Got a note from my friend Steve Heaps.

"You were recently asking about seeing animal prints in the snow. When we were living in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1977, I raised my hand at an auction and became the proud(?) owner of a Solingen steel carving set with handles made of embarrassingly small deer hooves (see attached photo). They are gross, but they do make me laugh. Karen usually banishes them to the basement. But after our granddaughters went to bed on Christmas Eve when they were ages 3 and 6 or so, I reached out onto the deck and, without leaving footprints, made Rudolph and Blitzen prints in the snow. After they checked out the plate where Santa's cookies had been, we 'discovered' proof that his reindeer had strolled across the deck on the way to the chimney."

 

 

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