The easier path

The power of the paws...

Churning through the snow...

K is my guardian dog and I am her guardian human. Ever since I was part of a search and rescue team with my dog years ago, I view my relationships with my dogs as partnerships. I don't think of myself as a dog "mom" - a dog "sister" describes my view better.

K watched over me while I followed bear tracks yesterday, and she plans to do the same again today. Yesterday, my friend and I got a good idea of where the bear was heading, and we saw that the big bear had been spending a lot of time in the general area where we followed his tracks. He'd left other tracks within the past few days, suggesting to me that there's possibly a den near that area. K will watch over me again today as we try to pinpoint the den before more snow falls. It's supposed to fall tonight.

Due to all the snow, I've been re-finding my snowbike legs, mostly riding obscure trails where no one else goes so my tire tracks are the biggest blemish on the smooth snow. Yes, that's a big cliff just in front of my bike...

Because no one else goes there, my very wide tire tracks provide the only packed surface for animals to walk on. They take full advantage of the easier path that my tire tracks provide. These are the tracks of a bobcat walking in my tire track one afternoon.

In fact, I got a photo of him as he was making those pawprints.

And, after he passed the camera, a red fox warily walked by, deviating from my tire tracks as he stared at the camera.

The next morning, the bobcat walked past the camera yet again, still using my tire tracks to make walking easier. This time, he/she carried breakfast - a rabbit. I wonder if this is the mother bobcat who we followed via my trail cameras as she raised her kitten this summer. There was no sign of a second bobcat in my photos but the paw prints further up the trail suggested that a second, smaller, bobcat was nearby. Perhaps this bobcat was taking her rabbit to share with her kitten.

This year has been different from recent years, with the onslaught of winter a bit early. All of my photos look like the one above now with white everywhere. Snow covers all of the forest except the most exposed areas.

I'm missing the colors of summer and autumn but I'm starting to get in the swing of winter.

I just had to post one more yellow photo before I fully accept the white snow and blue sky as the main colors for the next few months!