…I had run into Publix, pre-quarantine, to pick up a few things and as I was looking over the available varieties of ice cream, one name hit me.  Otter Paws Ice Cream.  The name and the picture it conjured up in my mind, stopped me dead in my tracks, not the Moose’s Tracks, which was another such ice cream.  I guess I have gotten used to different Moose items, Moose popcorn, Moose Chocolate bars and of course the Moose Track Ice Cream.  But Otter  Paws?  Otters remind me of muskrats, although they are in the weasel family and actually dine on muskrats.  Anyway, seeing Otter Paws reminded me of many years ago when my sons were still young, 10ish, 12ish, they had a Lab mix dog who they loved dearly and who was growing up with them.  She did a lot of outdoor running and was never sick, however this one day she got deathly ill.  We of course were worried and couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but it didn’t seem in those days you ran to the Vet at the first sign of a dog’s sickness. It was awful and we were stymied as to what could have happened to make her that ill, especially that fast. Because she was outside a lot we thought she might have gotten into something.  She recovered slowly but surely, and within a few days she was fine.  About a week later, one of the boys comes running in from the garage all excited wanting to know who took his muskrat feet?  One of the older neighborhood boys must have been trapping muskrats (they did that all the time years ago) and donated the feet to my son, who was drying them in the garage. We all denied touching his ugly muskrat feet, and all of a sudden we said in unison..it was the muskrat feet.  She knew, and we knew, she was guilty.  Head down, not a muscle moving, and oh those woeful eyes.  She was sorry, and certainly learned a lesson, but I would venture to say if there were a few more muskrat feet around, she’d eat them too.  So Otter Paws Ice Cream was not very appealing to me.   I checked what was in it and it said Vanilla Ice Cream, Chocolate Covered Pecans (is that the paws?) and Denali Caramel.  I won’t ask what Denali caramel is, I am only familiar with Denali National Park in Alaska.  After I came back to reality I purchased an old time favorite, something that made sense to me…Butter Pecan…I’m sure there is butter in it, cream turns to butter doesn’t it???