Into the woods...again

First, though, the heart.

One of my nieces collects photos of hearts she finds in nature. Try as I might, I can never seem to find a good, natural heart...until yesterday morning..

I was walking with Molly up our driveway when VOILA! I looked down and there, near the front steps, was a perfectly-shaped heart.

I was so excited that I took Molly into the house, grabbed my camera, and photographed the darned thing from three different angles.

A couple of hours later, once the sun had shone on the heart and the day had warmed a little, the heart had turned into a big, amorphous blob.

But at least it was there and I happened to spot it before either Molly or I accidentally stepped into it.

And this morning we went back into the woods, this time on our cross-country skis.

Linda asked after my last post which is harder, snowshoeing or cross-country skiing. Cross-country skiing is definitely harder, but then, it gives a better workout, too.

With cross-country skiing you use your leg muscles to control the direction of the skis...or to try to control their direction. (I took a spill only once this morning, which is about par for me when skiing in the woods. The snow was especially "fast," due to the cold temperature, so I didn't have the control I would have liked.)

Also with cross-country skiing you use your arms as you keep your poles moving along. I like both snowshoeing and skiing, but it's seldom I go out skiing without wiping out. And when I wipe out, I become a turtle on its back. Usually Ken has to upright me and get me moving again.

We studied these tracks for awhile. First we thought they might be coyote, but then Ken said they're probably just squirrel.

Quite a fracas happened here. We couldn't figure out what might have been going on. There was no blood-shed involved, so that's a good thing.

We spotted a lot of deer paths. Ken said it's odd that the deer haven't penned-up yet, given the depth of the snow. We did see a couple of places where they've been bedding-down. And they certainly are enjoying the trail we made, judging from all the deer tracks in it.

It was a cold, crisp, clear-blue-sky morning to be in the woods.

Now the weathermen are all a-twitter with the possibility of a major snowstorm arriving on Wednesday.

We're taking a look-see attitude. If we get the amount of snow predicted, our groomed trail will be no more and we'll have to get out the snowshoes to groom it again. But that's OK.