Thanksgiving Weekend

Well we had a very nice weekend at the cabin even though that is not what we were planning. Dad, the boys and I decided to go check out the roads on Sunday and it was fine to drive in there using the stump ranch road. We had a very nice thanksgiving meal and some great visiting. We managed to get out on the river and had Dillon and Maureen with us and Dillon managed to catch a fish (right in front of Rod’s moose camp). A beaver also hung out on the bank as we drove by no more than 20 feet out on the river and watched us go by.

We also got to celebrate Nathan's birthday out at the cabin on Sunday. He got the bumps and his little brother "I too" couldn't be left out so Justin got some bumps as well. And if you did forget to wish Nathan happy birthday he reminded you fairly quickly... right Uncle Rodney? :-)

Monday morning we got up and got all of the kids out for a walk. We saw a bunch of grouse on that back trail (about 10). Then we spotted a porcupine up a tree. He got out on a pretty small limb pretty high up, hopefully he knew what he was doing. Then Shelley, Mom, Carter, Nathan and I set off to see the beaver dam that has the river blocked off. We parked on that little island and the boys had a great time finding clams. They couldn’t believe there were so many (and why were there so many?). We made a couple of passes through the fishing area and Carter, Shelley and I each caught 2 fish and we kept 3 total. I was very surprised to see that the two larger ones (not that big) were both right full of eggs. Why would they be full of eggs at this time of year? Grandma didn’t catch anything but a rock bass and Carter said that wasn’t surprising! ;-)

Then later when Dad and I were taking out the boat and dock I saw an animal on the same bank as us. He dipped into the water pretty quickly and you could see his bubbles going across the river. He came out on the far bank by the beaver dam carrying a fish carcass. Looked like a pretty big river otter (that was my guess). This thing was sleek, dark brown and bigger than Boze and hopped up the bank kind of like a weasel. If something is going to feed off those fish carcasses we are throwing an otter seems like a good thing to have… any downsides to them?

Lastly, when we were driving out around the field edge we spied some more grouse. Shelley got out to take a picture and she flushed them and there were 14-16 birds in that flock.

Great weekend. Pictures are up to go with the stories.