First Robin

This morning's constitutional w/ Indy was just down the driveway.  I noticed an odd thing.  There was a strip of bare ground, 20 to 30 feet across, parallel to the highway.  It started 12 feet or so back from the ditch and went the length of my hay field continuing down through my neighbor's field.  A mystery!  Great!  My obvious working hypothesis was it had something to do w/ the road since it followed east along side it.  I looked to the west.  No bare ground.  Difference is that side  I don't hay but leave farrow.   Looked across to the other side of the road.  No bare strip of ground but a ridge of snow where the county plow guy had pushed most of the snow.   Indy and I turned and followed the bare area.  If my guess was right there should be snow just over the hump in the field where a north-south road intersects the east-west road that runs past my house.  Yes!   There was the drift.  Here's what happened.  A couple of storms ago, the snow from the road was plowed mostly into the ditch on the north side causing a berm.  When the winds came sweeping out of the north in the next snow storm they dropped most of the snow they carried when they hit that berm.   Lighter now, they  picked up speed racing across the road and my field.  They scoured the snow from that 20-30 foot area and carried it w/ them to the south.  The tall plant stems in the western farrow area were enough to anchor the snow and slow the winds so no barren strip there.    The drift at the intersecting road was because there would be no ridge of snow to stop the winds - they would still be carrying snow and depositing it as they moved across the field.  I like a good mystery.