On a visit to the so-called Beaver bog, created by a team of beavers over twenty years ago, we found a beaver near their latest dam. Their work has flooded the bog and made it a useful resource for all kinds of ducks and other creatures.

Last fall a large tree fell into Woodbury Pond. The ice during the winter encased it and created this unusual image, caught during a warm late winter day as fog hovered over the pond.

We have reached eleven months of Coronia and two-thirds of another Maine winter. We are expecting the slow return of Spring, Summer, and the Fall. We hope to start seeing more birds and fewer tracks in the snow to mark the end of Winter.

We found a very interesting group of tracks of all sizes the other day on our hike.

As our weather meanders deeper into winter, our time in the woods gets shorter and shorter. It doesn’t go above freezing anymore. More and more forest life leaves only their tracks and most of them are mysteries.

It was weeks ago before the ice came that we saw this on Woodbury Pond. Now, the ice is here, the Republican stormtroopers have assaulted the US Capitol, and the nation has lost over 350,000 people in nine months of pandemic. Make America Great Again has new meaning.

Our winter started last week with heavy wet snow followed by consistently freezing temperatures. The icing of the waterways has begun. The drought conditions are history. The beavers are into winter hiding and the birds are getting ready for the cold.