Home for the summer is the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. I’m living in Paradise, which is a small cabin built in 1935 and not much-renovated since then. It is a beautiful place to be, but sometimes it can be difficult to sleep.
The reason: porcupines. Last night this one found its way into the shed in back of my cabin, and began gnawing on the timbers. Porcupines enjoy eating wood, and unfortunately especially enjoy dining at night. The sound of teeth on wood resonates through the cabin, making one dream of porcupine stew…
At around midnight I took my camera and headlamp out to see how things were getting on. Here is a short handheld video of the situation – low quality because of the low light. Cabin-eating or not, they are rather adorable…
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5 responses to “Trouble in Paradise”
Do you know the Bill Staines song about the animal chorus? There’s a line in it, “and the porcupine talks to himself.” I saw Staines in concert and he has a hysterically funny story about going camping and getting woken up by what he thought was a crazy old man, but it turned out to be a noisy porcupine.
I didn’t know it until this morning. Porcupines really do talk to themselves – very toothy!
There’s a reason I didn’t take the offer of Paradise last summer! There tends to be a resident porcupine in the shed and other furry creatures like to hang around, too… Hope you get some decent sleep!
This was the first night of gnawing, so fingers crossed for a quiet summer! You are missed here at RMBL this summer. I’m enjoying following your adventures too.
The porcupine looks so pleased with itself in the video!