Tracking

The sun has been out for days, for longer than it seems we've seen it all winter in fact. The Himalayas in our front yard are starting to look more like the rolling landscape of Vermont. My Panda is increasingly disappointed by his habitat loss. The best thing about this weather, aside from the warm sun flooding our front room every evening and Jon getting home before dark, is the hiking situation; with compacted snow covering what will soon be muddy fields there are animal tracks to be found everywhere, and it's warm enough to go looking for them. There's rain lurking around the corner and with rain the opportunity will be lost, so we struck out into the fields today to look for signs of four legged neighbors.

We've been tracking before. Calvin's pretty familiar with the tracks of humans, dogs, and deer and he found lots of deer tracks today.

Deer path through the stream.

And a new treat, raccoon tracks.

And we listened for birds.

Chickadees (we heard all three calls)

And a tufted titmouse.

So now we're ready for the rain threatening the rest of the week, and maybe for a return of the rain boots.