Ramble with Storm: First ice & tracking snow

SHARE Ramble with Storm: First ice & tracking snow

Mulling things on my morning ramble with Storm, our family’s mixed Lab.

The interesting set of tracks this morning were coyote tracks on the first ice on the north old clay pit (above).

At least I think they were coyote tracks. No I was not going out on half an inch of ice to confirm whether they were coyote tracks or not.

Rabbit tracks, and some squirrel tracks, were all over the alley behind the bus barn and in front of the woodworker’s house.

Perfect morning for tracking critters that came overnight. We had just enough snow last evening to really track animals this morning.

I was stunned when we came off the extended portion of the ramble to see eight Canada geese swimming in the north pit. I had expected both pits to be iced up this morning, but it was not that cold last night, barely below freezing.

Just cold enough to ice up the roads and sidewalks. The north pit was only about a third iced over.

I had expected to hear geese honking and swimming open the lake to the west. And they were.

The south pit was more completely iced. The meathead even had to test the strength of it. And, yes, I let him. He needs to explore his inner Lab now and then.

I usually find gray November mornings like this one like an anchor pulling down the joy of life. But even a small blanket of snow can lighten the spirit, bring a sense of adventure and joy.

Back in town, a fire truck pulled out slowly, and noisily with lights flashing, from a side street downtown. Slowly because untreated roads are slick with the bit of overnight snow. An ambulance came down the state highway from another town. Something is going down, an icy-road accident or a winter fire.

Back home, a gray squirrel ran down a horizontal branch on the elm across the street. Two other squirrels scurried up the neighbor ‘s pine.

Frisky.


The Latest
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”
That the Bears can just diesel their way in, Bronko Nagurski-style, and attempt to set a sweeping agenda for the future of one of the world’s most iconic water frontages is more than a bit troubling.