Sorry, no photo, but the other day about 2 pm, I saw a solid chocolate brown weasel-looking critter running under the porch next door. My zoology expert tells me it is a mink.

Minks eat small rodents, snakes, sometimes birds. They can swim and catch fish. I wonder if the dead trout we found in the yard over there a couple months ago was caught by this mink.

Two weeks ago a guest told me she had seen an otter over in our yard, but now I'm thinking maybe it was the mink.

I don't mind having a mink here - better than a river otter that would eat a lot more fish. I'm counting on the mink to eat some of our mice and excess ground squirrels that live at that house. Come to think of it, I haven't seen the little baby ground squirrel in quite some time, but the people staying over there may have scared them off.

We've also got signs of beaver in the area. That's not a good thing because they can cut down a couple of trees a night. Once they get done with the ones along the river, they move up into the yard. We've got chicken wire around most of the trees to protect them, but they will find any gaps and trees that we missed.