Month: May 2016

Yesterday we met with the hardworking folks of Clean Water services and water specialists from all over North Oregon to talk about their biggest challenges and their biggest hopes regarding beaver. It was  a pretty amazing meeting to hear these  field operations men and women voluntarily taking time out of their morning to discuss beaver!  (I kept wishing our public works team were there to see how they might be able to think if they tried. )

Then, free and easy with zero more commitments,  we traveled up the other side of Portland, stopped for some very exotic tidbits at World Food, drove across the St. John’s Bridge and headed  for a picnic at Cathedral Park.

The park is awesome and sprawling, with towering columns that make you feel tiny and undetected, framed by the wide slowish Willamette

and tall fluttering trees teaming with birdlife. We soon realized why, since the local Black Cottonwoods were blowing snowdrifts of soft white fluff from their blooming stalks everywhere and a million bush tits were making the softest possible nests for their babies.

New festival promo from Sarah!

Martinez Beaver Festival Promo 2016 from Tensegrity Productions on Vimeo.

 

One evening at the Tulocay Creek Beaver pond in Napa a Beaver seemed entranced with eating the grass and ignored me, and almost appeared to want to do a modeling photo shoot.

On my way to leave a Muskrat decided to grab a bunch of leaves from the top of the main Beaver Dam. Usually the Muskrats eat grass.

New festival promo from Sarah! Hopefully Rusty will embed it for you because I am too stupid to manage it on the iPad. Last night was a crowded hoot. Lots of laughs in the right places and maybe 100? Beaver believers in the house. We had a blast and have many stories to share, but we are off to Clean water services in Beaverton this am an I must dash for now!

Hey it’s a long drive to Portland from Martinez, who knew? It rained a little all the way up but don’t worry, it took 610 miles but we finally found the traffic! All of a sudden we were surrounded by millions of very hydrated and creative automobiles interrupted by sites like this.

We had a noisy night in Grants Pass and we’re thrilled to stumble into our snug guest house  in SE Portland, where raspberry canes and fresh snow peas were growing right outside our door!

Today it’s sightseeing, coffee and maybe a little pok pok before we head to the Ballroom tonight for the big event. I can see I’ve left you in enormously capable hands as Rusty did a fantastic and polished job yesterday. Keep an eye on those Napa beavers! And I heard news that Mario painted a third beaver on the bridge but no one’s sent me a photo so I’m feeling very deprived. Hopefully a remedy is forthcoming!

Wish me luck tonight. It’s gotta be easier than the drive, right?

Due to disastrous floods in Napa there has been a lot of flood control work done in the last few years. One of the problem areas is where Napa Creek flows through downtown Napa. Napa Flood Control has done bank restoration in the area after extensive flood control work.  Some existing larger trees have been protected with wire mesh, and some trees have been planted that are left unprotected for Beavers to eat. (note; Napa Flood has been using a heavy duty fine wire mesh with good results although the standard protection is larger 2″ x 4″ mesh)Below is a Beaver dam that appeared in Downtown Napa across the street from Kohl’s Department store about two years ago.

A Beaver is using one of the Napa Flood Control placed logs that is bolted down to reach a favorite treat.

This year Mink were seen for the first time, along with turtles. So far no Muskrats.