The Adventure of the Baby Beaver

Living in the country, while not entirely new to me due to a stint at a rural college, is still a challenge from time to time.  I mean, come on – no sushi within a thirty minute drive?  Tragic!  But in all seriousness, adjusting to village life has been a work in progress for me.  I think I’m about as adjusted as a city-girl is ever going to be – I’m prepared to get a little mud on my shoes when putting out my red OPEN sign, I can successfully manage the mildly tipsy, blue collar patron fresh from the pub down the street, I purchase requested books whose politic I might not agree with in the slightest, and I can even shoo large, errant spiders back outside when necessary (I admit to still doing a bit of squealing along the way).

As accustomed as I may be for the day to day out here in the glorious and messy not-quite-wilderness, it’s the unexpected moments that still get me.  Say, for example, when I was walking my dogs around the Library premises early this afternoon.  Equipped with terrier-nimble, acute hunting instincts, one of my two little ladies has made it her mission in life to violently dispatch anything soft and cuddly that might chance upon her well-sniffed path.  It’s no surprise then, that she spotted the bundle of fur along the driveway before I did and made right for it.  Being on the leash, she didn’t get very far, but she did get my attention anyway.

After my initial assessment of “Ummm, who left their fur hat out here?”, it quickly came to my attention this was not an article of clothing, but rather a small, fat critter. A tiny face made an appearance, along with a pair of bright little front paws.  My first instinct was to get out of there, seeing as the creature was not running away, and in fact looked remarkably intent on me and my pups.  Rabies? Why else would this unidentified furball be just sitting there, looking fearsome, but not fleeing the scene?

The answer, it turned out, was that the little guy could not run away – somehow, he had managed to get himself entirely stuck in the chain-link fence between the library’s property and our neighbor’s yard.  His face and front feet were on our side, his tail and back legs on the other.

I really couldn’t tell what he was – his face was too skinny to be a woodchuck, but he had that kind of overall chubbiness.  His tail was flat up against the wood pile on our neighbors side, so I couldn’t get a good look at that either.  Settling on “unidentified large rodent-thing”, I dropped my dogs back at our apartment and set about opening the library whilst calling everyone I could think of who might be able to help get him unstuck.  Apparently, our municipality skimps on the animal-control front, opting to only hire on a dog catcher.  Advice from various sources ranged from “call the sheriff” to “call these numbers for pest control guys”.  I opted for the latter.  The pest control guy came and went, successfully freeing (for a fee) the little guy from the fence.  Apparently, he was a baby beaver and escaped from his predicament unscathed.  He’s off to be released, and I do hope he’s old enough to care for himself in case he finds himself in unfamiliar territory, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the pest control guy saved some gas and just dropped him back along the banks nearby – his natural habitat, no doubt.  In any event, he’s freed of the fence at least.

And thus began my day at the Library!  I guess I now have that box checked on the “what do you do when…” list!  We’ll see what Nature decides to serve me up next!