Muskrat Bob Sledding
For most of the summer, we watched a muskrat going back and forth across the pond, usually with cattails in it's mouth. At first we had no idea what it was and Bev reminded me on more than one occasion, as I was about to go swimming, that in addition to the snapping turtle that belonged in Jurassic Park, there was an unknown something or other crisscrossing the pond.
A conversation with the former owner solved the riddle. He reported that he often had muskrats, and they did a great job of controlling the cattails, and indeed, he has. There are far fewer around the pond in previous years, and for this I am grateful.
The other day, our next door neighbor, who I know very little after 4 years, I must confess, appeared to be working on his lawn tractor with the snowblower mounted to the front. We'd received quite a bit of snow, so I walked over with a shovel in hand to help. When I arrived, he reported there was a muskrat up in the snowblower...and I was mightily reassured to learn that it had not been run over, but ran up underneath when it got startled crossing the driveway.
With a fishing pole and a couple shovel handles we convinced the muskrat to vacate the undercarriage of the John Deere and off he went, sliding along on his belly like a bobsledder . I was gld to learn that my neighbor would take the time to coax a startled muskrat out from under his tractor!
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