here's life

I live near the corner of two four-lane roads. I wandered across the road this afternoon to get a section of plastic pipe I have been seeing by the side of the road for a couple weeks. On the way back I saw a muskrat making his/her way toward the ditch with a bundle of grass in queemy mouth. Quem hurried into the water and disappeared into the opposite bank. I stepped up onto the low concrete retaining wall that quem had skirted to reach the water and waited. A moment later the muskrat emerged from the burrow, crossing the muddy puddle, and came walking up queemy path toward me. Either muskrats are near-sighted, or this one was so used to cars speeding by a few feet from queemy "garden", that quem didn't notice me until I was three feet away. The muskrat stopped and looked at me for several seconds and then darted back to the water. I waited nearby for a while, but quem stayed in queemy burrow.

It was interesting to find a little bit of wildlife so close to the traffic and noise. Just stand in the sun and wait, unwinding from a day at work.
The water was a few feet wide, and about as deep and ~20' long, shaded by a small willow at one end. It rained recently, and the water level was near the maximum--the extra flowed under the road and away. An unmown hayfield sloped up on the far side.
I may visit the area again and maybe even remove some of the trash from the water and banks.