Making Tracks In The New Year!

The first day of 2017 is a beauty!  We woke up to bright sunlight streaming in the windows.  When I took a look outside I could see that something spent the early hours of the new year making tracks in the garden.  I did see a pretty tufted titmouse in the trumpet vine, but the tracks I wanted to check out were not bird tracks. There was no melting snow except for a few drips off the roof of the house on the south facing side.   Ed and I dressed warmly and set out to make some tracks of our own.  Tracks like the ones on the right of the picture seemed to crisscross the garden. Blue shadows on the snow reflected the blue sky above us.  I love the curved shadow of Ed's tumbled down wall!

I'm no expert at reading the signs, but there is a real clue in this picture.  The animal who left these tracks spent some time eating or rubbing against the remains of a big catnip plant.  We have seen bobcats here before.  But they have big furry feet and these prints seem a bit small but a feline is a good bet .

Imagine walking along the edge of a stone wall and then leaping fifty-four inches  to the other side of the ramp into the basement.  If I tried that where would be much more of a disturbance than a few footprints when I landed.  From here the tracks went along the edge of another wall, under the ramp and then down the driveway.  Now I was almost positive exactly whom I was tracking.

Sure enough there were footprints leading to Rainbow's tree.  The only remaining question is "Who let the cat out?"