Tracking the not-a-bunny

We received a truly sunny day yesterday. It felt like a spring sunny day too, not one of those anemic, sun-through-high-clouds with wind-flinging-grainy-snow-in-front-of-it sunny days, (which are about as warming as the light from the refrigerator), but a real icicle stretcher.




It called to me. It has been nearly impossible to walk outdoors around here for at least six weeks. Ice storm after ice storm has conspired to lock the ground down against the intrusion of questing feet. We went where we had to and stayed inside otherwise.

But yesterday, lovely yesterday, the ice was soft, the snow crust would still hold you up and there was a buttering of soft, squashy snow to keep you from slipping. It teased me away from indoor chores for a walk up to the heifer pasture. There were tracks lacing everywhere, melted like wax under a candle, but still clear for the reading. Last night's bunny tracks, edges higher than the track itself from the sun's intense gaze. Skunk or possum tracks noodling down the fence line in search of something only he recognized. Crow tracks, fresh as newly embroidered stitchery, all over the pasture. (Wonder what they were looking for.) The spots of bare ground called the sparrow tribe away from the feeders too...I didn't see a junco all day and only one white-throat.

Next came the tracks of the elusive not-a-bunny. He walked out from the old brown three-bay shed, crossed the page wire fence into the horse yard, then into the horse pasture proper, back to the yard and then off across the heifer pasture. He was clearly on a quest for something, from the looks of his last night tracks, but I have no idea what it might have been. Maybe mice and voles, as I suspect that the not-a-bunny was a midnight red fox.

Then larger tracks of the old, but still impatient, border collie who accompanied me began to blur the text of the last night's travelogue. Reluctantly I returned to my work. Today and tomorrow it is back to the two-storms-a-week pattern that has plagued us for at least a month, but I am still warm around the edges from yesterday's sun. I tried to photograph the pattern of the tracks, but with the blinding light on the snow, all my pictures were pathetic. A squeaking, peeping patch of chickadees obligingly posed to make up the deficiency.