There was a nice article about the festival in its new location in the Martinez News Gazette Thursday. I vaguely remember chatting with the reporter, Donna Beth during the day before a sea of children commanded my attention.
New site works for Beaver Festival
“It’s perfect for artwork, perfect for the stage, and people love it,” Perryman said from her own both, where she distributed sheets on which children could affix stickers they obtained from other groups after learning how important beavers are to their surroundings.
Those sheets, once decorated, resembled the chalk mural by Amy G. Hall, the Napa street painter. Hall wasn’t the only one to apply chalk to sidewalk during the festival. Anyone with a yen to do so was invited to create their own illustrations to the walkways
It’s nice to see how inviting the event looked from the sidewalk, like a real community festival, irresistibly inviting you in.
(I’m almost wish I could have been there myself, but of course, we were rather busy that day,)
Meanwhile the beaver world continues with its steady list of accomplishments that have nothing whatsoever to do with Martinez.
Like the Methow project, for instance.
CTFW utilize beavers in Methow salmon recovery work
Project relocates nuisance beavers into tributary streams along Methow River
Winthrop – Colville Tribes’ Fish and Wildlife is continuing its salmon recovery efforts in the Methow River basin with the help of some furry friends. The department is in its fifth year relocating beavers to key parts of the river as part of the Methow Salmon Recovery project to improve habitat for “threatened” Upper Columbia River steelhead and “endangered” spring Chinook, as well as coho, and summer Chinook.
According to Wagner, project goals are to improve fish habitat by: reducing summer water temperatures, increasing late summer stream flows, increasing juvenile salmonid rearing habitat, improving stream habitat complexity, trapping stream sediment, and in some cases reconnecting floodplains.
The question really is how will Kent Woodruff’s brainchild and project survive after Kent himself has retired? Will there be a lasting legacy that carries itself forward without his watchful eye?
I’m guessing yes. This is such a beloved project with so many partners that I’m betting it will carry on in Kent’s name long after he is smoking a pipe comfortably on the porch, Suzanne Fouty was asking me the same question about the beaver festival when she was here and that future I’m less sure of.
I’m not sure anyone else would be dam fool enough to take it on.
BY THE old Moulmein Pagoda
