Tracks in the Snow

 It's been a really dry and warm winter here in Southern Colorado.  The locals say it's really unusual that it's been so dry and so warm, but we've always heard that the weather is really mild here.  I guess it's just a bit more mild than usual.

The night before last it snowed about 3".  Pure white powder adorned the trees, rocks and grass.  It's just too pretty for words so I thought I'd put a few more pictures up than I usually would.



Last week as we walked our mountain top, we came upon these tracks in the snow.  They were about twice the size of Schultz's print.  (My 90 pound German Shepard.)  The conspicuous lack of claw marks and the 3 lobes on the large pad identified this print as one of a cougar. (No, not our 40-something single neighbor.)  I thought about putting a pen or something next to the print so that the size would be evident, but having a young, spunky blue heeler mix nearby the decision was to take the picture quickly before she saw that we were interested in something.  Otherwise the print would look more like a mish-mosh of cougar tracks and dancing dog prints.

Fox and dog tracks on our driveway

County Road 67.7 at the bottom of our canyon

We're not too concerned about having a large predator living on or near our mountain-top.  They pretty much keep to themselves.  However one lady in the next ranch had one of her goats taken by a mountain lion.  But that was over a year ago.  There's plenty of foxes, coyotes, rabbits and deer in the neighborhood to keep a mountain lion's interest.  I carry my walking stick when we walk.  Les sometimes has his pepper spray.  But of course our first line of defense would be the dogs.  They'd alert us to any danger long before we'd have any idea something was lurking.

Mindy just really enjoys the snow.