North wind

My mother taught us a lot of poetry when we were young. These poems often come back to me, triggered by one thing or another. When I went for a walk Friday, the poem was this:

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will poor Robin do then, poor thing?

She’ll sit in the barn

And keep herself warm (Following Mom’s lead, we pronounced this to rhyme with “barn.”

Her head tucked under her wing.

Poor Robin would be seriously screwed if she’d waited this long to clear out. The north wind was certainly blowing. The temperature and the clouds were both low. But it was my day to walk, and walk I would, eyes watering and nose running like a faucet. I’m studying for a bone density exam at the end of February.

We had a dusting of snow Thursday night, which made for good tracking on the driveway. A wee beast (Mouse? Vole?) had made a run for it from one ditch to the next.

Wee tracks of a wee beast

A squirrel had run from the north oaks to the south. Squirrels are fast; it’s hard to see exactly what they are doing as their tails follow their bodies in graceful arcs. The prints tell the whole story. They land on their front paws then bring their back paws ahead of where their front paws were.

Squirrel tracks, with back paws ahead of front

I walked south first, keeping the wind at my back. In the rows of maple trees, a patch of ice had prints of some kind of canid. I looked them up when I got back to the house. Definitely not cat, which has even toe pads more or less in a straight row. Coyotes, dogs, and foxes all have the outer pads below the middle ones. I would need to know how big the prints were to make a determination. I don’t walk with a ruler.

Canid (dog family) tracks

Another wee beast ran along the same patch of ice, but probably not at the same time. No signs of struggle or blood on the snow.

Another wee beast

At the south end, there were deer prints. They had been through before the ground froze, as evidenced by the smeared track in the mud.

Deer prints

It was a good day to see where deer had bedded down. Their body heat would have melted the little bit of snow on the ground. There are numerous game trails into the woods. (Note to urbanites: “Game” here means “wild animals” rather than, say, “Monopoly.”) Most of them were undisturbed.

Undisturbed game trail

Finally, after walking into the bitter wind all the way to the north side of the property, I saw a game trail that had been used overnight. I didn’t see any deer beds, though.

Recently used game trail

I found deer beds in a surprising location—right at the edge of the field. I expected them to be in the shelter of the woods. Terry, a long-time hunter, pointed out that they like to be where they can see, hear, and smell trouble coming, i.e., out in the open. The deer was facing left. The melted spot is wider at the shoulder and curved around the back with the front knees sticking out. It would have slept with its head resting on its body.

Deer bed. The deer was facing left, back at the top of the picture, front knees sticking out to the bottom left.

I saw three more beds along the edge of the field. This also violated an assumption of mine, namely, that they would sleep in a tight group. Clearly what I know about deer wouldn’t fill a thimble.

Three (maybe four) sleeping spots along the edge of the field

The snow was not so deep that the chickens wouldn’t come out of the coop. I was spared shoveling. They didn’t like the wind ruffling their feathers, though, and hung out in the shelter of the kennel much of the day. At least they weren’t making a mess in the coop.

Many of the hens prefer to stay out of the wind

After two laps around the perimeter, I was more than ready to go inside and warm up. Banjo’s new trick is to crawl underneath the blanket on Jane’s chair.

Banjo finds a way under the blanket

How can I get mad at such a cute little face?

Once Banjo is under, Bingo has to investigate.

Hey, what's going on over here?

And both of them need to be expelled before they get fur all over the chair. We are tucking in the blanket more vigorously. We ruin all their fun.

They don’t seem to have long memories. Soon they were wrestling on the floor.

The fight begins

They are especially fond of kicking each other in the head.

Mutual head kicking

Yet through all these attacks and counterattacks, they never make a sound—not a hiss, growl, or meep. If someone kicked me in the head, I’d have something to say about it!