saplings, dragging its oversized hooves lazily in the snow. An older buck, no doubt, tired from another day, and night, of looking for love.

A pair of coyotes trotted straight through our yard - and past our sleeping house and barn. Their purpose driven tracks followed the fence line, pausing briefly at the securely latched gate. The clicking of the electric fence probably warned them to not even try. Like our mouse whose tracks they crossed, they too were just out looking for an easy meal. The best they found, though, was a half-eaten pumpkin outside the pasture fence, and for this night at least, that apparently sufficed.