This was a strange week full of good news, with nearly 60,000 views on the father beaver movie, doubled web traffic from the Psychology Today article, an unexpected donation from Safari West for the silent auction, and the promise from Wildlife Defenders magazine to send me 50 copies of the 2010 issue about Sherri Tippie to distribute with her clay beavers. It would make a normal woman feel a rush of pride and accomplishment, although I believe I have already communicated that it makes me feel like this:
See, buried deep in my bones is this primal sense that the universe maintains a balance. If several good things happen, something bad will happen. Or maybe balance isn’t the right word. It’s more impish than that. The universe is committed to dishabitutation. It constantly surprises you. So if you’re lulled along by several very good things happening and thinking you’re on easy street then something bad will happen to wake you up. And maybe conversely, if you generously apply your pessimism-repellant by expecting something bad to happen, it won’t. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not at all logical, I know, more like animism at the most tribal level. Go figure but around late June when things are starting to line up for the festival I start to get very uneasy. Case in point, yesterday at 4:30 I received an email from Alberta Canada saying this:
Hi I got your name from a local researcher who lives near our Provincial Park. Next weekend, I am planning a small Beaver Festival for Canada Day and am looking for game ideas for a fun, family beaver-themed relay race. So far, I have a beaver-log-drag race but I’m having a really hard time thinking of other educational games. Any ideas would be helpful! Thank you for your time,
Renee Sheff Visitor Information and Education Clerk Miquelon Lake Provincial Park Camrose, ABBeaver Festival in Alberta! And she got my name from a local researcher which almost certainly HAS to be Glynnis Hood. Of course I wrote back with a flurry of suggestions, which I will repeat here in case you’re looking for ideas for a festival of your own.
Renee! That is wonderful! thank you so much for writing! Folks really need help learning about what beavers do! here are some ideas we’ve used in the past. This year will be our 5th festival – we use the language that beavers make a ‘neighborhood’ to teachabout the keystone species concept.- Make your own tail
- Tail fashion show
- pin the tail on the beaver
- draw something that lives in the beaver neighborhood on ceramic tiles (later
- fired and installed on bridge near where beavers live)
- paint something that lives in beaver neighborhood on mural of creek paint something that lives in beaver neighborhood on huge wood beaver
Which just goes to show that you should always keep one eye on the prize and one eye on the piano.
