Wildlife in the Parlor

Several days ago when Grant was pulling milkers apart in Brent's milking parlor, he looked up to see a strange little animal tootling in through the open exit door. He thought at first it was an enormous rat, and called out to Brent, "What in the world is that thing?" Not in a hurry, the animal was making its way along the wall toward the entrance. (Obviously he did not have the milking traffic flow patterns down pat, coming in the "out" door like that--and out the "in" door.) He moseyed on out into the catch pen and disappeared.

"That's a muskrat!"

Grant had never seen one before. Although they live in Kansas, this far away from major waterways or lakes, they're a rare sight. I remember seeing a muskrat house only once--at Cheyenne Bottoms, the famous marshland about an hour and a half's drive northwest of here. That time I saw a small form swimming nearby.

How this particular creature ended up in the barnyard, and then in the milking parlor is anyone's guess.