The Wilds!

Up here in the wilds of million dollar cottage country, we get a lot of wildlife, but somehow, we are still surprised when we see it. Like the moose tracks we have been seeing on the laneway. We live next to a swamp here. I have seen moose in the swamps on the side of the road about a kilometer away. But somehow, we are surprised that it was walking down our laneway. I guess we are just across the river from the village, so we assume that we are in the middle of civilization.

We still get some pretty cool stuff though! We just saw a pair of foxes running along the beach and down the rocks after dinner. We have deer running all over the place (i actually pet one when i was younger) Last year I saw a river otter down at the rocks, the year before there were a family of mink (baby minks are so cute when they are learning to swim!), and one year my mom and I saw a squirrel swimming across the bay.

That is right. What, you didn't know squirrels swam? we didn't either.

We were out in the paddle boat at dusk, and saw a little head plodding around the front of the point from the river, straight towards us. mom made us stop because she thought it was a beaver and she had never seen one. But as it got closer, we saw it had a fluffy tail that it was keeping out of the water. We followed it until it climbed up the bank on the far side of the bay and sat down on an old stump. It kept right on a straight course, despite the fact that we came within a few feet of it. I still wonder what was after it that made it swim so far. It would have taken us at least 15 minutes to paddle the distance that that little squirrel covered with his determined little doggy paddle.

See, told ya we have some weird wildlife! And I haven't even started on the people!