More Winter Tracks

  Beth and I saw these bizarre tracks during a walk last week, made by coyotes dragging something along the road. They appeared almost like a single snowboard track with paw prints, and occasionally disappeared as if the animals had lifted whatever they were carrying for a time then dropped it again. At places the tracks looked more like the dragging tail of some animal the coyotes were carrying in their mouths. There was no sign of blood but because they do not give birth until spring the animal was likely a kill. After emerging from the woods the tracks followed the road for about 1/4 mile then reentered the woods and and continued up a hill.
   Tracks locally are mostly deer, coyote, fox and, surprisingly to me at least, feral cats. The latter are more abundant than I would have thought, for their tracks can be found miles from civilization.
   The sawmill is where local Amish have harvested some trees and cut the lumber in the woods, which is much easier than trying to drag the  heavy logs by horse power alone. They use small gas powered engines to run the saw-allowed by their faith for this purpose-then use the wood to make sheds and furniture and other items they sell to the general public. By contrast, modern logging involves huge tractors and buzz saws that can fell a tree in seconds, which are loaded onto trucks and shipped to commercial mills.