Last night in Sonoma a group of wide-eyed and rained upon listeners were introduced to the tale of the Martinez beavers. It was an excellent setting and reception and Tom Rusert, who organizes the talks was charismatic and gracious. The crowd was a eco-savvy group, who understood exactly what it meant to get a city to do the right thing, or try to stop a city from doing the wrong thing! They laughed in the right places, gasped at the same things and thanked us profusely after it was over. We heard at least four rumors of beaver colony locations in the area and beyond, and Cheryl is ready for her fieldtrip to find beaver neighbors. Several pairs of inspired folk came up at the end, ready to advocate for beavers in the creek behind their house if any showed up, and challenged to think in new ways. Sonoma, as always, was a fairytale of a destination with cobbled alleys off free-parking streets and an excellent dinner for the crew at Taste of Himilaya before dashing off to the talk.
The title of this post comes from the fact that I am very pleased that I have two weeks and four days before my next talk in Yosemite. It was three weeks ago that I was presenting in Oregon and slightly less time before the State Parks Conference. It’s the four days I’m looking forward too, since it will take two weeks to figure out how to squish a talk I stretched from 40 t0 75 minutes, back into 35 minutes again while still saying what I want the park rangers to know. The four days are mine to squander and I plan on staring blankly at things for a good long while.
In the meantime, you should watch this PBS video of beaver reintroduction to improve arid habitat for fish runs. It features Michael Pollock who has confirmed he will be joining us in Yosemite. It’s a great look at the way beavers affect fish populations and I’ll try figure out how to keep it in the margins of this site for good.
