Ernie and I left Aimee to the football warm-up show, and took ourselves for a good walk.We went down to the beaver ponds on Great Farm Brook, but the dams had been washed out and the ponds drained. Probably the beaver have been trapped out. I wouldn't know when, since we'd have seen the trapper's own tracks in the snow, unless they came from the east side, which is much longer to hike and without a proper trail of any kind.
But they'll come back. There are plenty of beaver still in Maine.
It was cold. Today's high has only been about 8 F. I had rime ice all over my beard again, but Ernie was perfectly comfortable.Strange to see the water level so low. Without the dams, this area is just a slow section of creek, and indeed you can see the water running under the ice. If the beaver don't come back, the trees will fill in from the edges, which would be a pity, since the one of the attractions of this hike is the nice open feeling of the pond area. In Maine we get used to hiking under the forest canopy, which is pleasant enough, but it's nice to be able to see a little further now and then.
The sheep are nonplussed by hiking. This time of year they tend to confine themselves to the one area of their pen closest to the barn door. They don't even hike across their small paddock.Bentley will cross his paddock, but then it is vary small, barely fifty feet across. Yesterday he was running around in circles for some strange reason.
Today, he just tried to ram Ernie, who for his part just instigated more ramming, by barking at him.
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