Intruder Alert!

Two different sets of tracks. Two different directions. Two kinds of trouble.

It's almost Winter Solstice and southern Vermont hasn't seen much snow at all. This past weekend saw a little snow, but very quickly it turned to ice pellets and rain, and very quickly any accumulated snow turned to slush. Captain Holly does regular scouting runs around the warren, and snow makes it easy to see who's been traipsing around. He knows there's quite a collection of neighborhood cats and dogs that wander near the warren, and he knows about the chipmunks, squirrels, birds and racoons, but he was a little surprised to see these tracks:

Mr. Cottontail has come up the hill.

Looks like there are some wild rabbits wandering pretty close by. Captain Holly's guess is this rabbit smelled something good, as there has been plenty of baking going on. That rabbit was probably looking to steal Clover's Eggnog & Almond cookies, or Pipkin's Citrus & Spice cookies.

With the snow rapidly melting away (it will be a balmy 37°F today) Captain Holly will have to look more carefully at the grass for tracks, or give the air an extra hard sniff (smorkin' dulls your sense of smell) for rabbit. The labbits are happy to share their cookies, but they don't like thieves!

Racoons, pah! They'll eat anything!

If you see animal tracks and scat around your warren and you would like to know which animal left those markings, Captain Holly recommends you learn your sh*t, with the help of a handy tracking guide.