Relative Something

Overnight last night, we received more of that white stuff from the sky. Probably enough that I will feel justified in firing up the Grizzly ATV to plow the driveway. Our other grizzly took on a shocked look at the latest batch of precipitation.

Possibly because the earlier flakes got covered with an icy drizzle. It created a crust over the surfaces that was just enough to make walking annoying because it caught the toe of my boot every few steps. There are enough trip hazards in our landscape that I don’t welcome the addition of any more of them. I’ve noticed a demeaning increase in my tendency to hit the ground over the last few years when my foot catches on unseen obstructions.

For some reason, those occasions are matched by an equivalent increase in F-bombs taking flight in reactionary shock.

The horses look like they stood out in the weather all night and then rolled around to get as wet and icy as possible. There is probably a word for the blocks of packed snow that build up and then get ejected from the bottom of their hooves. They are scattered everywhere around the paddocks. The series of days with this slowly accumulating snow at the temperatures we’ve had seems to keep the conditions right at the level that is prime for these to form.

Asher and I picked a spot to position the trail cam (which has been in storage [with batteries still in it. Boo!] for too long), hoping to identify what animal has been using an old downed tree trunk in our woods for its toilet. My scat-identifying skills have me thinking it looks like either a human or a dog as big or bigger than Asher. In reality, based on likely creatures traveling in that part of the forest, it’s a coyote, fox, or really large raccoon. Whatever it is, the amount of scat reveals this is a regular occurrence and not just an animal that happened to be wandering past.

There were no tracks in the fresh coating of white stuff this morning, so I didn’t check the memory card for images. New tracks in the snow will tell me when it’s time to check. You can be sure I will provide a full report as soon as we get some results. Heck, you’d think the tracks would give me the information I need to identify the culprit.

I’m about as good at identifying paw prints as I am with scat.

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