While we were raking leaves today on the beach, we found evidence that we've had some neighbors during the winter. Muskrats had built homes along the shore. Never seen a muskrat? Here's a couple of pictures:
They won't win any beauty contests! They are messy little critters, too.
Here's a shot of a muskrat house built on our beach. They use leaves, weeds, sticks and mud to make their homes.
If you look closely at the water, you'll see trails in the sandy lake bottom from the muskrat swimming out to find some dinner.
Muskrats are semi-aquatic rodents. We've seen them out on the ice in early spring. They dive down in the water and pull up a bunch of weeds.
Here's more muskrat digs on our neighbors' beach:
You can see water paths from this muskrat house, too.
We have seen muskrats swimming in the lake, sometimes in pairs. Once the summer recreational season begins, however, we rarely see them. Now, if we could just scare away the pesky moles, we could walk safely in our yard!
I don't mind sharing the earth with God's creatures, but stepping in sink holes from moles is dangerous.
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Comments: 47
Don't fall in any holes! My friend in S.F. stepped in a gopher hole and broke his leg in three places!
Last year I got a photo of a baby muskrat it was cute
Ask, and it shall be given you
Seek, and ye shall find
Knock, and it shall
Be opened to you Mat,(7; 7).
They are cute.
;)
10 4 u
I was watching a food show once. There are places up north that actually trap and eat these things. Not much meat on them I wouldn't think.
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Great Essay!!!
The only way we got rid of our moles was when we took out the grass and put a brick BBQ area around a pond...
We had one come up out of the ground when it got the the concrete patio and it walked strait to our screened french doors in our bedroom and scratched ... it was too funny to watch my husband chasing it around the hot tub with the hose. The poor mole ran right into the neighbors yard and we never saw any again!
Dogs and coyotes keep them under control around here. Aren't those a factor in your area?
Moles, they have those mole away spikes that drive the critters away without killing them. If that doesn't work a dog will root them out pretty quick but you'll have holes to fill in.