Beavers and Black Swans

Sunday afternoon, and I'm lying on my porch swing reading and watching the birds dive bomb over the river, when the cat's tail starts to wag slowly in her "hunter-killer" mode. I glance toward the river and see a black swan, with a neck like a snake, swim by the small island, next to the new beaver dam. I've never seen a black swan out of captivity, and I spend the rest of the afternoon watching it glide back and forth and dip its head in the river. Once it came up to swim next to my canoe--what a treat.

Next, after dark, Patch is barking frantically enough to pull me away from another book. The idiot has something pinned down in the garage. I draw back to consider, since last time it turned out to be a small skunk, who sprayed. But I finally reach my hand around the door and hit the door opener. Does Patch chase the "thing" OUTSIDE? Nope--that's too easy for him. Instead, I hear them running directly back toward me as I dash for the door, just in time to see . . . what? A raccoon? It ran like a beaver, but it was too big. My first thought was "It's a porcupine," but Patch would have quills sticking out of his nose by now. Whatever it is scrambles over the cat, who jumps to my shoulder (with claws,of course, open); I scream, and Patch barks this brown lump, three times his size, clear to China and back. What a grand day. I think it was a grizzly bear or a lion, maybe a tiger.