Tracks in the Snow

After our big snowstorm left us 2 days ago we had 22 inches of snow ~ that's a whole lot more than I've seen in Maryland in a long, long time!  The snow was up to my knees and higher where it drifted, making walking around it it tough (outside of the ploughed areas, that is).  My stray/outside cat, Jerry, hasn't come by since the snow hit.  I hope he's eating wherever he is.  The raccoon family that normally visit us in the evenings haven't come by, either.  But we have gotten lots of birds of all varieties.  We've kept the feeders full for them.  A flock of big, black crows which normally don't come to our feeders stopped by and left their footprints in the snow along with the songbird footprints. 

  

I decided to go out to our old historic barn yesterday and see if Jerry's staying out there.  The barn's in our backyard, but a distance out.  I took some dry cat food and my camera with me, and headed out, trekking thru the snow.  After a couple minutes I realized it was really tough to walk, but I found a lone deer trail and walked in his footsteps.  Here's a picture of the lone deer prints which I found.

When I got closer to the barn, I found more deer footprints, all leading to the barn. 

   
There were many more deer footprints in the snow near a patch of cedar trees beside the barn. The trees were heavy and leaning over with the weight of the snow, bringing them down to nibbling height for the deer, it appeared.  There was less snow out here under the trees, too.

Looks like a deer party was held out by my barn!

 

PS - No Jerry anywhere.