This is turning out to be an amazing week for beavers. Not only does this excellent review talk about biodiversity and engineering, it stresses the way that beavers build and maintain communities.

We learned something about that first hand 18 years ago and remind ourselves of it every summer.

‘Hoppers,’ Disney-Pixar’s latest animated adventure, features beavers as animal superheroes

“When we learned all about beavers and that they create these ponds that can sustain biodiversity, you’re like, ‘My goodness! They’re amazing!'” Chong said, adding that beavers are basically engineers, finding what they do incredible.

There’s a lot going on in “Hoppers,” including a message and plenty of surprises.

Beavers create community. Who knew?

I heard from CEO Ian Landi  that the excellent backpacking clothing Trailkeepers co who donated popular shirts to the festival last year is willing to help us again; I’m proud to say they have MANY more excellent beaver designs in their line up.

Thanks Ian!

That’s who deserve murals by the talented artists of the illuminaries. I loved this story and it made me remember our own tribute mural created by Tim Hon who was living in Martinez at the time the beavers called it home.

Art group unveils mural honoring Alysa Liu in Oakland

The first mural in Oakland honoring two-time gold medal Olympian Alisa Liu is now complete.

The mural is located on the corner of Telegraph and 43^rd Street in Temescal.

The team from the mural group ILLUMINARIES is behind the work. The artists were inspired by the photo of Liu doing what’s called the “thizz” face with her gold medal, associated with the Bay Area’s Hyphy Movement and rapper Mac Dre.

The mural also has “Shoutout Oakland” on it for when Liu said those words after her gold medal winning program.

“The Warriors left, the A’s left, but it’s kind of like we have someone to look up to and somebody that our kids can aspire to be,” Steve Ha with ILLUMINARIES said. “And you know, follow your dreams and I think it’s just dope man.”

The ILLUMINARIES are an Asian-led art group. the group paid for this mural out of their own pocket.

Just like Martinez btw.