WHAT IS THAT?!!!!

Mr. came in out of the cold with great excitement.
"You have to see this!" he exclaimed.
Dragged away from my baking in my pajamas and apron
I donned my snow boots and went outside armed with a ruler.
I was to do some investigative work.
I marched back inside in a hurry to find my tracks of Northwest animals field guide.
The tracks left in the snow were none like we had ever seen before around here. They were huge. There was what seemed like a tail drag line in the snow ahead of each print. The prints sank deep in the snow under the weight of a very large animal. There were claw marks in the print (not a puma as we first suspected). The prints were 4" wide by 4 1/2" long. The only animal that seemed close was a Timber Wolf. That or a very large dog. But a dog would not normally travel through the thickets in our garden and would just go on the easiest route of open pathways, so there is suspicion that it is not a dog print. I wish I had an expert to look at the tracks because it would be great to find out what animal left them. We have lots of coyotes around here but the prints are too large for a coyote.

Here's my Christmas dessert.
A French Apple Tart
from Ina Garten's Back to Basics new cookbook.
I am a great fan of all of her cookbooks.
This one was fabulous. Yum.