more back road adventure ~

Yesterday was my last day as a tag along with Dear Hubby ~ running the back roads of the north woods with him on his trap line.  Today he's pulling traps.  His spring beaver trapping season is over.

We drove through some pretty muddy and rutted up roadways on his quest of the beaver ~ 90 miles of it each day.  If the roads weren't muddy ... they were flooded ...

or had obstacles in them .. like rocks (popped up from frost heaves) ... big enough that had to be navigated around.  Even the "good" roads were rough in places and sometimes it felt like you were riding on a roller coaster ...

I kept my camera ready ... never knowing what was around the next bend in the road.

Mother nature didn't disappoint.  Every day I saw something that I wouldn't have seen had I just stayed home and let Dear Hubby go alone.

I thought this was kinda funny ~ It's a real estate sign ... pointing down the holes of a badger den.

Each day we walked past this rock too ... that I  would LOVE to have in my flower garden ...

I just love the looks of it. I even posted about this same rock last year...lol.   It has such character .. grooves carved out of it from flooded waters over the centuries.  Too bad it's too big and too far down the creek to negotiate into the back of the pick up truck ... or I'd be snagging that little bugger :)

I did find this little chunk of granite to bring home and tuck into my flower bed somewhere:

Around another bend in the road ...

We ran into one of the guys that works for the county road crew.  He was out pulling the grates that are on the ends of the culverts to keep the beaver out.  He and Dear Hubby were chatting about the beaver ~ and where the grates were going to get pulled.  I sat in the truck to sip on some hot coffee and to warm up.  It was only in the 40's and the wind was pretty nippy.  Guy talk ...

Remember this flooded over beaver pond from my prior post ~

Here it is today after the road crew cleaned off the culvert grate ~ now it's back to it's original creek channel:

That's why they like the trappers to help them out with controlling the beaver.  The beaver can flood over an area and road ways in a matter of days.  It's a huge expense to the county (and us tax payers) to have to keep repairing these roads.  The roads they maintain are mostly the black top roads; but the majority of the beaver are on the roads to the north ~ up in the sticks ~ where the water channels originally flow from ... flow down to those areas.   "Up in the sticks"  that's where Dear Hubby goes to trap to eliminate the damage that happens downstream.
He eradicated about 50 of those troublesome beaver this spring trapping season. Not a glamorous job ~ but one that is needs to be done.

Beaver trapping is a hard, strenuous work out ... crawling through the brush ... up and down the creek beds.  They don't come as easy as Dear Hubby makes it look.  He's good at it.

Me ... I'm just the tag along with the camera ~ keeping him company ~ catching snapshots of whatever we see along the way.

another otter:

some mallards:

flying ducks and geese:

 

ruffed grouse ... talk about good camo coverage ~

and this trip out ... even a little porcupine ~

I hope you enjoyed the back roads adventure and our little detour of spring beaver trapping.

Until next time ...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel