19 Comments

The Pope must have a lot of Muskrat Love!

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Apr 22Liked by Kent Peterson

On Team Christine on keeping rodents at a distance. And frankly, I think that muskrat’s feeling mutual not to mention vulnerable. At least until you declare your religious affiliation.

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Apr 22Liked by Kent Peterson

Was that muskrat named Susie, or Sam? Also, bonus question: what makes the muskrat guard his musk?

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I am trying very hard to keep that damn song out of my head!

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Apr 22Liked by Kent Peterson

You’re welcome.

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Are you focusing on any specific recorded version - America versus Captain and Tenille?

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They are both frighteningly catchy. So far counterprogramming with Rickie Lee Jones is working.

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Finally an actual muskrat. Sometimes, people see a wild rat near water and call it a muskrat. They used to trap them here in south NJ and have a yearly muskrat fry, but the market for their pelts is gone. I meant to go try some, but never did.

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Apr 22Liked by Kent Peterson

Lovely photos; thank you.

Not muskrat related, but typewriters instead - stumbled across this brief news clip today -

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PdYPZr1Flog

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Phew, it's not an elongated muskrat!

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Apr 23Liked by Kent Peterson

Great pics and what an interesting, yet hard to find addition to fish on Friday!! 🤣

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What would Melville’s description of a muskrat be? Whale was a “spouting fish with a horizontal tail.” So perhaps a muskrat is a fur-bearing, nest building fish with a vertically flattened tail. Not to be confused with a fur-bearing trout.

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This is so interesting! And here I thought Muskrat was just a song! 😀

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They’re also decent eating if done right. And the skin make great gloves, nice and thin but warm and waterproof.

‘Sides - they’re cute

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Apr 22Liked by Kent Peterson

Who knew I was going to start my day with muskrat trivia?! Thanks Kent.

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Beaver, capybara, and muskrat were all granted a sort of provisional fish status with several dispensations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because the local populations would not go through the whole of Lent eating only fish.

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I, too, am with Christine. Stay away. At first glance I thought it was a baby beaver.

Chipmunk is cute. Where’s Alvin?

I remember growing up in St. Louis they had fish fries with cole slaw and something that looked like Chef BoyArdee spaghetti. So are there muskrat fries and what sides would go with it? Too funny.

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