Prickly Situation

I forgot to tell y'all about something cool I saw awhile back. It happened in September...

The boys and I were going back and forth from the old house to the new, moving stuff. On the way back to the old house, I saw a man walking onto the edge of the road about 2 miles ahead. What the hell is he doing?? It's a super busy road - 3 lanes on either side of the median, speed limit 50 MPH. People are slowing down and most are stopping in their lane, some are actually pulling over.

What's that in front of the man? A dog? Too low to the ground. A beaver? What.....


Have you ever seen a porcupine? A for real, in the wild (sort of), not a picture, not in a zoo porcupine?

I have!


The above picture is of the man who I originally saw. The poor little porcupine! He was obviously confused and didn't know what to do. I can only guess the man saw him in the street, trying to cross and pulled over to make sure the porcupine made it. He was clapping his hands behind him and trying to get him to go. I don't know where the little guy came from or where he was headed. Oddly, this went down right next to the Natural Science Museum! The museum is surrounded by fields of really tall, wild grasses. Maybe the porcupine wanted to try out the delicious cafes across the street?

If you look at the background, you'll see a man in a motorcycle helmet and he's got a tiny black backpack in his hand. He came into the road and used the backpack to gently push/encourage the porcupine in the direction it was originally heading (crossing the road). The hand-clapping man was doing his best but as you can see, he wasn't really dressed to play with porcupines.

I just happened to have our camera in the car and got a coupla decent shots before I was able to move again and be on our way.

Here's a closer shot...


Beautiful, isn't he?

So why did the porcupine cross the road, Ruth!