Furry lake neighbors

When ye olde sciatic nerve isn't acting up, I walk a route in our neighborhood that takes me by the lot where we'll be building our dream retirement home. With our lack of rain the last six weeks or so, water levels have dropped about eighteen inches. When that happens, the large drainage pipes that catch water on the golf course and route it down into the lake are exposed. As you can see below, these pipes become a nutria rat highway they use to travel from the lake up into the hood.

I took these super zoomed-in pics when I spied them a couple houses down from our new place. I usually don't notice them on my walks until they've already seen me. Which means I can't whip out my phone quick enough to snap a pic before they disappear into the pipes once again. Often it's a mother and her two juveniles. Other times it's a large male. When their fur dries completely, I've gotta admit they do look kinda cute. Then I get a load of their long, ratty tails with those springy back feet and develop a case of the heebie jeebies. 

I couldn't resist reaching back into the early 80s movie archives to pull up this collection of clips above from the movie "Caddyshack" that was released when I was in middle school. Every time I see our golf course nutria rats, I think of this movie. Back in the day we got a kick out of watching a young Bill Murray on our brand new VCR as he battled gophers on the golf course. It was almost as funny as the candy bar in the pool scene.