Sneelock and Beaver Odd Jobs

So we got an anxious phone call in the wee hours last night saying that a downtown observer had seen a dead animal in the annex area of the beaver pond and was worried that it might be one of our beavers. Jon was a good soul and stopped by after night shift this morning to check, discovering a rather bloated cat who had drowned several days ago. It started raining hard and he dashed home for his short sleep before coming back tonight to pick up the dead cat.

Mind you today Cheryl got a wildlife call to help manage beavers at a winery in Sonoma and I’m off to the conference Tuesday. Lory is planning her exciting (and unwilling) blogging debut for Thursday. And Jon would like very much to know why HE gets to be the one to pick up dead, wet cats.

It made me think of Ole Sneelock…

A beaver swam by when he was removing the feline. I assume the kit wanted to thank him. Which we all should do. THANKS JON!

(Make that four hours).

Back in December Worth A Dam hosted a fieldtrip for 60 Las Juntas third graders. Jon and Lory took them on a tour of the dam. I gave a lecture on beavers. And Fro taught them the beaver chant and helped them draw chalk beavers on the sidewalk. They were bright, enthusiastic, and very excited about beavers. We all felt very happy that day.

Then we all went home and took naps.

Yesterday I received this delightful collection of thank yous. Look closely at the dark beaver bodies because some smart teacher came up with the idea of using finger prints! There were 30 of these.

And thirty of these…

Here’s a sample:

I’ve been called a lot of names since I started fussing about our beavers. “Martinez Beaver Protector” is by FAR the nicest. Look closely at the tail in the drawing by Gianna. It’s mom.