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Notes from the Lake - Southwest

It stopped raining for a day and a half so it was nice to be able to get out and get some mowing done.  I had to quit though since I broke the mower.... again!  Just goes to show I am not good with machinery and I should be stitching instead.  This little guy sneaking a snack from Oreo's dog dish is a Striped Ground Squirrel, what we call a gopher here.  The stripes are unusual though - usually we have Richardson's Ground Squirrels, which are tan all over without the stripes.  This guy is really cute and looks quite like a chipmunk.  We have christened him Southwest since he reminds us of the patterns you see in the southwest style of decorating.
I had been wondering why Oreo had been ignoring his dog food and then running and eating Bear's as soon as he came inside.  I had put it down to being perverse but now I think I know what he is up to.  Oreo has, well, shall we say, a taste for gophers and now I think he is using his dog food as bait.  Southwest has been hanging around our campsite for a couple years now so hopefully he is too clever to fall for Oreo's trap.

I thought it might be interesting to see how the beavers take down the trees.  Basically, they just chew right through them with those big front teeth of theirs, shaving off a bit at a time.  Once they bring the tree down, they take the smaller branches to eat and build their dam.  This was a big tree they took down and, sadly, when it fell it broke one of the other trees off - one of the few that had wire around it to protect it from their teeth!  You just can't win sometimes!

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