A moose walked through the yard yesterday and left a nice natural history tale in the snow.

It was probably the big female we’ve seen now and again through the winter. She left the yard and stepped out onto the driveway. We have unusually deep snow this winter, and she stepped neatly from deep snow to zero snow right where I run the snow blower to create a steep cutoff.

Rose marvels at where a big moose exited the yard and stepped onto the driveway.

The tracks show how amazingly tall she is. I couldn’t walk through that without enormous, exhausting effort (as I did two weeks ago uphill from here, just for some exhausting fun). Yet to my surprise, not only did she not even drag belly hair across this deep powder, she could completely lift her feet free with her gargantuan steps. Wow.

Natural selection in action. Or why moose have long legs.

Moose tracks in deep snow. Note no belly-drag or right-hoof-drag marks