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Just ask Terry
There’s a lot of wildlife where I live in the County. Green Point has apparently been known for water snakes over the years. When we first moved here almost 40 years ago there were large black ones with the circumference of a small child’s wrist. They’d sun themselves on the flat rocks at the shoreline and slither quickly away when anyone approached.
This year there seems to be an abundance of water snakes but they’re much smaller and I haven’t seen any out of the water. I mentioned this to my friend Terry Sprague and he suggested they had a good mating year. He said they can’t see well and so they might inadvertently get close to swimmers but will about face quickly once they figure out a person is nearby.
Last year when my grandson, Gauge, (then 4) was fishing off the dock he kept catching these ugly creatures called Goby. I also mentioned this to Terry and he said they are an invasive species. They’re also really weird to the touch when taking them off the hook. To my surprise, this year when Gauge started fishing off the dock there were no Goby to be found. Instead, he caught countless perch and many rock bass. This is much more to my liking and part of my experience, so I wasn’t creeped out taking them off the hook. With a grandchild, Gramma has to feign calm even when creeped out!
There have been turkeys in the back yard, deer on the lane, and a good number of rabbits. Rick thinks it’s the rabbits that ate our lovely shrubs along the back of the house causing large brown spots. I think it was more likely the amount of snow last winter. Rick plowed the lane 28 times. Surely a record.
Our neighbour on the Point came down to cut his grass to get ready to move in for the summer. “Have you seen the beaver?” he asked. He was thinking of removing the caging around his trees to make the view more pleasing this summer. We replied that the beaver is a regular visitor to our shoreline and this year it’s huge. Leave the caging up, we said! I love watching the beaver right up until he (or she) chews on my trees. We have 3 large deciduous trees along our shore with a girth of about 5 feet at the bottom. Over the years the beaver has set about to chew them down. Rick has put tar on the wounds and then covered the bottoms of the tree with tin.
I have a crabapple tree in the yard on the water side. Several years ago I looked out and wondered what the branch was in the water beside the dock. It was my crabapple tree. That’s when I started looking at the beavers differently. We replaced the crabapple tree and now it’s too big and blocks my view of the dock. I can’t seem to get Rick to use the chain saw on it. I don’t know how to entice the beaver to chew it down. Maybe if I leave a note or a sign. Beavers are smart, but can they read? I’ll ask Terry next time I see him.
Debbie MacDonald Moynes is Executive Director of The Prince Edward County Community Care for Seniors Association.
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