Footprints in the snow

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

I looked out across the yard from the loft window. The sky was gray.

A light snow still fell. I could see that the snow on the tops of the goat yard fence posts was piled up four or five inches tall. Between the cabin and the goats, a clean expanse of new snow lay pristine and unblemished.

As we sipped our morning coffee and looked out the cabin windows, we could tell that it was a heavy snow. The forest branches that reached out over the upper field hung low, weighted down by the snow.

We decided that it would be best to wear our tall rubber boots as we ventured out for morning chores.

My toes get cold easily, so wore I two pairs of thick socks. I stood on the deck, balancing on my left foot, the toes of my right foot pointed down as I shoved my foot into the rubber boot, but the boot top slipped through my gloved fingers. I pulled off the gloves to get a good hold on the boot and shoved my foot down again. I smiled at my success as I wiggled my toes deep inside the boot where they belonged.

The rabbits' frozen water bottles and the goats' frozen buckets required several trips to the frost-free spigot by the front cabin steps. So, too, did the frozen chicken-watering pail.

As we trekked back and forth across the yard, the dogs skittered and slid around us, playing tug of war with an old leather glove. My last chore was to fill the bird feeders that hang below the solar panels.

Back on the deck, I held the back heel of my left boot down with the toe of my right boot. I tugged up on my left foot and slowly freed it from the confines of the rubber boot. The thick sock trailed limply as I pulled out my foot.

I paused to gather my balance and breathed deeply as I looked back out across the yard, readying myself to repeat the maneuver on the other boot.

I saw the boot prints that Greg and I had left in the snow as we did our chores. We had consistently walked in the paths that our first steps across the snow had left behind.

I could see the chickens, cautiously circling their coop, exploring the snow-covered ground. Their footprints, in an ever-widening pattern, marked their guarded progress out into the yard.

The goats, having finished their winter grain breakfast, were once again inside their houses, tidy trails leading from goat house to bucket and back again. Their footprint paths reminded me that they really are creatures of very specific habit.

Birds had already gathered by the feeders. Red finch and cardinals, a black-and-white tufted fellow, and assorted brown-feathered birds, fluttered back and forth among the feeders and then darted over to the trees that lined the field. I noticed that the snow below was littered with seeds. The litter on the white snow told the story of winter birds feeding fast and freely.

I balanced on the ball of my left foot, as I stepped down on the heel of my fight boot. I began to pull my double-socked right foot up from the confines of its rubber boot, just as I heard the dogs bound up the wooden steps behind me. I was still facing out toward the yard.

I saw the marks of their furious bounds and skids across the snow. I heard their heavy feet getting closer and just as my right foot pulled free, they careened past me, racing pell-mell across the deck. They never slowed, and skidded right over the far side, crashing to the snow-covered ground below, landing under the bird feeders. The birds scattered to the woods.

Somehow, the dogs got their feet back under them and, barely slowing, dashed back out into the yard, continuing on with their wild slippery chase. I stood in my socks on the front porch and watched. The dogs' tracks across the snow clearly marked their wild enthusiasm for this new winter game of chase and slide.

As I stood on the porch, the new year dawning, it occurred to me, that our tracks across the snow clearly mark the pattern and habit of our lives. The weather forecast calls for continued below-freezing temperatures. I promised myself that when I do the chores tomorrow, I will step outside of the path, just to see how it feels.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.