Stretching My Little Legs

Ruse grinned proudly when her dad confirmed her observations about the dams and the beavers, her tail wagging happily behind her. Sure, it probably wasn't too hard of a thing to figure out since piles of limbs and sticks in the middle of a river was pretty distinctive, but she still felt like she had learned something and correctly applied it without ever seeing it before either way. She looked back toward the dams curiously, trying to stretch her neck to get a better view. Suddenly though her dad solved the problem as he scooped her up, making her squeak with surprise as she was suddenly lifted into the air. She wriggled and got comfortable with her head perched right on top of his, her bright pink and blue gaze looking curiously out at the world around them to see what else she could see from up here.

Ruse followed his direction to look toward the far side of one of the dams and she gasped with excitement when she saw the beaver he was pointing out. They were even bigger and rounder than she had imagined! "Wow! Look at that!" she said with amazement, wriggling further up the back of his neck to get a better look as she pushed herself up with her small paws on top of his head. She grinned while she watched the beaver work, dragging a whole spindly tree over to where its dam was. "They can cut down whole trees?" she questioned. Somehow she imagined that they just collected branches like they did for firewood, but now she saw that they didn't just scavenge sticks for their creations—they actually cut down the trees!

After watching the beaver work for a little bit she looked down at her dad with a grin, asking, "Can we catch it?" She knew they ate beavers sometimes, but usually she didn't see them until after they had been broken down for them to eat. She had actually never seen a hunt happen for real so while they were out here maybe he'd let her do that too! She didn't know if she'd like hunting or not so she figured she might as well try it, right?

"Chimera & Rusalka"