FEATURED POST

Remember when you went back to school after summer, you always had to write an essay for the teacher about what you did on your vacation. This is such an essay, about our recent trip to Algonquin. It started as a tongue in cheek email to my cousins regarding some improvements Nancy made in controlling her impulse disorder. I have added some background, because the first part of the story needs some setting up.

It happened years ago, on Nancy’s first visit to my ancestral home, New Denmark, NB. We were returning from a late night social, driving down a dark and lonely country road when a beaver suddenly appeared in our headlights, bounding right down the middle of the road. It did not mind being illuminated and was not inclined to cede the right of way so Nancy, thinking of it’s safety, made me stop, leaped out of the car and herded that beaver right down the road and back into the creek.

My headlights revealed quite a sight that evening. The beaver, pounding down the road as fast as his little webbed feet could hop, while Nancy herded along few steps behind, moving him along to the sound of thump…slap…thump….slap…thump…..slap. With every vault, that beaver slapped his tail down onto the tarmac, the sound echoing over the quiet New Brunswick countryside, giving fair warning to all other beavers to stay off the road.

The next morning over breakfast, cousins Kent and Ronald found out about the herded beaver incident and I am afraid, were rather indiscreet. Within a day or so, Nancy’s reputation throughout New Denmark became that of a Beaver Herder extraordinaire. She became THE person to talk to if one had a wayward beaver that needed herding somewhere. She obviously was not comfortable with this bestowed notoriety however, turning down all of those herding jobs offered during the remainder of our vacation.

Now for ‘the rest of the story’,  from a message sent earlier to cousin Kent, discussing Nancy’s therapeutic successes in her never ending battle against the urge to herd.

Kent,

How the heck are you? I thought I would write to tell you about our recent trip to Algonquin.

You will be glad to know that Nancy’s rehab on resisting her instinct to herd beaver has proven quite successful. On our drive in, we saw a beaver eating weeds at the side of the road. Being considerate, I pulled up right beside it, getting close so Nancy wasn’t winded by running to start the stampede. Although her hand did quiver on the door handle, much to my surprise, she resisted the urge to jump out of the car hollering, ‘Giddy-up Bucky’. She was very pleased with her self-restraint and I certainly had to admit that the therapy worked quite well. Later on however, we discovered a therapeutic gap that led me to wonder if the Program may consider expanding a bit to include the herding of all God’s roadside creatures, rather than just beaver.

This became apparent when we spotted the turtle.

That carapacian was visible from a hundred meters, basking, soaking up the warmth of the dirt road, enjoying the day. We pulled along side and Nancy asked to stop. I thought she wanted to have a peek at it  from the car window.  When I look back on the incident, I am sure she didn’t give any outward signs of what was to happen next. She looked out her window, muttered something about logging trucks barreling through here, and was out that door before you could say, “mmmm, I Love Turtles”.

When her feet hit the ground, her arms automatically bloomed out like the wings of a trumpeting swan, her hands gracefully waving through the air. Emitting a sound similar to leaking air brakes, she shushed at the turtle, turning it back in a mad-long, turtle sprint towards the swamp. At one point he slowed and resisted, (I suspect he was reluctant to go back to whence he came) but with a few stomps, active hand swoops and lots of determined shushing, Nancy deftly herded him from the warm terra firma and back into the brackish water of the cold swamp. She returned to the car, red faced and sore cheeked, but there was a smile on her face. I fear now that she has found a substitute for beavers that are more abundant, closer to home and will soon develop into a Hard Core Turtle Herder. Only time will tell.

Then there was Dumbo, the mouse that inhabited the cabin we occupied. Dumbo obviously has been making a good living this spring from vacationing cabin dwellers.  He must have weighed about a half a pound and his poor little legs could barely touch the floor for having to splay out around his prodigious belly. He would scurry along, raise his legs and slide along on his belly to catch his breath before lowering his legs to thump off again. Nancy thought he was cute, but then again she likes cute, chunky things, stretched around the middle.

We stored our garbage at night by wrapping the plastic bag inside a waterproof bag. The first night, when Dumbo found it, he made breaking into it his obsession. The next night was the same, however when we shot a beam onto the bag, it would move but we couldn’t catch Dumbo in the light. When Nancy approached the bag, it would immediately stop moving with no sign of a rat sized deer mouse thundering his retreat along the log wall of the cabin.

Nancy moved the garbage bag from the wall, hanging it from the rafters on a long wire hook, and went back to bed. Soon, the bag resumed rattling, awakening us again. Enough was enough, and Nancy got up and opened the seal on the outer bag in preparations to relocate it inside our food barrel. Unknown to Nancy, Dumbo had been eating supper when she closed the snack bar, sealing him inside in the garbage bag. He had been in there for a while and he really needed to get out. When she opened the bag, Dumbo took his chance. He ran out of the bag, up her arm and leapt off her shoulder to land with a resounding thump on the cabin floor before pounding off in a mad, waddled dash to safety. His retreat seemed instinctual however and did not require any herding.

So there it is, the full unvarnished truth from an impartial eye-witness to the events.