Snow Rings?

I headed to the creek bottom again today.

I’m not really quite sure what I am looking for or what I’ll find.

The woods seemed silent hushed in the deep snow and cold.

The screech of a red tail hawk hunting above me reminds me that there is life in the forest.

I stood in deep snow and peered up into the bare branches of trees. The trees are sleeping, waiting, yet life continues in the Forest.

The snow was above my knees in places, but it was powdered and not especially hard to move through.

I felt sorry for Morris who struggled leaping from boot track to boot track in my trail. When we get to the creek bottom he would have an easier time of moving along.

It is obvious to anyone who can see the trails, that all animals are fighting the deep snow to survive.

I find the trails of mice and perhaps a squirrel. I’m really going to have to get better at ‘reading’ tracks. Turkey and deer tracks are easy to identify but some of these others are not.

Morris and I explore the creek bottom.

We find places where the deer have scraped away snow and nibbled at the green grass that I’d photographed last time we were in the ‘bottom’.

I find another phenomenon that I’ve never seen before. Much like a tree has growth rings, I find that the boulders and logs in the creek have ‘snow’ rings…or layers from each snowfall we’ve had.

Squirrel Tracks:
Deer Tracks: