Fancy meeting you

I know that I've spoken about the wildlife in Woodbridge, the part of Detroit where I live. Hawks, rabbits, pheasants, opossums and others I'm sure all inhabit the area. Yesterday I had one particular animal introduce himself to me.

While standing by a work bench doing whatever, work I suppose, I caught a glimpse of something waddling under the gate which blocks our front door. The gate is there to keep someone from sneaking up on us and has to be opened from the inside. It only goes down to about ten inches of the floor. Anyway, I caught sight of the animal and turned to look, expecting it to be a cat as there are quite a few strays around here.

It was a beaver. I'd seen them before here in Woodbridge but I had never had one stop by to say hello. It shuffled in a few feet before noticing me. It stopped and looked me in the eye and, I swear, appeared to nod its head at me. "Hullo guv'nor," it seemed to say. Yes, with a Cockney accent too.

All right, maybe it wasn't quite like that. But it did look up at me, decide that perhaps he had stumbled where he should not have, and skittered back out under the gate. "Huh, a beaver," I thought, and went back to work.