I know it doesn’t feel like Christmas morning, but our favorite author Ben Goldfarb just got back from a field trip to beaver-topia and you’re going to feel like you’re opening all the best presents when you see what he found there. Let’s let him tell you about it. Here’s what he posted on the beaver management facebook forum.
A few pics from my pilgrimage to Voyageurs National Park last week, where the beaver populations are dense and the dams are epic. Highly recommend this place to every Beaver Believer — it’s a powerful testament to what our favorite rodents are capable of unfettered, and, perhaps, a window into pre-colonial landscapes. Some of the castorid architecture truly boggles the mind.
just Save imagine what North America would look like if we hadn’t hat-hunted all the beavers. It’s stunning to consider what the landscape might have been; layered with cascading habitat worked and maintained for centuries – always water where you wanted it and very rarely where you didn’t. Once upon a time there was an entire continent built to lovingly cradle and release water like some kind of giant and wildly maintained beaver-Tivoli.
Representative Ian Mackey, a Democrat from St. Louis County, was vehemently opposed to the bill, and said in a passionate address to his colleagues: “Women brought all of us into this world, and I sure hope they vote all of us out.”
Missouri hasn’t been behaving exactly like the Show-me state lately, passing such spectacularly bad legislation that it’s making headlines, but surprisingly it has has found time for an epiphany. Wetlands are important. Who knew?
Many people are realizing the important roles wetlands play in re-charging and stabilizing underground aquifers, moderating flood waters and governing the flow of water. On top of these qualities are the recreational benefits some of our wetlands provide to millions of hunters, anglers and nature-viewers each year.
May is American Wetlands Month. That means this time of year is a good opportunity to focus on a habitat most people have heard of, but when pressed for details, many might have a hard time defining. Sadly, wetlands aren’t as common in Missouri as they once were, either.
It’s estimated there were between six and nine million acres of wetland habitat in Missouri when the first settlers arrived. Things are much “drier” today – there’s under a million acres of wetland habitat in the state.
Wetlands are an important – and in some areas – a disappearing – part of Missouri’s natural landscape.
You’re kidding! Those swampy good for nothing corners that are useless for building and too wet to plant crops. They matter? Time for a crash course.
A wetland is an area containing enough soil moisture to support a variety of water-tolerant plants. Coontail, smartweed, duckweed, wild millet and cottonwood trees are just a few of a number of plants that have adapted to growing in areas of standing water and/or saturated soils.
This vegetation serves a number of purposes to the wetland. The plants’ seeds, leaves, roots, fruits and nuts provide food for a variety of birds and mammals. Vegetation also provides nesting habitat and/or brood-rearing habitat for many birds and mammals and, in deeper water, spawning and egg-laying areas for fish and amphibians. Wetlands provide autumn and spring stop-over sites for millions of migrating waterfowl and year-round habitat for some. Put it all together and you have one of Missouri’s most diverse habitats. It’s estimated nearly half of the plant species found in the state are associated with wetlands and more than a quarter of Missouri’s nesting and migratory birds depend on wetlands for part of their life cycle.
But wetlands benefit more than just the plants and animals of the state. Studies have shown wetlands help reduce pollution levels in water. The thick vegetation also helps filter silt and other particles out of water that overflow from streams during a flood event. This results in clearer and healthier waterways once the water returns to the stream channel.
Whoa, that’s pretty important. I heard something about this on the news. Something about some dumb animal that can help make and maintain wetlands. What was it called again? Some kind of chicken or a mud-possum? I forget.
The types of naturally occurring wetlands in Missouri are marshes, sinkhole ponds, swamps, shrub swamps, bottomland forests, bottomland prairies, groundwater seeps, fens, oxbow lakes (sloughs), and stream riparian areas. All were found here in pre-settlement times. Some were created by the periodic flooding of large rivers like the Missouri and Mississippi and the many streams that meander through the state’s low-lying floodplains. Others resulted from stream flow that was backed up by the numerous beaver dams found in parts of the state. Still others were the results of groundwater seeping from the base bluffs or hills or where water pooled in low-lying areas.
Oh that’s right. That’s who makes wetlands. BEAVERS!Those annoying things we kill all the time. in fact, the name beaver is practically a synonym for the name wetlands. Honestly, this whole final paragraph would read so much better if we just fixed that problem. Here, see for yourself.
Today, the values of beavers are being re-discovered. Many people are realizing the important roles beavers play in re-charging and stabilizing underground aquifers, moderating flood waters and governing the flow of water. On top of these qualities are the recreational benefits some of our beavers provide to millions of hunters, anglers and nature-viewers each year. Because of these characteristics, beaver protection and restoration has become one of the biggest conservation missions – and challenges – in Missouri and elsewhere around the country.
It’s Sunday and high time for another round of only good news. It’s been a hell week of root canals and abortion laws so we all deserve this. We have the festival planning meeting today and I wanted to share my idea for the children’s parade so we put a protest sign together to demonstrate.
Jon makes an excellent protestor.
Someone on facebook corrected that it should be ‘fewer’ not ‘less’ – but I’m not sure that beavers would actually use correct grammar. (Plus there’s only so much room on a protest sign.) Thinking about it I’m sure if beavers were going to protest they would carry a sign just like this. Only there’s be chew marks all over it…hey that gives me an idea…
Then Robin Ellison of Napa found this excellent commercial and passed it along. There is so much going on I had to watch it twice and slow down the action. Remember to keep an eye on your work when there are beavers around.
See what i mean? Isn’t that delightful? And here’s a nice look at what beavers use all that wood for after they snagged it away.
Chris Carr of New Hampshire posted this recently to the beaver management forum. Check out this over-achieving beaver! Look how tall that lodge is already.
Beavers work so hard. i think humans are enormously lazy by comparison.
Except maybe these humans.
Yesterday an ancient oak split off a third of itself downtown and fell on two telephone polls (and several cars) severing power for all of Martinez for a very long while. This meant no internet, no lights and playing scrabble by the fire which Jon won by a cool 16 points. Power was restored by bedtime, which works out because I had become obsessed by trying to find information about this artist.
Not only is this piece gorgeous – it is accurate! Look at the inset text in the corner.
Apparently it’s by Fiona Bearclaw, an artist who attended the state of the beaver conference and lives in Oregon. This is a linocut that she recently made and hasn’t even made many prints yet. Isn’t it amazing? The beavers are beautiful and the intricate work amazing I was not surprised to learn she was at the beaver festival. Apparently Fiona has an Etsy shop offering a few other amazing pieces and is also a talented embroiderer and artist.
Her partner is also an artist (Lance E. Pants) because he’s the one who posted the image on facebook and when I asked specifically about the text told me they had been to the beaver conference and were both inspired by what they heard.. I was significantly fan-girled and asked him a million questions about the her. Knowing that the conference was hosted by the Cow Creek tribe and having attended several opening ceremonies and morning blessings given by tribal members I asked about her name. Fiona Bearclaw. Was she herself a member of the tribe?
His answer makes me laugh even now if i think about it, and I dare say will probably never stop being funny. I can’t help hearing it delivered in a very matter-of-fact way in my head by the character Ed Chigliak from Northern Exposure.
“No,” he said. “She’s just very fond of the pastry.”
Now as if this story wasn’t good enough, here’s the very best part. Lance said that she would be selling at an art show this weekend in Weeds, and I when i said how very much her work would be appreciated in Martinez he said they had actually thought about coming to the beaver festival!
Thinking about that I realized I wasn’t at this conference plugging the festival like I usually do, but Ben Goldfarb and his book were and Sarah Koenisberg’s film on climate change included an interview about Martinez and the festival in it, so I guess that might have peaked their curiosity.
Fingers crossed this can come to pass. Now just in case you don’t know what a huge ordeal it is to do a linocut, watch this short video and gain some respect for the 19th century technique based on the 13th century woodcutting developed in china.
Okay, I’m not entirely done being gloomy quite yet. But Leslie went to meet with Kiwanis yesterday and they were supportive and cheerful, which was good. Also we got the pastels for Amy’s amazing creation, which we will keep safe until the big day. This is how it will look when it’s all done.
Imagine how nice that will look in the plaza! Since we were given a promotional offer for coasters at sticker mule we thought we’d do this image as a coaster and give them away free to any person who closes out his or her silent auction bid at the festival themselves instead of making me chase them down in the exhausted week that follows,
Our auction is definitely coming along, too! Which is just as well because I just got the bill for the Community Focus ads and throwing a festival ain’t cheap. Who knew?
Not only is this piece gorgeous – it is accurate! Look at the inset text in the corner.
