Luckily, I am a good navigator bear and co-pilot... so we found the start of the trail after only a few false starts...
Here we go! You can see from the dry grass how long it's been since we've had a good rain.
This old rotten stump had a couple of little bear holes in it... perfect for leaping up and going "boo" at unsuspecting German cousins who then shriek in terror at the wild Canadian bear!
The trail was pretty cool with different topographies... some creek bottoms with big old cedars...
And a dead garter snake as well!
Also some ponds...
With the cat tails coming along nicely. Did you know that you can eat many parts of the cat tail??
Ummm... in some places the trail was beary overgrown... This is an old beaver dam that was serving as a bridge across some of the ponds.
There were even salal berries! They tasted pretty good but make an even better jelly...
This was a slightly bigger lake where we decided to sit down and have a break.
It was a nice open arbutus forest slope with grasses...
The cousins enjoyed the walk a lot...
Valentin and I shared the Cool Ranch Doritos... yum!
Now is the season when the arbutus bark is peeling off... beary pretty.
Of course we had to stop and take a few grass pictures... We also saw a LOT of garter snakes, even baby ones... but they all slithered away too quickly to be photographed. Beary annoying... but...
I saw a mouse!! A real, live mouse and it was just hiding in the leaves and if we crouched really still, it would forage around a bit. I thought Beanie Mouse would like this!
He was pretty cute... but not highly photogenic either. Maybe that's why there aren't postcards of wild mice??
He's VERY photogenic, just like me!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd I was super close to him too - 2 feet away! The darn camera kept wanting to focus on leaves and twigs rather than him. So cute!
DeleteSandy, did the cat tails meow at all? Ben wanted to know.
ReplyDeleteUmmm... well... no... the meows usually come out of the other end of a cat, I think. The cattails did smell a bit foul though - not sure if that was the marshy soil or... well... you know...
DeleteSandy that is quite the adventure you went on. Mice, snakes, scaring German visitors, cool ranch doritos (yumm) you seem to do it all. Now that you have shown your cousins such a nice time in the wilds of Canada are they going to take you on a trip to Germany? Oh, you would have to invite Jerry and Ben,I could see Jerry getting beary excited over the chocolate in Germany.
ReplyDeleteOh, I wish I could go to Germany!! I would like a nice pair of those lederhosen with the shoulder straps... and a cute hat to go with it... and a beer stein in little bear size. But no... Mama's shaking her head. Such aching disappointment in a little bear's heart... deep, tremulous sigh!.... Ahhh.... it worked!! Mama has just rolled her eyes and whispered that we ARE going somewhere this fall! Not sure where though... How does one winkle a secret out of a human?
DeleteThe mouse is kind of cute. My mom screamed when she saw the snake though.
ReplyDelete-Ajdin
The mouse was super cute... the snake... yeah... there were a few shrieks along the way - tonnes of snakes there. The only consolation is that they are harmless. If it had been rattlesnakes, I woulda stayed in the car and said "hasta la vista babies!!".
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