About six inches of snow has fallen lightly over our yard, and it reminded me of a story that I wanted to post after our last snowfall.

My three youngest brothers and sister had called me to discuss some mysterious footprints in the snow near the door of their house. They described the prints to me, and asked if I knew what they could be. I guessed a coyote, but I really had no idea. They analyzed the prints, took pictures, and finally looked them up in a book from the library on animal tracks. It turns out, there must be a loose pig in the neighborhood who had come calling at their house. And yes, pig tracks and coyote tracks are vastly different in their appearance. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

All of the excitement caused me to wonder what kind of creatures were roaming outside our house. So I bundled up the girls and we headed outside. We found rabbit tracks and bird tracks and deer tracks and dog tracks. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But then I noticed a pathway worn in the snow leading from our front door to our neighbor's house on the right and another pathway leading from our front door to our neighbor's house on the left. Joyfulness bubbled up in my heart when I realized that we had FRIEND TRACKS in our snow!