Lunch at the Coop

Leaving the coop this morning with my two bags of groceries totaling nearly seventy dollars, I stop to watch a beaver. Yes, a real beaver, the kind with big yellow teeth and a flat tail like a ping pong paddle. This fellow was gnawing down a young tree as beavers are wont to do, only this particular young tree was part of the coop's landscaping efforts. It stood with others of its kind, skirted in wire mesh presumably to protect the tender trees from the ravages of what? Beavers?

This fellow took no notice of the small crowd gathered to watch his decimation of the young tree. He was too intent on gnawing through its slender trunk which he did with alacrity. When he stepped back for a breath we could already make out the perfect angles, the artistic precision of his bite. Back at it, it was but the work of a moment before he'd eaten through the trunk. Grabbing it in one smooth motion he prepared to haul it off, down the path made smooth by his paddle tail, back to his river home.

Alas, one of the branches was caught up in those of the remaining tree. The beaver gave his prize a couple of good yanks, but to no avail. Undaunted, he simply gnawed through the offending branch and carried it away, leaving the larger portion where it lay.

Looking at the other little landscape trees, I noticed that this beaver or others like him had made away with most of them. Pretty soon there would be no more small trees lining the walkway to the coop. What will the beaver do then?

I guess he'll have to buy his lunch inside the store and pay the long dollar like the rest of us.