Today I saw a beaver.

My first beaver sighting actually. Well, live beaver sighting. I am Canadian after all so I see them on everything, everywhere. I've seen stuffed beavers, I've had a beaver puppet, I've seen Imax movies about them at Science World, they were absolutely everywhere in my high schools changing rooms**, they're on the "Welcome to Surrey" signs and they're on my money. Yet I have never seen one in real life. 20 some years and no beavers.

Until yesterday. for about 3 seconds, I saw real live beaver action. It was awesome. Me and the dog were just standing by the river, watching squirrels on the opposite bank. I was wishing I had my camera and I know the dog was wishing he had those squirrels. I heard a rustling and then a *splash* and looked just quickly enough to see the beavers head pop up from the water and then under again as it dived. a quick glimpse of the tail agreed with my over-excited exclamation of "A beaver!"

Still, ever skeptical of my own powers of freaking OBSERVATION (you'd think I could be pretty certain if I had seen a beaver, all things considered, eh?), I had to go home and Google it. And yes. Beavers DO exist in the Nicomekl. Some "reports" said they didn't but to hell with those people because me? I saw a fucking beaver. If not, we have some SERIOUS rat problems. I knew the Nicomekl was polluted but daaaamn dude. (seriously guys. stop trashing the goddamn river. If I see someone shoving carts/bikes/boxes/holy crap you'll never guess the kinds of shit that's in there, into the river I'm going to shove THEM in the river.)

They're obviously quite rare in my neck of the woods; I've lived practically on the banks of this river for more than ten years and never seen one. I'm not really surprised considering it runs right through quite a lot of residential area and sees a lot of human traffic, .

It's all those goddamn fornicating teenagers and drug abusing homeless people scaring the damn beavers. I wish I lived somewhere more rural where other dirt bag humans couldn't keep messing with my enjoyment of nature. Harrumph.

But yeah, that beaver made my damn day. my week even. the fucking SNOW and general coldness of today nearly counteracted it but the beaver prevailed. Hail, BEAVER!.

(memo to mother nature : WTF? May = 12 days away. May the month before June. June = SUMMER. so please to be explaining, WHERE THE FUCK SPRING WENT?!)




**I like to think I'm funny. don't burst my bubble.