September 2, 2024|
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We’ve gotten used to seeing all manner of critters here. North Carolina, it seems, is a menagerie of freely roaming animals, from venomous snakes to cute baby possums, to foxes, deer, and even bears. And for some reason, the various species all seem to enjoy a stroll on the ridge.

The size of some of our visitors has definitely surprised us.  Did you know that a fox can be nearly two feet tall at the shoulder and nearly three feet long? Had it not been for the beautiful, burnished ginger coat on the one that sauntered through my yard, I might have mistaken it for a coyote. It was huge!

The other surprise is that we sometimes don’t even know what the animal is.  At one point, we thought we had a very, very large groundhog on the edge of the woods. This thing was about three feet long! Watching from the safety of our elevated porch, I was sure he/she would feel my eyes boring into its glossy fur, but it paid me no mind. Finally, as it waddled away, I caught sight of its tail.

 Google handily verified it to be a beaver. I think my poor old brain has enjoyed too many memes, because  I had confused beavers with those cute otters you see holding their babies. Beavers, at least the one I saw, was close to three feet long, with the tail adding another foot or so. I’m positive that it weighed about 75 pounds. So much for cute!

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