Snow ways

When I was a boy, my father crafted a V-shaped wooden snowplow for me to play with in the fresh snow. He cut up a rough-sawn plank that was about 14 inches high, cut angles and inserted a brace. He put a rope on the front.Sent outside to fend for myself (my sisters, not of an engineering bent, mostly shaped snow figures or baked snow pies) I plowed small roads around the backyard, created intersections, installed a few side roads.Leap ahead a few decades. My backyard is still abundant with little lanes and byways, though only a few are of my making. These days I shovel a path to the rear porch, another path to the bird feeders and (if the snow isn’t too deep) another lane to the mulch bin and storage shed.A fresh snowfall of a few inches leaves a pristine yardscape. After an hour, tracks appear. A squirrel ventures through. Doves waddle around the suet feeder. A deer meanders by after dark; its tracks are revealed the next morning.u u uSome trails are straight. Some are short. Some go in circles. Some are used once. Some are used repeatedly. The accumulation creates a pattern that somewhat resembles the Google Maps overview of the New Jersey Turnpike.If the snow isn’t too deep, it’s obvious who the track makers are. In deeper snow, the squirrels flail and flop across the yard, with no sense of grace. Bird tracks defy identification. All the little feet look the same. If the pileated woodpecker that comes by ever lands on the ground, its tracks might have been large enough to pinpoint.After a recent snow, the oddest track was left by a dog that never learned the closest distance between two points is a straight line.Our house feline was the only one to appreciate my shoveling. It followed the path to the driveway, sniffed the air in disdain, and catfooted back and asked to come in.So far this winter’s snow-thaw-snow-thaw has disrupted any plans to cross-country ski on some back road or other — to make my own tracks. That’s the only snowplowing I do today, as I navigate downhill.Until the backwoods snow lasts long enough for me to go skiing, I’ll enjoy looking at the treks of others.The writer is an associate editor of The Lakeville Journal.