Rural Living During Spring

When you live 5 miles from the highway, deep in the country, anything can be seen traveling down the road.  On my way to run some errands I spotted what seemed to be a brown fuzzy ball of fur venturing down the  road close to the shoulder.

I was lucky enough to run into a nearby neighbor, now retired from the DNR,  and asked him what it could have been.  I had seen a muskrat!  Well, I KNOW what a muskrat looks like but had never seen one so far from where they normally live, never walking down the shoulder of the road and certainly never one so small.   According to him,  the reason is that with the unusual high tides we have experienced lately the muskrat are making their tunnels in nearby ditches.

Well, that makes sense, I guess,  but the tiny, furry thing seemed to be to far away from his natural habitat  for my preference.  So, on the return trip back home I slowed in the area I had seen the muskrat.  Sure enough,  there that furry thisg was nibbling on fresh green grass  completely uninterested that I was there aiming a camera  towards it.

Meet Marietta Muskrat!

I drew my own conclusion on this matter because I'm still not comforable with this littlle thing venturing so far from the water  even though  it  knows very well what it's doing.

Even muskrat like to dine away from home.