Following Tracks in the Snow

December 11, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi has gone hunting, and she left a note on the coffee maker that she gave Mway a half cup of dog food this morning and I’m suppose to give her a second half after my walk with her.  The snow’s still on the ground.  Mway’s lying down on Moi’s bed.  It’s 9 and I’m going to go put on my walking clothes.

State of the Path:  Outside I immediately notice a bare circle in the snow on the sidewalk where I had placed the chicken’s water dish yesterday – Moi hadn’t left a note about the dish:  I guess now I’m suppose to “just know” to haul it out in the morning, like I “just know” to take Mwayla for a walk, so I go back in the house, get it from the laundry room tub, and place it down on the bare circle.  Little birds are flitting around in the lilac bush – I don’t know what they are.  Tiny snarls of grass show through the snow at places, especially through the footprints that are all over the place by now.  I follow my foot prints down the path, then take the side path.  There are no prints in the snow here until I get to the monkey vine portal, where I see some animal prints on the path, and I wish I had brought the Boy’s little pack of cards for identifying animal tracks.  But the prints are kind of indistinct, and I think to myself that they’re probably made by rabbits, for what animal do I see out here all the time?  A bird sings very melodically in the hedgerow, and it makes me angry that after nearly a year I still can’t identify bird songs.  More snow seems to be on the ground out here: the gill-of-the-ground is covered up, and I wonder what happens to it in such a state.  The flattened down goldenrod is weighted down by undisturbed snow, so I figure if anything was bedding down here lately it didn’t do so last night.  Then I note that the goldenrod is not pressed down all the way to the ground, like it should be if something slept on it, and I guess that it must have just collapsed from the cold, although it has done so in an oddly uniform manner.  Past the wigwams and into bug land, I feel ice beneath the snow cracking under my feet.

State of the Creek:  The stream is flowing gently, a strip of brown winding through an expanse of white.  Actually I can only see it flowing, or trickling, at the rocks; the pools themselves seem stationary, with bits of slushy ice at their edges.  Moi’s green plants are covered with snow, and I look at the underwater plants – wonder how much longer these plants will last.  A few more little birds flit about – again I’m angry I can’t identify them.  I don’t see any prints in the path here, and I realize that Mway has not been following me – she must still be back around the old orchard, maybe sniffing at the rabbit tracks.  Finally at the swale I see, pretty distinctly, a set of animal tracks.  I follow them toward the feed channel, then over the plank – I see some on the snow-covered ice of the channel.  I continue following them to the pin oaks, where they suddenly stop in a dip of the ground.  Since I don’t have the Boy’s print packet I have no idea what animal made them, but I consider the possibility that they might have been made by one of the raccoons that Mway and I have disturbed down here, and it makes me happy to think this animal is still managing to live.  Back here at the office, though, I do consult the Boy’s packet: it looks like what I saw were not raccoon tracks.  If I remember correctly, I counted four toes, and the packet tells me raccoons have five.  A red fox has four toes, but there were no claws showing in the prints I saw, which the packet tells me I should see if the prints are those of a red fox.  The tracks look mostly like what the packet identifies as those of the “Family Cat,” so I figure they must have been made by a feral cat.  Or had Squeak been out last night and had she ventured all the way down to the creek?  This morning I had found her in a deep sleep on the top bunk of my bed, lying among the neglected clothes heaped up there.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I have to call for Mway.  Soon she comes jaunting down the path through the sumacs, indicating to me that she had spent our entire walk up at the old orchard sniffing rabbit tracks.  I pitch the stick, making our usual circle, and Mway, though she dashes off after each toss, seems distracted, stopping several times to sniff at the tracks here (which are probably mostly mine and hers).  On the second round, after a few tosses, Mway brings the stick back without dropping it, chewing and gobbling at it in her usual fashion.  I tell her, “Put it down.”  She drops it, spins around once, splashing up snow on my arm sleeve as I bend down to pick up the stick.  I toss it again.  She goes after it, snatches it up from a tangle of goldenrod, then comes galloping past me, stick athwart her snout, back toward the house.