March 3

I walked the field loop again this morning, despite the strong breeze with a wind chill to remind me that we may still have a long haul yet toward any definitive spring. As if to emphasize this point, a light coating of snow must have fallen last night giving the landscape a clean, winter-like appearance.

The footing was good around the perimeter of the field, and the snowfall revealed several tracks that must have been made at some point during the past 12 hours or so. Here was the spot where a rabbit had come across the stone wall that borders the north part of the field. Its indecision was written plainly on the snow, as it evidently stopped, circled several times, and retreated hastily to the stone wall.

Further down were field mice tracks, perfectly preserved in the snow dust as tiny impressions in a line, weaving ever so slightly across the field expanse. I followed them for roughly 100 yards, until an area where drifting had occurred had obliterated their path.

At the western stone wall deer tracks alongside what appeared to be a following dog, perhaps fresh on the scent and trailing the deer. The dog’s paw was large, and I wondered what stray was patrolling these fields in the pre-dawn hours.

More surprising was the tractor tread patterns that met me near the corner of the southwestern wall. Of course, I stopped to consider if it likely that either of the men had driven down this way so early. Were it the beginning of the summer, I wouldn’t need to question this, as the tractors are usually out each day in the hour just before dawn. Today, with it being 7 am and just after sunrise, there was no reason to account for the tractor this far down the field.

The tracks were fairly compressed, extending in a relatively straight line up the snow-hidden two track that leads from the barns. I followed them toward the barn, trying to figure out any rhyme or reason, and in the end had no conclusions to make. The tractor tracks were a mystery to me, just as so many of the small critter prints in the snow.