It's been raining since last Friday and while the rain has done wonders for greening things up around here it sure hasn't helped our moods. Zeke and I have been grumping around the house, competing to see who can sleep and complain at the same time (he always wins).

Yesterday, with soggy clouds blotting out the Sun we headed off for a walk in the woods...rain be damned.

Wasn't too long into the trek that we came across this fella. I spotted him first and the dog caught the scent shortly thereafter. Luckily Zeke's at an age where he listens to me, more or less, so I told him to sit while I got out the camera and stalked the wiley Porcupine.

More of a lumbering. He wasn't in a hurry: "Yeah, yeah, I'm escaping here. Hold your horses!" he seemed say, climbing the tree, inch by inch.

Not much light with the clouds and evergreen cover, so I played around with ISO to try and get a good image. That's the nice thing about a slow, contemplative subject, no worries about trying to freeze the action.

Having pestered the Porcupine enough we headed on our way, flushing a grouse a little bit further down the trail. We stuck mostly to the lumber/snowmobile trail, even though it was quite muddy. At one point we struck off in the direction of another trail which comes out closer to our house.

It's a strange trail because whenever we try to find it by bushwhacking it becomes completely invisible. We'll wander the woods for hours only to come out in an unexpected place half a mile away. The trail runs north and south, in a draw that slowly tends uphill. Last night we were west of it and zigged to the east and then zagged back west with no sign of it.

I believe the trail only exists when you are upon it.