August 22, 2008

Hinterland Who's Who: The Beaver. The Moose. The Swift Fox. The Burrowing Owl. The Muskox.

The Cougar. The Canadian Sloth. The Black Bear. The Fat Housecat. The Lumberjack. The Bench. The IT Professional. The Printer Snake. The Leafs Fan. The Habs Fan.

  • stop you beast!! you are making fun of my natural species felix concolor--now where'dI'd put the pool boy?
  • When I was seven, these docs were the set up to a punchline that came 14 years later when I saw Mondo Cane for the first time. Either that movie was hilarious or those films were dryer than a nun's arid desert. Both?
  • Pfft. Yeah, great post, cappy. How many times!!?? I CAN'T SEE YOUTUBE IN WORK!!! *sulks*
  • I was up in the Adirondack Mountains in New York last month and I was paddling up a stream that led into the lake I was staying on. I encountered several beaver dams. One of the dams I encountered was unbelievable. It held the water up about two feet higher. The dam was full of sticks and mud. There were actually longer, larger sticks that were used as braces to hold the dam up against the pressure from the water. How is that even possible? How can they know to use braces like that? I am quite sure I would not be able to build a damn that is anywhere near as effective. It was one of the more amazing things I have ever seen in nature.
  • How many times!!?? I CAN'T SEE YOUTUBE IN WORK!!! WORK?!?! What kind of artist has a day job?
  • A tame and bland one?
  • An overfed one? The fat housecat, the IT professional, the Canadian sloth! I LOLed!
  • One late fall night, under a full moon, as I sat on the bank of the Cooper River in New Jersey I saw several beavers cavorting. They did figure eights on the water surface, time and again, then slapped their tails and dove under. As I finally made my way back to the road they followed parallel to my direction of travel upstream. At the last, they all turned around, slapped the water and dove, as if to say goodbye, I thought. Another night, in the Pine Barrens, I was swimming at Goshen Pond when a resident beaver glided nearby, making me feel insecure and awestruck.
  • Well, that may be because it was not an ordinary beaver. You may have sighted the Jumbo Jurassic beaver which can only be spotted from a canoe with a telescope because of the small size.
  • Believe it, or not.
  • Don't forget about spiders.