At-home adventures

 So there are a series of beaver ponds and a huge swamp-type area right down the road from us (which is where most of our mosquitoes come from).  We have posted a lot hiking to the beaver dam, and in the winter we started ice skating up and down the beaver ponds.  The only thing left to do is to canoe them!

Here's a map showing where we put in (lower left) and the path we have taken.  My goal is to get to the upper right x, but we haven't been able to get that far yet.  It gets very narrow and there are a lot of logs and such, so we end up having to bounce in the canoe while pushing off (basically scooting) and doing all sorts of things to get past some of these narrow sections. All of the grass area is essentially flooded bog, and there are little "paths" of water through it.

The main reason I haven't done this before is that I feel a little silly carrying my canoe down the road.  There are a lot of joggers and cars, and it feels like I am a very confused person walking my canoe in the morning.

Here's kind of a feel of the path: lot of these floating bush/grass things floating around.  It's pretty cool to be weaving in and out of it all.

Here is where we have gotten stuck.  This is a fallen log laying across the path.  I might come back with a chainsaw someday, but for now we have tried more natural means.  I jumped up on one of the floating islands, and precariously tried to push the log out of the way.  I got the log moved over a bit and it made the log a foot or too higher, because one end was sitting on some bushes.  It was enough for us to lay down in the canoe and pass under.

I'm so "oafy" that as I passed under, I pushed on the log too hard and it fell down on my back.  I thought we were going to sink the canoe, but luckily it got caught on some branches and didn't fall down any further.  You can see the damage on my hairy, pasty, old-man back!

Aaron is the only kid I've taken out there, but he really loved it: he said it was way cooler than canoeing on a boring lake!