Dam!

Today we drove across to my friends' forest Hutte for a few days.  It was much colder and still a lot of snow on the ground so I was pleased I had packed my usual Scottish outerwear. No sooner had we arrived and had a bite to eat than we all set off along snow covered forest paths to see if the ice on the lake had melted sufficiently to set a net to catch fish for the remains of our stay there. To get to the spot I had my first ever ride on a snow scooter which was enormous fun, then maneuvering a small boat across the snow into the icy cold water where we had a small open space in the ice, as you can see from my extra photo, and duly cast our nets. On the attached photo you can also see the marks on the still frozen lake where my friends had previously scooted across the lake during the winter months. Returning on the scooter we stopped to see why several trees had died in a small pocket in the forest and this was the reason - they had become drowned by a very efficient beaver's dam. My first sighting of work by beavers it was a most impressive piece of engineering utilising everything they could get their teeth into. There were even signs of trees having been felled by them about three feet above ground level showing where the snow line had once been. Back home we tucked into a splendid Moose fondue.... it is a very lean, dark meat very similar to steak in flavour.