Last week we had six inches of snow that left before the end of the day. Yesterday I opened the back door to find a ground squirrel staring at me. Mother Nature’s winter fights hard to keep her grip on the foothills.
The Abert Squirrel appeared after months of invisibility. He sat in the tree, ran up and down the trunk and chattered at the dogs. Wonder what he thought of the big yellow dog that was only a small puppy before winter began.
The fox has been cutting through the backyard each afternoon about 4:30 pm. She checks out the compost heap behind our shed and walks around the rocks where she played with her pups last year. Her coat is full; red with tips of black. Soon her coat will thin for the summer and she will have the look of a hungry feral cat.
The elk come in groups of 20 to 25. The mule deer come in groups of 10 to 15. They munch on the small evergreens in our yard and head to our neighbor’s front yard. Our neighbor had a pile of leaves delivered just for the elk and the deer. They run and play in the leaves. Maybe because they are something they don’t see here in the mountains where most of the trees are evergreen. After they play they lay down and watch the cars that pass by.
This week we are looking forward to spring break. It’s been snowing every day for a week at the ski slopes one hour away. Looks like we will have time to make up for the times we didn’t get to go. When we are around home we can hike around the lake and watch the birds returning to the water that was ice a few days ago.
