January 7

Moon in the third quarter, 48% of full.
The sun rose at 7:42 and will set at at 16:37.
It's somewhat sunny and -4 degrees.

Drawing of elecampane in winter. It's an introduced species, tall, with yellow flowers. Not common but there's a patch near the trail at the end of the marsh.

2:30 p.m. Just back from a snowshoe. The sun had disappeared by the time I strapped on my snowshoes but there were patches of cerulean sky, the first for twelve days. For eleven of those days it snowed, never hard, but fairly constantly. To step off the trail is to know how much snow can accumulate that way. There's a crust part way down which crumbles with every step.

I believe that a coyote has been visiting the compost piles. Something has certainly been feasting on a pomegranate at the base of a tree at the edge of the field and there were tracks on our little trail which looked like coyote tracks. Unfortunately I stomped all over them before looking them up, some naturalist, I am! But now I know that if it is a coyote the fore prints are larger than the hind prints. The hind heel pad rarely registers clearly. Claw marks only register on the two centre toes. Perhaps it was a fox but I think the tracks were too big for a fox. I also now know that fox tracks have a distinctive bar across the fore heel pad.

Rosie and I went bushwhacking. (By the way, readers may as well know that Rosie-the-dog joins me in the natural area at every opportunity. We go elsewhere on the weekends when skiers are about but there is rarely anyone around during the rest of the week. I have strong opinions about the NCC policies regarding the use of this area, would be happy to discuss.) There is an area to the north-west of the marsh I like to visit in the winter when the stream which bars the way for the rest of the year is frozen. Nope, not frozen yet, which answers my questions about whether it's too soon to snowshoe on the river, doesn't it? So, we didn't get there but we did ramble through the forest, looking for signs of porcupines. Well, I looked for signs, Rosie looked for anything edible. No porcupines and I'm concerned about this. We watched one fail and die last winter- can there be a porcupine plague?