Tracks in the Snow

We had our first good snow of the season yesterday and it sure was pretty coming down. We only got about 2" (I was secretly hoping for at least 12!) but it stayed on the ground and on the bushes and trees because the temperatures were so low.

When I got home from work, I found the strangest tracks in the snow off our back porch. Small, circular indentations in the snow, about the size of a silver dollar, spaced about six inches or so apart and meandering from the porch steps over toward the fire pit and across the front of the barn. The strange thing about the tracks was they were only one single indentation every six inches. Not two, like a bird might make, and not four, like a small animal. Only one "hop hop hop". What the heck?

Now the mystery is what in the world would make those tracks? What kind of critter only has one foot? Was it a bunny on a pogo stick? A frog hopping in the snow? I was so curious to find out.

Later that evening, as I was sitting in front of the tv watching Vampire Diaries (of all things!) I heard a terrible commotion in the backyard. A cat was screeching as if it was on fire! I ran to the back door and looked out into the yard and sure enough, there sat a gray cat I'd never seen before. (Cat's already making their way into our yard, taking advantage of Jake's absence) The cat probably tried to go into the barn and the donkeys chased it out, thus the screeching and wailing. The cat just sat there on the porch step a minute, very close to the line of tracks I had originally seen in the snow. I tapped on the window and the cat ran off real fast through the snow, one foot so perfectly in front of the other to where all four feet only made one straight line in the snow! I found my mysterious critter! Who would have guessed? And I was so holding out for that bunny on a pogo stick!