FROM UP NORTH, AND THEN OVER EAST A GOOD WAYS: A bad-ass beaver. It’s Saturday and this is all we’ve got for you. From the eye of Shan Thompson over in Denver. He was in Canada, spotted this, took the shot, and, believe this, cut his trip short just to get home to send this in to us. Wow. That’s really big of you, Shan. You didn’t have to. We ow you one.

He was up in Tobermory. I know Tobermory. Went there as a kid a couple times. Way up on the weird peninsula in eastern Ontario, overlooking Lake Huron. And, I remember the water was so cold, that all us guys would look at each other with sheepish, sympathetic grins, and a specific hand signal. Said hand signal was the universal sign for “a teeny, tiny little thing.” Thumb and index finger barely touching, you know?

And what this sign meant, from suffering dude to suffering dude was this: The water’s so cold, yer dick will hide up inside yerself. Like a turtle head. Or, just become real small and hypothermic.

This is a true story. That’s what I think about when I think about Tobermory. That cold fuckin’ Lake Huron water. Brrrr. I was 10 years old. Building blocks for this life.

Oh, and, one time, hiking around Manitoulin Island we came up on a ruckus on the trail, paused to see what the hell the commotion was, and saw some teenager feeding a toad to a snake. Weird. But that’s another story for another time. I don’t know dick about reptiles.