The Changing Landscape

After two days of freezing rain and just plain crappy weather, Charlie and I managed to get down to the river again at last. The weather still wasn’t great (an insulated duck suit would have been the ideal attire), but there was no holding this boy back any longer…at least, not if I wanted my sanity to survive. 😉

Even in the short time that we’d been cooped up in the house, the landscape had changed dramatically. More of the river’s edge was frozen, and the snow had rendered the ice opaque. More trails had come into view with the fresh snow as well, and we meandered into corners of the woods we’ve never before explored. At one point, we found ourselves following in the footsteps of other intrepid souls — a man, judging by the size of the boot print, and his dog. Their trail led to the edge of the marsh we’d visited last week, but on the opposite side. There were no returning tracks, so we gathered our courage (okay, I did…Charlie just thought the entire adventure was grand!) and struck out across the frozen beaver dam.

The mostly frozen beaver dam.

Despite a couple of close calls with open water — and the discovery that my new winter boots aren’t entirely waterproof above the four-inch mark 😉 — we managed to traverse the entire pond by way of a remarkably sturdy work of animal engineering, emerging at the very vantage point from which I’d viewed things before. Pretty awesome.

And, as always, I found lots of photo opportunities. 🙂