AFTER THE STORM

I haven't posted since the big 20+" snow storm of February 9, so I'd better catch up!  How can anyone not like snow!  Look at how gorgeous this is!!

Stearns Mill Pond after storm

 
Saturday, we obviously spent shoveling -- now, Blake is only 14" at the shoulder and the snow was 20" or more, so when we went out first thing in the morning, before shoveling, he wasn't thrilled! I bounded through the snow until I realized I had a taut leash.  I looked back and he was sitting down.

No.  I'll wait.

Sunday I strapped on the snowshoes and went down to the pond to see if I could find any tracks.  Interestingly, most of the snow was blown off of the pond with those heavy winds.  

I saw one set of tracks on the pond; I am assuming the fox, but I didn't venture onto the ice to check.  Double clicking on the pond picture, will come up with a larger size and you can see the tracks, especially on the left side.  I went a ways around from our landing in both directions and didn't see any tracks on the shore.  The tracks on the pond came in toward the shore several times, but never came up onto the shore from where I could see.  But, on the other hand, the snow disappeared close to the shore and became ice (or very close to the shore, some open water), so the tracks disappeared.  I didn't go very far upstream and couldn't see the end of the tracks in that direction.  The interesting thing is that the tracks only went in one direction - they never came back.  I looked with the binoculars, but couldn't see tracks on the other side of the pond.

I wondered the next day, if my snowshoe tracks made it possible for the fox to get from the pond up to the hollow across the street as the next morning, I saw tracks in the snow through the trees and over to the hollow. 

Today, we saw the fox out on the south side of the pond, opposite our house.  It was just walking down the pond, near the shore.  Periodically, it would stop and look, but then kept going until it was out of our sight.  It looks healthy and strong.

Haven't seen the bluebirds in over two weeks; they are probably gone.  We enjoyed them for the weeks they were here!