Four muskrats live in the pond behind our house. For years we've seen one occasionally come out of the cattails and explore the pond. We assumed the animals had a lodge back in the cattails somewhere.

This year the water level has dropped dramatically since it stopped raining. There is no water where most of the cattails grow. So, it appeared first that one muskrat simply was spending a lot of time in our pond, small as it has become. Then we saw two. Then three. One day we had four of them in sight at the same time.

Muskrats are a joy to watch. They mostly eat, almost exclusively duckweed when we are watching. Duckweed covers our pond edge to edge, much to our dismay. It's good to finally see some of it disappearing. The muskrats sit on their haunches, using their paws to sweep duckweed onto their plate, so to speak. They'll do this endlessly. I've wondered if this is because they are fattening up for winter (probably) or because duckweed is a diet food.

We wondered where the muskrats lived. No lodge was visible. Eventually, we watched them swim to the far edge of the water, and disappear just where a large old stump sits at water's edge. They were/are living in a burrow there. There is a second burrow or a second entrance to the stump burrow. Muskrats will dig multiple entrances/exits.

The animals are possessive of the pond. Twice, Wood Ducks, common here in the spring, and nesters, have flown in for some quiet time. The muskrats aggressively chased the ducks until the birds gave in and left.

Some years ago we placed a goose-nesting platform on the pond. It's four feet square. We covered it with pulled weeds and grass. Geese used it once, laying eggs they abandoned after seven days of incubation. For the past two years plants have taken root on the platform, and a tree began growing. We had an island.

Now we have a muskrat lodge on the island. It appeared about a week ago. I've placed a viewing chair in a patch of weedy woods in a corner of our lot, a comfortable vantage point for muskrat watching. I enjoy those animals. They rarely are in a hurry. You easily can catch the slow rhythm of their lives if you just let it happen.

I've placed a second chair (lawn, plastic) in weeds giving me a better view of the lodge. The work schedule was been light. There seemed to be lots of time devoted to what I assumed were naps in the burrow. They are nocturnal, however, and could be busy as beavers after dark.

The muskrats have left the water only twice in my hours of watching, but only by three or four feet. This created a building-material shortage, cattails and other water plants being yards away. The builder or builders (they have no individual distinguishing marks or features) went to the bottom of the pond for waterlogged sticks and branches, and bunches of muddy leaves. The lodge seems to be complete now, about a half a cubic yard of pond-bottom rubbish in a nice tight heap.

I went into the swamp yesterday to cut some green cattails, tossing them into the pond-water edge. One of them soon was dragged away by a muskrat. It headed straight for a burrow entrance, pulling the cattail with him. Jude watched first the muskrat and then the trailing six-foot long cutting quickly disappear into the pond bank, like magic. One other section of cattail was dragged this morning to the lodge. I can't tell what the muskrats did with it. I'm cutting more for them. We want them to be happy.

I hope to watch them through freeze-up, through the winter, and into spring. We'd be excited if they continued to use the lodge next spring and summer. They're very interesting neighbors. The photos show a pudgy muskrat eating, a muskrat placing a stick atop the lodge, and a muskrat tugging at one of my contributed cattails.