Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
John Muir
Go see the beavers. Heidi Perryman
On the Trails: Outdoor therapy
One day recently, I was feeling quite grumpy, disgusted, annoyed, and getting down-hearted, so I decided to cheer myself up by thinking about ‘a few of my favorite things’ that happened in the past couple of weeks.
The beavers seem to have returned to Steep Creek, after an absence of several years. We had seen beavers visiting the lower ponds, but this time it looks more serious. The broken dams have been rebuilt and a friend watched a beaver collect a huge mouthful of grass and carry it toward the old lodge. This made me wonder if the grass might be bedding for a young family. There is hope, then, that the beavers may restore the upper dams as well, creating ponds that trap sediment, provide fine rearing habitat for juvenile coho and dolly varden, and good foraging habitat for birds. In the past, the sockeye and coho salmon that spawn in this stream proved themselves quite able to surmount the previous dams, and there were good populations of both species in the creek.
There, that’s a list of good things observed. Thinking about all that, I found that I was still grumpy, disgusted, and annoyed — oh yes — but it no longer got me down-hearted. Good stuff! — simple things for a simple mind, maybe, but equanimity was restored!
• Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology
Ahh Mary. How many bleary mornings or crabby evenings have been brightened for me by beavers! I couldn’t agree more. Mary is the author of the book on the left margin, and one of the beaver protectors of the Mendenhall Glacier.
Of course getting away in the middle of town is harder than it used to be. Alhambra Creek is no Walden pond. Apparently the front page Napa story drew lots of people to Tulocay creek last night. Rusty chatted with an observer from Novato who says he reads this website every day! (Hi beaver reader!) It made me remember the old days in Martinez when the beavers were first making a commotion. I remember being so divided, first joyful that other people were enjoying what I had cherished alone for so long, and then annoyed, encroached and irritated that people were crowding out “my” beavers.
Eventually I noticed three very important things that changed my perspective forever.
1) I was alone in the morning, and encroached in the evening. I adjusted my filming and sleep habits accordingly. I was never bothered by onlookers in the wee hours. (At this time of year I still wake up at 5 whether I go see beavers or not. Maybe I always will.)
2) Every single person gathered there in the evenings, excitedly explaining them to their mother or brother-in-law, wondering all the wrong things, if they ate fish or patted mud with their tails, all felt as if they were “their” beavers.
3) This misplaced sense of ownership we all shared is the only reason why the beavers survived at all when the city decided to kill them.
Of course they aren’t my beavers, or your beavers. They are their own beavers. Living their own lives independent of us. And maybe the beavers themselves are like a mirror, reflecting back the beholder for the moment but happy enough to reflect the next person that comes along. That would explain why the good people liked them and wanted to save them. And why our most hard-hearted citizens disliked them and thought they were a disaster. They saw twisted reflections of their nasty little selves.
A furry Rorschach, if you will.
