Inferno beavers…

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, History November 25, 2011

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

This, in case you don’t recognize it, is the famous beginning of Dante’s Inferno, written in 1308, in which the poet is guided by Virgil into the underworld and devotes a couple thousand cantos to describe for the rest of us what kind of fate awaits our sins. The entire trilogy is called the Divine Comedy, not because its funny, but because it goes from despair to heaven, which is the old sense of the word where ‘tragedy’ begins in happiness and ends in ruin, and ‘comedy’ ends in triumph.

Though no theologian, I can announce with certitude that Dante was wrong about at least three things. Socrates, sodomites, and beavers. Given the topic of this website I’ll confine myself to the latter for the time being.

If your archaic Italian is a little rusty, allow me to translate. Dante is using a reference to the beaver sitting on his tail at the edge of the water as a way to describe how a monster is waiting at the edge of the void to carry them to the next level. ‘Lo bevero‘ is our friend, and he’s sitting there to ‘wage war’. Wage war? Who does a beaver wage war against? Not city council members or trappers or piles of willow leaves, according to Dante something very unsuspected. I’ll let the Scottish journal I was pointed to yesterday written for Lord Bute (who apparently had his own Scottish Beaver trial in 1878) describe it.

Isn’t that beautiful? This was the best Thanksgiving present ever and you might want to check it out yourself here. So thank you to Peter Smith (CEO of the WIldwood Trust in Scotland) who put me on to it and thank you to Lord Bute for inspiring this excellent excellent dressing down of Dante. A great bit of beaver lore and further proof that folks have been lying about beavers for 700 years!

Oh, and Happy Evacuation Day!

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Reconnaissant

heidi08 Beavers November 24, 2011

Reconnaissant is French for thankful, click on the player to hear how it sounds. Sometimes if things sound different we can think about them differently. I stopped down to thank the beavers this morning, but they were too busy with their holiday preparations to visit – athough their dams look amazing. Yesterday was an odd bundle of beaver fortune with an abrupt invitation to lunch from Michael Pollock (NOAA Fisheries) who was passing through Martinez on the way to a family gathering. He wanted to chat beavers and revisit the habitat which he has not seen since it was blown out in March. It happened to be his birthday! He was enormously impressed with the repairs, and as we chatted over tea at Lemongrass I told him about the story of our returned patriarch and the industrious little beaver who builds with reeds. He might not have believed me if he hadn’t seen the secondary dam for himself. Oh, he also wanted to see where the beaver mural wasn’t and said he had laughed harder at that story than at any other time all year.

When I got home there was an email from Fox news in Blaine MI asking for comment on the BIG BEAVER killing I wrote about yesterday. Did I think that was an usually large beaver? Were there any other solutions besides killing? Since I wasn’t local he didn’t want an interview but I tried to slip in lots of beaver information and encourage him to ask the right questions. Apparently there’s a nearby resident who’s very pro-beaver and they were going to feature them on the news that night. Sweet.

As if all that wasn’t thanks-inducing enough a package arrived which turned out to be the delivery of my advance copies of Jo Marshall’s “Rushing Waters”. Remember the youth fiction about the “Twigs” who enlist the help of goliath beavers to save the land from flooding caused by global warming? She had asked me to read it and provide a jacket review, which I was stunned to see was boldly included on the first page. The book is illustrated by an Disney artist D.W. Murray and is the latest of a series. She sent three copies, so I’ll bring one to the renewed Martinez Library for donation!

Is that all? It’s more than enough. I certainly have had plenty to be thankful for this year, from meeting folks at the Oregon conference in February to presenting with Michael and Rick in Yosemite in March to an excellent beaver festival in August and a unsolicited beaver ballad in September – not to mention the great Martinez Coverup which provided literally weeks of unfolding amusement. I’m grateful that Dad came back and that our three thrive on to carry mom’s legacy into the future, and that the community of Martinez continues to extend support and encouragement for the beavers.

Have a beautiful Turkey Day, and here’s some extra gratitude.

heidi08 Beavers November 23, 2011

Humongous

heidi08 Beavers, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental November 23, 2011

Humongous Blaine beaver removed from watershed ditch

Rice Creek Watershed District staffers recently received a big surprise when they learned a trapper had taken an unusually large beaver from a Blaine ditch.

An adult beaver in the wild can reach 60 pounds. This 75-pound version of Minnesota’s largest rodent was recently pulled from a section of Anoka-Ramsey Judicial Ditch 1, near a stormwater pond not far from the end of Dunkirk Court N.E. and a residential area in Blaine.

You know how sometimes you find something rare and special that no one has seen for 50 years and maybe no one will see again? Something that should be on the cover of National Geographic and explored by a team of scientists so we could understand how its rare specialness came to be? And its so gosh darn rare and special that you KILL it?

Yeah, me neither. Well, Blaine Minnesota sure does, because they’re celebrating that the trapper they hired to keep their ditches clear caught a big one. Actually, even though 75 lbs is big for an adult beaver, it’s probably not that rare. Plus its the beginning of winter and he hasn’t lived off his food cache for three months. We’ve always said that in Dad’s biggest strongest days he was 70 lbs. And when mom’s emaciated body was weighed at her death she still weighted 39 lbs. So on a good day she must have been 60, which means Dad (who was always gasp-inducingly bigger) must have been 70.

Well, this fine strong patron is gone now.

This is my favorite line from the story, demonstrating the super inteligence of the ditch supervisor who championed the assault.

People think beavers are rare because they don’t see them, Schmidt said. “They are nocturnal,” he said. “Most of their activity is dawn to dusk. They need open water to enter their lodge. Without the open water, they will die. Right now, it’s kind of panic time for them, because beavers are getting ready for winter.”

Further proof that reporters dutifully write down whatever they’re told without any applying any thinking whatsoever. “Most of their activity is DAWN to DUSK?” Is that really what nocturnal means? Isn’t most of OUR activity from dawn to dusk? Does that mean we’re nocturnal?

Or does that just mean that Ditch captain Schmidt is an idiot?

Here’s some good beaver news from a nearby M state to cleanse the palate.

heidi08 Beavers November 22, 2011

It is insane that ony 3,284 people have ever watched this stunning video. The Juliet Letters are a collection of some of the finest music you are ever likely to hear.