Carole and I took a small leave last Tuesday and headed north to the cabin for some down time. It was an interesting trip to say the least.
Weather-wise we couldn't have asked for better temperature ranges except for the couple days it struggled to get out of the 40's. Still the temps were very manageable. We had a couple days of rain so one of them we went to Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin to shop and check antique shops. The other we hunkered down in the cabin and did a marathon dvd watching things getting caught up on movies we've had on the list to watch for the last few months. I mowed the four acres of cutting grass twice while we were there and actually did manage a few hours on the breakwater in Two Harbors casting for whatever, but whatever didn't show up. The lake was running rough with the wind we had up there and fishing was what would best be described as tough.
Thursday we had serious wind issues at the cabin and had several trees snapped off about thirty feet up from the ground when straight line winds hit.
The trip wasn't a wash by any means. I hit on a veritable jackpot of fly tying materials, all of which will be offered here first in a couple days, and we had some "guests" that did a fine job of entertaining us. Here is one....
This guy runs right around 400 pounds and helped himself to around 100 pounds of corn in the deer feeders over the course of two days. Since the bear are in the middle of the breeding season right now, he decided to "mark" a treed for us. His scratching [clawing the bark to mark his presence] was as high as 8 1/2 feet up on the tree. This one was a big one and he came in wearing the nicest fur coat I have seen on a breeding bear. Usually they are pretty ragged and rangy looking when the girls are being sought. Come fall and the hunting season and this one will top out at 550 pretty easily.
We had a brown phase bear too but the picture thru the window at the distance he was at is sort of grainy. This guy is tall and leggy but not anything in size like the black critter. This one runs about a more "normal" 250 pounds and proved to be camera shy.
On Sunday evening a nice female blackie showed up and stayed in the yard eating corn for maybe two hours but was so nervous she made me nervous. Carole and I agreed that she likely had cubs stashed in a tree and was edgy because males were in the area. Males and young cubs are not good company.
Hummingbirds were thick this trip and offered a bunch of photo ops. I'll get one of those pics up real soon. Here's a good shot of a hummer right outside the kitchen window.
The fishing sucked but sometimes its gotta be little things other than fishing that made a trip worthwhile. The bear pretty much saved this one. The hummers had their part played well too. On one trip we saw a nice doe cross the road but stop and go almost back to the area she came from and as we slowed a fawn no more than 18 inches came out of the grass, joined ma and then trotted off the other side of the road. Its the little things that matter some times. While we didn't see them, wolves had left fresh tracks on a hiking trail on the property as well as a cow and calf moose.
We checked out cabin log and its been three years since we've had a bear of any size in the yard there so we feel blessed to have been there when the big boy showed up. All three bears were nice to watch.
