Sculling Snappers, Swearing Beavers.

  Hull down.

  I'd like to get my hands on the guy who ruins my dam, just once!

  Hauling out.

  Big turtle #2 passing.

  Seal it.

  The sweat of his brow, the spit of his mouth, the enamel of his teeth.  

  Does this angle make my butt look big?

  You think YOU are discouraged.  Consider these Beavers.  Every night they dam up the water.  Every day I tear it down...and for WHAT?  

  Construction, (especially after hours night construction) takes time-and-a-half and a sturdy work ethic.  You think these Beavers are getting a check?  Nope.  It's all sweat equity.  

  Every construction crew I worked with used coarse language, if not from time to time then as a basic lingua constructiva.  You think these overtime dam builders are swearing about some simian who is cutting the dam every night and dumping the habitat downstream?  For Art?

  Book it.  These are some swearing Beavers.

  This ain't just putting on a hardhat and turning on the mill neither.  This dam has to be gnawed out of sticks in the dang forest.

  So, a little dam deconstruction today.  Easier to destroy than build, for sure.  Afterwards I drifted along the streams looking for Southern Snappers and (just like arrowheads: look and you find): there one was.  

  Sculling back and forth.  I got my Nikon.  It wasn't the turtle from the day before- no hole in the shell.  About the time I was getting bored a second snapper hauled himself over the sandbar.  The count is three Southern Snappers along one little stretch of creek.  Very nice.  I blinked and the turtle hauling out changed his mind.  He watched my tree for longer than I cared to stand it.  Sapiens isn't going to match patience with a reptile, ever.  I can outlast a squirrel or a deer but even a frog can outwait any hotblooded mammal.  I left.  But three turtles!  Who knows, there could be 30!  No sliders, no softshell and no snakes yet...but three nice southerns in 200 yards of pooled stream.  Oh my.