The mistress of this website had a computer hazard this week which meant there could be no grand discussions of beavers or the fur trade, only panicked snatches from the laptop. A very nice man, recommended by beaver friend LB, came to perform herculean repairs and shook his finger gravely at the piles and piles of dusty beaver information in the hard drive. It’s time for a new system he said.
Preaching to the choir, I said! Bring on the new wide open spaces to fill with beavers! So our first computer, in 1987, had a whopping 20 MB hard drive and cost us equivalent of half a new car. This new machine will be equipped with a Terabyte, which is equal to 1,048,576 (1,0242) megabytes and cost us less than a new set of tires. That must be progress! I guess that should be enough room for all kinds of beaver footage!
And speaking of extra bytes, we were noticing this week that mom beaver always goes home in the morning with a little something to nibble on. She carries a branch for mid-day snacking, and brings it usually from great distances. It’s a unique behavior, nobody else does it with such regularity. We aren’t sure if she just gets hungry in the interim, or maybe is conditioned from a lifetime of kit rearing to bring something for a snack, but it helps identify her. If you stop by the dam one morning and see a beaver coming back with something in its mouth, check its tail for a notch, because its probably mom!
