For a person who loves winter, it was a great beginning to 2015; a heavy snowfall warning!  It was +3C yesterday.  Rain was falling at 3pm.  It eventually turned into snow and the snow fell all night long.  When I woke this morning, there was about 8 inches on the driveway.  It took me about an hour to clear it off, not because of the volume or the temperature but because I missed 'playing' in the fluffy stuff.

The seeds in the tray feeders were covered with mounds of snow.  The chickadees and the grosbeaks were trying their hardest to get at the seeds.  When the shoveling was done, I cleared and refilled all the feeders; including the grain dish for the deer.

It didn't take long for the birds to reappear.  I was excited to see the redpolls back.  I have not seen them for at least 3 years and about a dozen of them flew in and had a feeding frenzy at the feeders.

It didn't take long for the deer to appear either.  I was surprised to see a new buck with a doe come for a visit.  They were not a part of the usual herd that comes to feed.  The doe would try to feed and the buck would take after her.  He kept watching something in the trees.  Each time he went to the fence line, she came in for a few quick bites until he returned.

Shortly after they left, the usual bunch showed up.  There was some aggressive behavior happening with them as well.  I'm wondering if it was the weather.

I couldn't let the new snow go to waste.  The snow plow had not gone through yet but I threw the skis into my vehicle and headed to Cooking Lake - Blackfoot.  I hoped that I did not meet a vehicle coming from the other direction.  It was hard to determine where the road ended and the ditch began.  I was lucky and found myself to be the only one on the road.

It turned out that I was the only one in the parking lot as well.  I noticed that the groomer had been out already.  I put the skis on and enjoyed the peacefulness of the trail.  The only thing I could hear was the sound of the snowflakes hitting the fabric on my jacket.  

I made it half way around on groomed trails.  At the half way point, the groomer set off in the opposite direction from my travels.  I didn't have the proper skis on to break trail so that was a bit challenging.  I had about a quarter of the loop left when I heard the groomer coming up behind me.  As I stepped off to the side, he came by and left me with some awesome tracks back to the parking lot.

When I returned to my vehicle, there were four others there as well.  My timing was impeccable; nobody on the trails and first out on the new set tracks.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.