Did you see Bob’s post yesterday? His debut as a beaver blogger and it was PERFECT! Great margins, great links and proper search words. I was impressed and suggested a full time gig but he shrugged his shoulders and said he was happy to help when needed but he had other mountains to climb.
So you get me.
I spent yesterday working laboriously recording the audio for my talk and then trying to sync it up with the video so it can be played in my absence. It was a ton of work because it’s like trying to sew a seam from both ends at once, but it’s finally done and I’m fairly happy with the result. I’ll post it on Thursday which is the day it will air. Today I saw that a new logo announcing the conference is much better, and thought I’d would share.
Yesterday I saw on Facebook that Caitlin was worried about her Mountain House beavers in all the flooding – for obvious reasons. Apparently she went down with her father in the evening to make sure they were okay. It filled me with strange affection to think that there were other people in the world afflicted with my odd concern for beavers. And when I heard the charming audio that accompanied the video my heart nearly burst. Turn the sound wayyy up.
Only good news on Sunday’s right? Well, yesterday’s planting party surely applies. 14 people showed up from Martinez, Napa, and Oakland and Berkeley to put some magical willow cuttings in the banks of Alhambra Creek. (I say magical because at the right time of year willow can be cut from trees and turned back into trees. Imagine that!)The willow was trimmed from our own prodigious trees downstream and hauled back to be bundled into fascines or trimmed into stakes. The fascines were lovingly layed in trenches and staked in place. Study lone stakes were tapped into rain soaked soil where they will sprout. They planted at both Henrietta and Escobar streets. Everyone felt the conditions were ideal for an excellent planting. Ann Riley from the SF waterboard is always an outstanding teacher and Friends of Alhambra Creek Volunteers turned out to hear what she would say. As you can see, Cheryl was on hand to snap some wonderful photos of the moment. And you might recognize beaver-inventer Bob Rust even without his beaver bicycle! But if you need reminding, check the video below. Here’s Riley showing how a fascine is laid in trenches. Afterwards most of the folks came to try out the wrap sandwiches and they must have been adequate because they were gone! All in all it was an excellent way to spend Saturday morning. I happen to be very fond of this lovely close-up of Riley and Jean bundling. I like to imagine they are wrapping very delicious beaver Christmas presents. Good work team beaver!
This week’s mail delivered a bevvy of beaver bounty for the silent auction. Starting with an adorable sterling silver beaver necklace from “Stickman Jewelry” in Montreal, Canada. The charm itself is even cuter because it is so tiny. I anticipate rabid bidding on this cherishable trinket so start saving your pennies now.
The other glories came from artist Deborah Hocking in Portland. I didn’t even realize she was the brilliant artist behind the children’s book “Build beaver build.” I just really, really liked this print she was selling on etsy.
I wrote her about the beaver bicycle Bob Rust made for our festival and she was immediately hooked. She ended up donating 8 prints and a copy of her book! She might even design something for the festival! Sometimes the best part of asking isn’t the things you get, but remembering that there are like minds all over the globe.
There is too much beaver news this morning. I feel like I’m struggling under a pile of important papers trying to get out. I will use the calendar as my only excavation tool, and start with what’s happening first. The other things can wait. Except for the serious cause for mocking, which obviously cannot be ignored.
The Wetlands Conservancy and partners invite you to see nearly 100 artists at six different venues throughout 2017. These shows will highlight the Beaver, our natural ally in conserving Oregon’s wetlands and restoring natural systems.
Beavers, though woefully misunderstood actually create and sustain wetlands that aid in resuscitating our riparian stream habitats. They play a central role in shaping our future as we prepare for the transformations that a warming and changing climate may bring. The Wetlands Conservancy is launching a statewide beaver conservation vision. Our goal is to learn more about how we can work with beaver to conserve and restore natural systems.
Join us on the dates and at the venues shown below to celebrate the beaver and understand the role and benefits wetlands play in Oregon and your community.
The show kicks off with a reading by Frances Backhouse of her great book, “Once they were hats” and then starts the exhibit with a month long display at Oregon State University before beginning a tour around the state. It is organized by the good folks who had me speak last year at their Wetlands event in Portland. I tried introducing the organizer (Sara Vickerman) to our beaver artist heroine with the Gallery in Concord (FRO Butler) but transportation was too difficult to figure out.
I do know there is one important kind of artwork that will be sorely absent in this show. Dam foolish oversight if you ask me.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. Here’s a grandpa in North Carolina who wonders if beavers are safe to be around children. No, seriously. Press the arrow at the bottom right to view larger.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — When Steve Brown heard that beavers were living in a nearby creek, he couldn’t wait to show his grandkids.
“Beavers had come into the creek by the children’s playground and had built two dams. My first thought was that’s cool I’ll go and check it out and watch them,” Brown said. Then he had second thoughts.
“I got to thinking, it’s right next to the playground. Are beavers safe? Are they dangerous, especially around kids?”
An old snark like me would be tempted to say that his problem happened when he “started thinking“. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to do that. But I will just post this instead so folks can see for themselves how dangerous beavers are around children.
North American Beaver Castor canadensis Children watching beaver in urban environment Martinez, CA *Model release available – #Martinezbeavers_1.2
The inside of a beaver lodge has captured the fancies of folks from Lewis Carol to Ian Timothy! I have been interested in art describing this because we’re thinking about doing some over/under art for our activity this festival. I thought I would show you some of my favorites so far.
Art by Greg Newbold- www.gregnewbold.com -Used by permission
Greg Newbold is an illustrator in Salt Lake City Utah who created this wonderful glimpse of the inside of a beaver lodge. The colors are amazing, but even his sketch for the finished piece is pretty great. I particularly like the adorable young inhabitants inside. On his website “Life needs Art” he says about this,
I just finished up this one for an educational publisher. It’s fun to dig into details on something like this and create a feeling of reality even though this view is impossible to see in nature. I enjoyed the challenge of making the submerged portion of the beaver abode look like it was underwater which I achieved by shifting colors and values to reflect the effects of the water. Once again this is rendered in Photoshop over a graphite drawing. Size is 16″ x 11″ at 400 dpi. This one will print in the student edition as well as an oversize teacher edition to be used in group reading.
Fantastic job, Greg. I love watching the family members swim home. Let’s just hope the book says in HUGE red LETTERS This is NOT a beaver dam. Because some people really need help telling them apart, apparently.
I did find a couple illustrations that shows the lodge, the dam, and the important food cache. This is from Miles Kelly publishing.
Or this nice peek from M.H. Peterson, although I’m not sure what that hole is at the base of the lodge. A place to turn around?
And that fun one in the snow from the Adirondack book I posted earlier this week by Mike Storey:
And of course there are a few fanciful ones that just grab our imagination. I came across this last year from an illustrator who’s name escapes me. I know it was a female and I didn’t find it with the usual suspects looking for ‘interiors’ or ‘inside’ lodge. I will keep trying, because she deserves credit for this wonderful work. Aren’t the colors lovely?
For the past two years, Friends of Los Gatos Creek, an affiliate of South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, has been conducting cleanups along creeks in Santa Clara County. We have tallied an astounding 76 cleanups. On our most recent event, June 4, we had 55 volunteers from Google, Santa Clara County Parks and the Friends team leaders converge on Los Gatos Creek in downtown San Jose.
With very little fanfare, our small grass-roots effort has surpassed a milestone: 100 tons of trash removed from the Los Gatos Creek — with over 85 percent of it linked to encampment activity.
Sometimes Steve uses the removed trash in artistic sculptures, (because man does not live by bread alone). A recent clean up struck such a fancy he had to send it my way. I met Steve at the creeks coalition conference in 2010 and we have swapped emails ever since. Isn’t this beautiful? The fur is cigarette butts, the tail is an old tire, and the ‘creek’ is an rusted box spring. I told him he should really come to the beaver festival and share his work and his message.
Steve Holes: South bay clean creeks coalition.
There might be very exciting news soon, but I won’t jinx anything by sharing it. For now we can delight appreciation of this inspiring article in the LA Times about an elementary’s school appreciation of the appearance of a burrowing owl. Because urban wildlife matters.
Principal Brad Rumble took a photo of the burrowing owl that has been spotted on the grounds of Esperanza Elementary. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)
Nathan, 9, had no idea how the bird found its way to the courtyard of his school, Esperanza Elementary, near MacArthur Park in the middle of the city.
“This is a big deal,” he thought.
Nathan told a teacher, who then told Brad Rumble, the school’s principal and a man who takes bird matters very seriously.
Rumble pulled a few students out of class to observe the visitor, identified as a burrowing owl. In a neighborhood of asphalt, street vendors and crowded apartment buildings, this was their closest encounter yet with nature.
Decades ago, before buildings and cars covered Los Angeles, burrowing owls were a common sight, said Kimball Garrett, an ornithologist who manages bird collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Now, sightings are rare. The last one spotted near downtown Los Angeles was six years ago, near the museum.
Rumble thinks he knows what attracted the bird. In mid-November, he teamed up with the Los Angeles Audubon Society to transform more than 4,000 square feet of asphalt on campus into a native habitat.
High school students helped Esperanza families lay down a bark path and plant California golden poppies, an oak tree and a sycamore.
“It’s not natural around here for kids to come down from their apartments and walk down to the creek and play,” the principal said. “But if the neighborhood is lacking, at least the school campus can serve as a living laboratory.”
He created something similar once before — with remarkable results. A few years ago, at Leo Politi Elementary in Pico-Union, he had 5,000 square feet of concrete ripped out and replaced with native flora.
The plants attracted insects, which attracted birds, fascinating students. They learned so much, their test scores in science rose sixfold, “from the basement to the penthouse,” Rumble told The Times in 2012.
Since the owl showed up on campus, peculiar things have happened: Students have skipped recess to stay in the library, poring over books about falcons, swallows and hummingbirds. Some have pulled their parents out of their cars after school to hunt down the owl’s droppings. Teachers watched in shock one day when two crows tried to attack the school’s honored guest.
Rumble encourages students to use an observation board he set up outside the main office to document each owl sighting. There have been more than a dozen so far — on drainpipes, rooftops, PA speakers, even a library rolling cart. For more than a week, the owl frequented a jacaranda tree located next to the lunch tables, amusing the 200 kids who munched on pizza and sandwiches below.
The bird has caused such a stir, the student council is considering changing the school’s mascot from a dragon to an owl.
On a recent morning, teacher Elizabeth Williams talked with her third-graders about the bird’s diet, markings and nesting habits. She introduced new vocabulary: perch, burrowing, conservation, habitat.
“It likes to burrow in nests underground,” said Emily Guzman.
“It bobs its head up and down to protect itself,” said Yonathan Trujillo.
“It makes sounds like a snake,” said another student.
Some students are getting quite savvy about birds. They see them soar overhead, dark specks in a blue sky, and know them by name: a yellow-rumped warbler, a red-tailed hawk, a common raven.
When he asked Jose what he thought of the bird, the boy’s eyes glowed and he smiled.
“It’s made me very happy,” Jose said.
The arrival of a simple burrowing owl delights and energizes an entire public school. Are we surprised? And the principal is smart enough to know how special this is. If you doubt its value go to Martinez California and read how some children responded to beavers. Urban Wildlife reminds us that there are things alive and precious besides roads and freeways. Children are reminded that there are wonderful things the adults don’t control. And adults are reminded that not everything has been formed in concrete and shaped by convenience.
I think it reassures us of that special place inside each one of us that isn’t molded by expectation and responsibility. Something wild and free even amidst the most tangled constraints.
I spent yesterday working laboriously recording the audio for my talk and then trying to sync it up with the video so it can be played in my absence. It was a ton of work because it’s like trying to sew a seam from both ends at once, but it’s finally done and I’m fairly happy with the result. I’ll post it on Thursday which is the day it will air. Today I saw that a new logo announcing the conference is much better, and thought I’d would share.
Yesterday I saw on Facebook that Caitlin was worried about her Mountain House beavers in all the flooding – for obvious reasons. Apparently she went down with her father in the evening to make sure they were okay. It filled me with strange affection to think that there were other people in the world afflicted with my odd concern for beavers. And when I heard the charming audio that accompanied the video my heart nearly burst. Turn the sound wayyy up.
The Wetlands Conservancy and partners invite you to see nearly 100 artists at six different venues throughout 2017. These shows will highlight the Beaver, our natural ally in conserving Oregon’s wetlands and restoring natural systems.
in shaping our future as we prepare for the transformations that a warming and changing climate may bring. The Wetlands Conservancy is launching a statewide beaver conservation vision. Our goal is to learn more about how we can work with beaver to conserve and restore natural systems.
for the finished piece is pretty great. I particularly like the adorable young inhabitants inside. On his website “
