Tracks & Scat

Christmas 2007 the church gave me a money tree--and one of the gifts I bought for our enjoyment and education was a book, Tracks & Scat. Flipping through the pages allowed me to learn a new word! Tracks, I knew, but I always thought 'scat' was what you said to scar a cat away, as in "Scat, cat!" Also growing up in Central Texas, 'scat' was the word you said after someone sneezed. Then we moved to German-speaking Europe and learned to say "Gesundheit!" after a sneeze. Now I prefer to say, "Bless you!" But I digress.

With the little book I quickly learned that 'scat' is what you call the animal drooping found in the woods, like turkey, deer, squirrel, rabbit.... Those are the ones I recall. But scat is not the point of this blog.

Last Friday Thomas and I took a walk in the woods. There was a dusting of snow with just enough to make footprints visible. We thought we might find deer tracks, but didn't. However, about half way through the walk we began to find curious little foot prints, not well defined, but definite prints.

That made us give every step we took the old Sherlock Holmes detailed careful observation. Finally a paw print was evident, distinct pads were visable--dog, cat? We weren't sure. A step or two further up there were little toe prints! And then came a track with what appeared to be four fingers and a thumb! We couldn't imagine what we were seeing. But you can bet we made a bee-line to Tracks & Scat when we got to the house. After a few minutes of searching Thomas found our prints: a possum!

That was our adventure for the day.