It looked like it was going to be a nice, sparkly day.

Though it was chilly, the sun was shining brightly and down in a hollow just north of the city, frost was glittering everywhere. Crystals lined the fences, coated the roadside grass and shimmered on bits of twine that danced in the light breeze.

At -4 C it was considerably warmer than it had been for the past few days and the sunshine added strength to the warmth. The blue sky above added a cyan tinge to the landscape that softened the otherwise harsh shadows with a soft grey look.

Gophers were out though they were skittish. Don’t blame them. They were easy to spot against the bright snow. No hawks around that I could see but there were plenty of ravens who might swoop down on them. Further out in a field, a coyote. Yep, smart to be skittish.

Your weekday lunchtime roundup of curated links, news highlights, analysis and features.

There was an error, please provide a valid email address.

By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

The next issue of Noon News Roundup will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

Interested in more newsletters? Browse here.

I was headed north and east just to see what I could see. After the past week’s deep freeze — it wasn’t actually all that bad — the rising temperatures in the forecast made it tempting to just go poke around.

The frost was a good start so I rolled on expecting to find more.

I didn’t. Turned out that hollow was a bit of an anomaly. Out in the more open country east of Airdrie, there was no frost at all. In fact, there wasn’t even all that much snow.

Given how much had fallen in the city and along the foothills, I expected the fields to be covered out this way. And they were, kinda. In the sense that there was snow on the ground, yeah. But in most places the pasture grass and field stubble showed through.

The storm had been pretty windy, though, and a lot of the ditches were full of drifts. They weren’t very big or very deep but some of them had lovely sculpted shapes. And all of them had tracks.

Tracks are almost as good as seeing that being that had made them. The jackrabbit or coyote or pheasant that had wandered across this blown snow might be long gone but the tracks it left behind are irrefutable proof it had been there. Tracks are amazing.

And not just in snow.

A long time ago I was shown a set of........

© Calgary Herald