Last evening I received these photos from Jody Rouleau.  She wrote that she and Brad spotted these two deer at about 7:30 last night, coming ashore at their place on Sandy Beach Road.  I was surprised when I did a little research to find out deer have been spotted as far as five miles off shore in the ocean, and not only are known to easily swim long distances, they are very fast swimmers - over 10 mph.  With such fragile looking legs and hooves, I would think they would be very inefficient in the water, but apparently not.  I guess these two just needed to get from the east shore to the west shore and swimming was easier for them than navigating the traffic along Route 15 and then the bog area at the head of the pond.  I know moose will often swim long distances, too, and an adult moose must be much heavier than an adult deer, and you'd think there wouldn't be much buoyancy about either of them.  I found out an adult moose weighs in the vicinity of 800-1000 lbs. and can swim about 8 mph for at least a couple hours.  Deer weigh much less - 200 lbs. for a good sized adult.  

These are great pictures, and thanks to Jody for capturing and sharing.

In addition to all the rain we've had last night and today - I measured .65 in. at 9 a.m. - we've also had lots of wind, and that took down a tree along with a power line on one of the camp roads off Clubhouse Circle just after noon today.  GMP was called.  As far as we know power was not disrupted - but live wires across the road were a real danger.  Please be aware that this can happen along any road and if you see trees down, be sure you look carefully for any utility lines that might be involved before you try to remove the tree or limb, and always be on the lookout for wires dangling or across roads or pathways.