THE BELOVED HEROINE OF ALL THINGS BEAVER

What are you doing tomorrow night? Maybe I will join you and we’ll make a mass migration to see this wonderful presentation from the fairy godmother of beavers everywhere. Tempted?

‘Leave it to the Beavers’ upcoming presentation from Sherri Tippie

The SteamPlant will host an event at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 31 with a presentation from President of Wildlife 2000 Sherri Tippie to discuss beavers and their role in water resources.

Sherri Tippie (Photo courtesy of The Beaver Believers)

Colorado Headwaters is inviting the community “for an entertaining and informative evening to learn how beavers can protect vital water resources, increase ecological diversity and help counter the effects of climate change.”

“Who can turn a desert into an oasis? Who can save crops and cattle from drought? Beavers!”

The press release says: “Beavers build whole landscapes that support hundreds of other creatures. In fact, North America’s fertile landscapes are mainly the work of beavers.”

You bring the popcorn and I’ll bring the champagne. It would be so much fun to sit in the back row and bask in her spirited accessible beaver glow.

I only had the privilege of hearing her live at my very first conference. I wept tears of joy through the entire presentation. Nothing about my struggle to save our beavers seemed to matter anymore because I somehow knew Sherri would fix it. She is the hero of every beaver story and despite the fact that Ben didn’t make room for her in his book we ALL know it.

Sherri is to beavers what Henry Ford was to automobiles, Jackson Pollock is to modern art, or what Martin Luther King Jr is to race relations. Listening to her changes everything.

Sherri Tippie with kit and awesome t-shirt

Now, one might think, at this late stage of my beaver career, that I had seen every single cool beaver drawing this side of the Atlantic and beyond. But yesterday reminded me that there are still wonderful surprises to discover. This clever feat is from what artist Jordan Fretz called “Interactive Art“.

Isn’t it wonderful?

AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY, THEY RESTED

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers, Festival, Why We Care July 12, 2019

Amy Gallaher Hall creating chalk art centerpiece in the Park at 12th Annual Martinez Beaver Festival 2019. Photo by Cheryl Reynolds 6/29/19.

I’m starting to get my vocal chords back again. Yesterday Jon returned the Uhaul and unpacked everything. I started finishing touches on silent auction items that hadn’t been claimed and Cheryl sent a beautiful bundle of photos of the day. It’s always both delightful to remember and wonderful to see everything I missed.

Like any advanced society it begins with the artists. And there was plenty of talent to go around on that glorious day.

I just love to see how many kids were inspired by Amy’s artwork to try their own. There were such an army of sidewalk beavers it must be a record! I also love how the artwork, the signs, the activity all pounded the same theme over and over. No one could leave the event that day without knowing a little bit why beavers mattered.

My favorite job of sunday is reviewing the post-tests and seeing how children performed. There were a LOT takers this year, 45 which is our nighest sample size ever. A whopping 95% were entirely accurate so you know things were sinking in. True, there were plenty of helpful parents that gave them the answers but educating parents is kind of the point too, so it’s a win-win. You can see the thinking that went on in some of these photos of the children’s activity.

There are, of course, many more pictures as you well know and much more happened on the day, but I thought that would get you started. Now for a surprisingly timely treat here’s an interview I did last summer with Timothy Sexauer of Muse Ecology which was dropped to a podcast on Friday before the festival. He does such a great job. It’s a surprisingly fresh look at the Martinez Beaver Story. Very well done and worth your time. Enjoy.

ECOSYSTEMS UNFOLDING

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers, Festival June 29, 2019

It wasn’t just us either. Everyone who stopped by and gazed changed from indifferent or hurried to awestruck and gazing. Groups of children on a field trip, parents rushing to the car after dropping someone off, and passing elders out for their morning stroll. I swear even the public works crew came four times during the day to admire her progress.

I did my best to keep up with the unfolding wonders and record them so that we could remember. I even managed a messy record of the day. I know this is frantic but if you watch it you will totally understand how she was able to make something from nothing.

No matter how fast I took pictures her creation still surprised and startled me. Creatures seemed to pop from nothingness into glorious color faster than I could comprehend.

First they were not there. And then they were there. I can’t explain it any better than that. Even the nature in the park knew they were witnessing something special. When Amy was drawing the dragonfly an actual dragonfly landed on her hand! And when she was finishing the swallowtail a real one fluttered across our eyes and flitted around the trees for an hour.

This was a magical day.

For a woman who only does one chalk event a year, she had an amazing sense of her self and her timing. In addition to being crazy talented, Amy is astoundingly pleasant and and easy to please, appreciative of everything we did to make her job easier. She insists our festival is the best she ever attended, Last year she had so much fun with the snake exhibits at the festival she and her husband went home and bought a snake!

I just hope there’s no place you can buy bats?

This is what the park looked like when she left that evening. She said it looked like the world because in her mind beavers could HELP the whole world. Which of course they could. I’ve been thinking of that and playing with lyrics.

We are the world
We are the beavers
We are the ones who’d make a better place with more believers…

Come today and see it completed. Come listen to music, bid on amazing goods help your child find a lost key, admire the bats and watch a crowd of people feel good about beavers for an entire day.

In all the world, in all the festivals, I have learned there is no other event quite like it.

IT’S BEAVER EVE!

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver ecological impact June 28, 2019

Which did you like better as a child? Christmas Day or Christmas Eve?

Okay I realize if you’re Jewish that question is meaningless and kind of annoying, but in my mind that is a question represents whether you are the kind of person who loves anticipating, planning and imagining how things are going to be or the kind who loves to actually get them/taste them/use them and see how they turn out.

I’m definitely the former.

Last year,watching Amy begin her masterpiece on Friday was my favorite day. She was so creative, friendly and fun that I was total fan-girl on the benches. I remember I stayed long enough to need shade and Jon brought me a canopy so I could see more dynamic unfolding at work. It all makes me excited about today, and not nearly as nervous about tomorrow as I should be.

But how could you NOT love this simple starting place?

Or where it leads?

This is a different design and a different year. Last year she started at the top and did the landscape and wildlife first saving the beavers mostly for the festival. This year she’s doing the round mandala and there’s no way to draw the beaver last because pastels don’t appreciate being sat on. Less landscaping and more rewilding. Who knows how this will unfold?

I also found out yesterday that beaver heroine, maker of the amazing beaver-and-fire film and now-assistant professor at Cal State Channel Islands is FLYING IN specifically for the festival! Yesterday I sent her Rob Waltons fantastic article in the Oregonian and said she needed to write one for California. And guess what she replied? That she would be and that part of her thinking in coming to the festival is looking for collaborators.

To which of course I replied MEMEMEMEME!

She also said she’d be bringing one of my google VR headsets for virtually visiting beaver ponds if anyone wants to try it!!!!

Poor woman. I’m sure she has zero idea how popular she will be!

I just looked up that pond and saw that her CV is on line and mentions the pond being reported on the WORTH A DAM website. Good lord, I need to be careful of my horrific typos and slapdash humor. I always forget this website gets read.

Type like nobody else is watching my irish grandma would say! If in fact I had an Irish Grandma.

Here’s a friendly reminder of why we love Emily:

And if you need it, here’s a friendly reminder of why we love Amy.

TIME FOR A ROAD TRIP!

heidi08 Beaver Art, Who's blaming beavers now? June 13, 2019

Well okay, I guess that’s a bit of a problem. You got me.

Beaver dam breach causes washout of Phillips road

PHILLIPS — A beaver dam that gave way during Tuesday’s rainstorm in Franklin County caused two roads to wash out and closed a portion of Route 4 for about five hours, a Fire Department official said.

Beaver activity in Adley Pond has caused the pond to swell in size, and during a period of heavy rain Tuesday the dam gave way, Deputy Chief Jeremy O’Neil said.

Now there are plenty of public work crews and power companies that when they can’t explain things say “Oh the beaver did it” and we thumb our noses at them. But I looked up the area on google earth and did see an huge swelling pond and what might have been a beaver dam So okay. It’s a fair cop. These things happen.

Luckily Mainers seem to be taking things in stride.

The road was closed for about five hours Tuesday afternoon. It reopened around 6:15 p.m. and is safe to use, although further repairs will be needed, O’Neil said.

“(The beavers) don’t adhere to modern building codes, so when we had a significant amount of water in that body of water, the dam breached,” he said.

The Fire Department helped reroute traffic while the DOT and the Highway Department repaired the road.

I’m sure the beavers would say “Building codes are for sissies! We don’t need no stinking codes“. Or something to that effect,

Amelia is hard at work on the brochure for the festival and I just had to share her stellar map of the park, Don’t you want to go right away? Isn’t this amazing? We are so luck she has been kind enough to help us for a million years,