Wildlife journal: swimming squirrels and other delights

Michael and I gave ourselves a holiday last Sunday and wet the canoe in the St. Croix River. Once on the water we took a detour to identify the creature sharing our paddle.  

Rocky the Swimming Squirrel, the only other paddler we saw all day!

We fished around to see who else was in the river with us. 

Small mouth bass and Northern Pike ripped up my Rappala

We next stalked through the Mushroom Woods:

It's turning blue!  Some type of bolete.  

We found about 20 pounds of Sulpher Shelf. Made about 5 quarts of dried mushrooms.  

Perfect mushroom weather

On our way home, whom should we see?

A narrow fellow, not in the grass

As the Bonus Photo of the Day: 

Soap, not cheese

Today Michael made soap with fowl fat. Yes, we really do try to use all of our birds, including fat (for soap), feet (for soup) and feathers (for fun).  That lovely yellow comes from grazed grass. Golden soap of the sun!