January Forest Walk

This past weekend was unseasonably warm, reaching 70 F at one point. Almost like spring making an early appearance. It was short-lived unfortunately as it's dropping back down to the 40s today, accompanied by rain. While somewhat unpleasant, we need the rain to fill up the lake. As you see in the pics, right now the water is down again. Although this prevents canoeing, it does allow excursions over the beaver dam to the spit of land between what we call the boat and the tree channels. The tree channel, what Harley is looking at in the pic at right, is much deeper than the the boat channel, which is at present pretty much dry. It's amazing to think that we were able to take our power boat down this channel one year (and one year only). To get to the spit of land, we first cross a small creek into which someone has dumped logs that Harley used to cross in the first pic. In the middle you can just make out Sidney climbing a tree located in the spit of land. I think they sometimes use these trees to get an overview of the land below as this is the "land of the tall grasses", wherein they're forced to hop over taller sections or weave through tunnels presumably made by the beaver. At bottom you can see both cats making their way back towards the beaver dam. Sidney is behind Harley somewhere; she's usually more difficult to spot as she blends in better with her surroundings.