Dam Beaver!

The movie King Kong was ok, the effects were really good. It dragged on in places though, and we both felt it could have been shorter than 3 hours. Andrew had read the comics when he was little and he said the plot stuck to the original story very well. Last night at pool Andrew won his match. He played last, and we ended up with 4 out of 5 points. We are certainly peaking now as a team, but it is too late since the season is now over. Unless we get the wildcard spot for the playoffs, Andrew and I are done with pool until the fall session.

Finally there is just enough water to canoe, so today after work we launched from the dock (we had to propel the canoe for the first couple of feet through muddy bottom using our oars as levers, and I made Andrew wear his hip waders just in case!) only to find that a beaver has created a dam right across our entrance to the main part of the lake. Last summer we saw this huge beaver under our power boat while we were getting ready to go out for a day of boating. I had no idea that beavers were so big. They have the body size of a labrador dog and their tail is at least the size of a 12 inch frying pan. We had also seen the tail of something slipping into the water while we were canoeing in the back areas around our dock. So now it appears the beaver is setting up shop right in our little area! I will have to do some research on beaver dams since we are not sure what side the beaver has its home on - one side of the dam is contoured mud with claw marks, and the other side is about 5 feet thick of branches. Here is the rather long video. After Andrew cleared us out a channel through the dam, we made it out to the lake and saw the Canada goose family with their 5 little babies swimming in a line. We will be observing the dam over the next few weeks to see if the beaver patches up the hole we made.

After canoeing I made a new dish for dinner - cabbage with red beans and rice. I didn't think I'd be liking this one too much, but it actually tasted great. The recipe said it is Italian comfort food. I can definitely see us eating this in the winter months, curled up on the couch under blankets watching a movie. I think what is making a huge difference taste-wise in all these new recipes is the vegetable base I am using to make stock. It is called Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base from Superior Touch. It is reduction of vegetables that you just measure out 1 teaspoon into 8 oz boiling water, and that's it.