an unexpected discovery

As I mentioned on our food blog, the girls and I took a nice walk this morning. We used to walk or bike this paved path across the street from us (that goes for miles in two directions) before it began snowing last fall. Then I just figured the trail was buried under snow and ice, and I would have to wait for spring. Come to find out—It's completely snow free and dry. I think the city plows it with a little tractor, like the ones they use on the sidewalk in our neighborhood.

I ran this by Andy (the city clearing the trail), and he thought, no way they plow it. But then I told him we got off the trail and onto a sidewalk for a while, and the sidewalk was covered in snow and ice! So, I think they do remove it. How cool is that? If only I had known... Oh, well.

On top of the excitement of the dry paved path, was the animal tracks everywhere in the snow on either side in the open space. So neat. Tiny tracks and big tracks—Mice, bird, prairie dog, rabbit, and coyote tracks. And, we saw this really interesting bird, which Zoe found in the bird book when we got home. It's called a belted kingfisher. Since I was completely unprepared, without binoculars or a camera, I found a photo of it online:

photo from firefly forest

This bird had a mohawk of feathers that it flaunted wildly when it sang it's monkey-like call. I've never seen such a cool bird, except maybe the heron—I love heron. But heron are very shy and quiet while this bird was loud and boisterous.

As if the mile we walked each way this morning wasn't enough, the girls and I were back outside hanging out just before dinner, when it was getting cold. That's when I took the top two photos. Believe it or not, Zoe wore nothing but jeans, a t-shirt and a short-sleeved princess dress over top on our walk this morning. Crazy how the temperature changes so quickly here.

Love, Kelly

Click and press the play button to hear this bird.