The Beave (OMD2)

Day 29’s theme in the Oh Mon Dieu nail art challenge was national pride, which is a fitting one for me seeing as in the past week, I’ve crossed four provinces in this true north strong and free, eventually landing on Canada’s smallest provincial landmass, Prince Edward Island. PEI is gorgeous – green and verdant, with a whiff of saltwater in the air and beautiful, rolling fields of red earth stretching for as far as the eye can see (although not stretching that far, as PEI at its very widest point is only 140 miles across.)

But sadly for me and these nails, which draw inspiration from one of Canada’s more iconic, tree-biting critters, there are no beavers on the Island. Or if there are, I certainly haven’t seen them. But do you know what there are in droves? Foxes. Slim, rust-coloured foxes with bushy tails and prancing gaits that lounge around the backyard like dogs on a hot summer day. Except they move like cats and seem weirdly unperturbed by the presence of humans (of course, I just found out that one of the neighbours has been feeding them weiners, so no wonder they’re just this side of domesticated. I’d hang around any place that was throwing free processed meat at me, too!) It’s bad enough that while I was outside snapping this photo, taking advantage of the early morning natural light, I kept throwing glances over my shoulder to make sure Mr. Fox wasn’t sneaking up to take a bite out of my hide.

But I don’t know how to draw a fox, and so I went with this beave-tastic design instead (although one could argue that I also don’t know how to draw a beaver, particularly that one on my ring finger that looks like a dog with conjunctivitis.)