It was a chilly ATV ride this afternoon. We’ve had some pretty strong winds and I was paying close attention to the trees around me as I rode through the woods. The ground underneath us is mostly permafrost – frozen ground and ice just a couple of feet down. Trees adapt by spreading their root systems out instead of down, which means in strong, gusting winds, they can topple over rather unexpectedly.

The temperature was a lovely 24 degrees but the winds were gusting to 45 mph which meant the wind chill was 5 degrees F or -15 Celcius for my Canadian and NZ friends.

I checked out a couple of potential areas to find marten, found two beaver slides and started the ride back home. The ground is pretty frozen right now and the tussocks (an area of raised ground about the size of a basketball) made for a very bumpy, slow drive. Here is a photo of the river today:

And miracle of miracles, I somehow got a decent picture of Bella and a stellar picture of Sasha’s butt!