Living at the lake and trying to write every day has the combined unintended consequence of making quite a few things seem preposterous.

I mean, really. My existence here is a bit strange in relation to the things we all typically accept as being important. Yesterday I watched a beaver take ten minutes to drag a branch through a culvert under the highway to its lodge in the ditch. It was so absorbed in what it was doing that it did not notice me or maybe just chose to ignore me. I stood close enough to hear it panting. Yes, beavers pant. Why wouldn’t they? In fact, I am almost sure I heard it say, “Holy shit!” when it was finally finished tugging that branch through the tunnel.

So, yes, that experience put things in perspective and suddenly the most recent Trumpism, where he hits a woman with a rolled-up newspaper and yells, “See! It just makes a loud noise but doesn’t REALLY hurt them…”  well, it doesn’t seem any less bizarre but it does increase my relative admiration for beavers.

Anyway, I am determined to have a  good week. Yesterday I transplanted some White Spruce ( Picea Glauca, Manitoba’s Provincial tree) from the neighbour’s yard into ours. At the neighbour’s request — I ain’t no tree pirate. Today I will pretend to be a finishing carpenter and do some baseboards and casing.

On Thursday, a story of mine runs in Literally Stories, a UK-based online short story site. It is my third story on this site so far and I am excited to see the response. I chewed 500 words out of it and made some other major changes and I am quite heavily invested in it! Like my buddy the beaver, I am convinced it is all worth the struggle.

On Friday, I may go and rig up a little pulley system in that blasted culvert.

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Please see my stories on Literally Stories, 

The Fifty Dollar Sewing Machine

and

Breezy and the Six-Pack Sneaker

and look out for Frozen Tag on Thursday, on the @LiterallyStories website. 

 

Copyright Mitchell Toews ©2016