I am settling in Ottawa, the nations capital for a little while. I have a job in an art supplies store to keep my creative self awake and on my last day of unemployment, Eben, Craig and I spent a few hours getting lost in the woodlands and wetlands of Stony Swamp. A real swamp!

As we walked past the reeds, I asked the boys if they could hear it too? They stopped to listen then turned to me with looks of confusion. The soft strumming of a small banjo, I said and started to sing along. “Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side?” The scene was perfect.

Not long after that, Craig had a Snow White moment when he held out his finger and a small, tubby little bird perched on it before flitting back to his friends in the trees. Eben and I were stunned. I wonder if that little bird’s friends dared him to do that!

Boardwalks meandered through the real swampy part, and allowed us to stop and watch the geese and ducks swim lazily through the water. Then we saw him, swimming quite a bit faster and mostly submerged. A new animal to tick off the list made his way toward us. We thought at first we had finally found what we had headed into this swamp to see. Our first Beaver sighting! All the tell tale signs were there. Gnawed away felled trees and bigs dams in the water. But it wasn’t until I consulted a book on Wildlife in Ontario, that I discovered we had actually seen a muskrat! Oh well, still a new critter.

A trip back to Stoney Swamp is already on the cards, to spend more time on the waters edge, watching and waiting for the biggest rodent in North America. I might even try my hand at a watercolour painting.