We had an unexpected snowstorm last night, dropping less than an inch but still covering the ground, as it’s below freezing. Fortunately the weather has warmed up today.
Armon and Vashti were starving this morning because of the cold, and were waiting for me at the “feeding spot” at the north end of Botany Pond. They had a huge breakfast, and gave me the gift of their tracks in the snow. This is the only way I know they walk around on the ground when I’m not there.
I can’t get enough of Duck Tracks in the Snow. In fact, that would be a good title for a song. . .
There’s a classic Bill Monroe bluegrass song titled “Footprints in the Snow”. Perhaps you could adapt it.
I just looked it up. Great bluegrass. Here it is:
I don’t know much about bluegrass, but I love some of the songs, that was great.
The actor and comedian Steve Martin is a terrific bluegrass banjo player. I discovered the Steep Canyon Rangers a while ago when I saw him working with them. This song is excellent https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4lFMK3UIa74.
The same group perform an atheist hymn. But I don’t know if A Capella can be called bluegrass? 😁 Atheists Don’t Have No Songs:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xmwAD7nHqaY
Hi Joolz,
Steve Martin is good! Loved “Pretty Little One”. I wondered where that song was going. (So did the audience.)
BTW, this video came up for me on YouTube and I thought of you, from when you told us you were arguing with some flat-earthers who claimed that if the earth was round, railway tracks wouldn’t be able to bend around it. That’s absurd of course. Even heavy main-line rail (132 -141 lb/yard in Canada) will easily bend around both horizontal and vertical curves as it settles into the lay of the land, making curves far, far tighter than the curvature of the earth’s surface.
Steel mills roll rails in 39-foot lengths for ease of handling. The raw cast billet has to be run back and forth between shaped rollers while orange-hot until it reaches the desired profile. Then the railway butt-welds the rails together in its shops into lengths of a quarter-mile or more and feeds the continuously welded rail (CWR as its called) onto special trains for transport to the job site where new rail is being laid. This video shows such a train snaking through the sharp curves in British Columbia’s Fraser River Canyon in the Cascade Mountains. The telephoto lens exaggerates the curvature but you can tell from the squealing of the wheel flanges that the curves are about as sharp as long rolling stock can negotiate. (The rail shipment action ends at 9:32.)
The rails sit by their own weight on the fixtures, called chairs, free to shift longitudinally as the track curves under them. At the end of the train are the special machinery cars that shoehorn each rail off the stock being carried and lay it down onto the job site.
The limiting curvature (horizontal and vertical) is dictated by the designed mechanical properties of the rolling stock, not by intrinsic flexibility of the steel itself and not at all by the earth’s curvature. The stuff bends like fresh pasta, sort of. CWR avoids the joints that produce the traditional/annoying clickety-clack and lasts much longer than old-fashioned bolted fish-plate joints every 39 feet.
This is a good catch by the YouTuber as these rail trains are not commonly seen. Rail lasts a long time.
(I plead that this post is vaguely on-topic even if it’s not about ducks because “Footprints in the Snow” has the same rhythm and nearly the same tune as “Wabash Cannonball”. And I though Joolz might find it useful.)
Said Armon to Vashti ‘Hey Dude’
Where’s Jerry today with our food?
Let’s give him some hints
By leaving our prints
As long as we do it unshoed.
Hopefully that will keep me on topic!
When I was looking up the info on railway tracks I found that the standard individual lengths of track in the UK were about half the size of the USA. I thought that was odd and assumed it may be because our factories are smaller.
When you mentioned the new method of making them a quarter of a mile long, my first thought was how do they deliver them to where they are needed, and then I watched the video and it became clear. I thought our railways here might be to bendy to transport CWR so I googled and was surprised to find that there are a couple of manufacturers here.
I asked Claude to write pop-song lyrics with that title, based on looking at your photos:
Duck Tracks in the Snow
[Verse 1]
Little webbed prints in a winding line,
Leading me somewhere, a hopeful sign,
You waddled here just before the dawn,
Left me a trail to follow on.
I found your marks on the cold white ground,
The quietest love that I’ve ever found.
[Chorus]
Duck tracks in the snow,
Tell me where you go,
Following your feet
To the water’s edge below.
Duck tracks in the snow,
Dancing row by row,
I’d follow you forever,
Wherever your little footprints go.
[Verse 2]
Flat-footed poet, you never knew
You wrote a love letter just passing through,
The world was blank and the morning was still,
You signed your name with a wandering bill.
No ink, no pen, just the press of your feet,
The sweetest story I’ll ever read.
[Repeat chorus]
[Bridge]
You don’t care about the cold,
You don’t mind the gray,
You just live your waddling life
And go about your day.
And I’m standing here in wonder
At the path you leave behind —
The simplest kind of beautiful
Is the hardest one to find.
[Repeat chorus]
[Outro, fading]
Little webbed prints… winding line…
You were here, and so was I…
Duck tracks in the snow.
Fabulous!
Wow! Cute. 🦆🦆
That’s how we knew that we had raccoons in our neighborhood—tracks in the snow.
Just curious, is the duck feed made by the MG Feed Company of Weimar, Texas?
Here’s Grok’s version with a little more info:
Duck Tracks in the Snow
In Botany Pond where the willows bend low,
Two mallards glide through the hush of the snow.
A drake in his green and a hen in her brown,
They waddle the edge where the ice meets the ground.
Webbed feet like stamps on a crisp winter page,
Pressing their story in delicate gauge—
Tiny heart-shaped prints in a wandering line,
From the pond’s frozen rim to the snow-covered pine.
They dip for a nibble where the water still gleams,
Shake off the flakes in a shimmer of dreams.
Side by side they march, no hurry, no care,
Just two loyal souls in the cold morning air.
Quack-quack echoes soft through the white-laden trees,
A duet of love on the whispering breeze.
Their tracks weave a path like a secret code,
Telling the world that their pond is their home.
CHORUS
Oh, duck tracks in the snow, duck tracks in the snow,
Little signs of life where the wild winds blow.
In Botany’s cradle of ice and of stone,
Two mallards remind us we’re never alone.
When the spring melts the white and the pond laughs again,
Those footprints will fade—but the memory remains:
Two hearts in the cold, side by side they will go,
Leaving their legend… duck tracks in the snow.
I think I could do better with my own brain. . . .
Have any of the turtles reappeared? Or is it too early for them to come out?
Nice photos of ephemera! 🙂