Summertime at the cabin

I have been behind in posting lately... I thought today would be a good time to catch up on some of our summertime cabin adventures thus far this year...

Bob and I went up for a quick little getaway, and on our Mule ride (not the animal kind of mule, but the four-wheeler kind of mule!), we saw this little guy up in a tree. He seemed to be troubled about how to get down. Actually, I have never seen a porcupine in a tree. We usually see them shuffling around by the side of the road when its almost dark. This guy seemed to not have been trained as to proper porcupine behavior...

On another of our trips, we noticed several hornets' nests in the eaves of the roof line. Our son-in-law, Mike, and Bob were crazy enough brave enough to get up on ladders and poke at them to get them down. We looked like a bunch of scaredy-cats running for our lives when the hornets started flying around. By the way, this photo is of our son-in-law who hates having his picture taken. hehehehe.

And here is what the hornets' nest looks like with all of the papery layers exposed. Pretty intricate and amazing!

Later on, when the four of us went on a Mule ride, we saw several mommy and baby moose pairs. So fun to see the cute little mooses. Some of the moms had their hands(?) full with twin babies. This little duo seemed to know that they belonged in the area... according to the sign above the garage door.

As we rode on a little further, we happened upon this huge bull moose. He didn't seemed to be very impressed with any of us, and certainly wasn't nervous that we were there gawking at him. The guys thought it would be a great idea to get in closer to him (not sure what it is that prods them on to going into the danger zone). So, the guys got out of the Mule, and got as close as they could "for photos" (although only one of them had a camera).

And this is what happened as the moose starting running toward them. At a very great speed. Apparently the bull moose can cover ground at a rate of about 10 times as fast as humans. Who knew?

I do have to say that my husband does a very good job of running very quickly with his hands in his pockets. And he even smiles while running for his life.

Last weekend Bob and I drove up for an over-nighter at the cabin. We brought the tractor up, so we could continue work on a trail on the property. We haven't had a chance to work on it at all this year, so it felt good to make some progress. We probably extended the trail about 55 feet or so, which isn't too bad for just the two of us.

This photo shows the tractor behind Bob, and the next area (between me and the tractor) that we were clearing on the trail. 

And here is part of the trail after we had worked on it.

One day we hope to have a trail that goes from our cabin all the way to the other end of our property, and then goes down by the creek and up the hill back to the cabin. It will probably take years, but its fun even to see the trail growing a little each year. We take that same trail when we do the snow-shoe loop, so it will be nice to have it more cleared off one day. It will make snow-shoeing a little less of an extreme sport!