Fishy shadows...

I made it to 4:30 before making a pre-dawn walk to the outhouse. After a couple of days of pruning and hauling brush, my hips and knees ache. I cranked up the electric blanket and went back to sleep. The sun woke me; I ignored it and rolled over. At 8:30 the sun and sparkling lake were more than I could ignore... couldn't stay in bed any longer. I took a mug of Lemon Zinger out to the deck and read The Art Forger, while trying to ignore a couple of obnoxious crows.

When I walked down to say good morning to the lake, I used the old timber steps I cleared out yesterday. I dug down through these layers of moss and fir needles to expose the tough native topsoil, cutting new ledges where the old washed away over time.

This morning, a big school of baby rainbow trout greeted me... 35 or so fingerlings, two-to-three inches long. They were spread out along the shore just a couple of feet out, and their flitting back and forth made it tough to count them. But there was no mistaking their black stripe and iridescent silver-green flanks.