the "wild life"

No, not that kind of "wild life"--after all, I'm not single again yet!! Give me a couple of months and it'll be karaoke on the bar. (not) I went for my usual daily 3 1/2 mile walk through the same area as in the pictures below. It looks a little different today, however, because we are under "blizzard conditions" this afternoon, snowing heavily and getting very cold. Here comes the Alberta Clipper, lol! As I walked up the Hog's Back, I happened to glance up from watching my footing on the snow and ice to see two hen turkeys sauntering down the trail ahead of me. I've seen turkeys dozens of times from the car as I whizzed by, but this was the first time I've ever seen them up close. I was surprised at how tall and long-legged a wild turkey is; I had always thought of them as sort of a squat, low-to-the-ground bird. After they disappeared into the brush, I walked up to their tracks in the snow. Those tracks were the size of my hand!! Thinking well, that was a pretty neat thing to see, I continued on up the hill--couldn't stop for long for the wind blowing off the iced over river. As I topped the hill and started down, I saw a large dog crossing the path ahead of me.....no, that's not a dog. That's a fox, a big fox!! A trapper would have turned up his nose at this fox, halfway through its color change with a red body and a gray brush; but I thought it was beautiful. He trotted off the trail and down to the houses at the edge of the park and out of sight in the heavy snow.