p10901721

THE GREAT BEAVER GIVEAWAY

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Art, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers June 2, 2022

Dr. Mark L Troyer was a mild mannered chiropractor from Washington DC. He adjusted peoples spines, lived in a quiet neiborhood, and loved his grandchildren, And there was something else he loved. Ever since he was a boy he’d just been fascinated with beavers. Their tails. Their teeth. Their lodges. He started collecting on a whim, just out of curiosity. And then the collection got bigger and friends started to add to it. And then it was so big it needed a wall. And then the wall was so full it needed a room.

Eventually Dr. Troyer retired and enjoyed having more time to read for pleasure. One day a friend pointed him to Ben Goldfarb’s book and he was surprised to find there were lots of reasons for everyone to care about beavers. He knew it was time for the collection to go someplace where it could be appreciated and help delight and educate more people. He donated it to that non profit in the book “Worth A Dam” just in time for the beaver festival that never happened in 2020. And then it was 2021 and time for another beaver festival happened in 2021. And then it was 2022.

And so the idea of great beaver GIVEAWAY was born.

To be perfectly honest it is true that I have always been especially enamored of children’s voices and I really wanted to hear children tell California why it needed beavers, especially since it was the children of Martinez who finally persuaded the mayor. And then Amelia did such fantastic art work for the California Beaver Summit and the governor appeared to be listening. And our NASA audio sound guy said he could record the children and strip out unwanted audio so that I can use the voices for films and Virginia said her sister worked as a fairy at fairy land and for children’s parties and would love to help AND the pediatrician scout mom said her boys loved the festival and wanted to participate this year, well it all seemed to come together when Jon put together this great display shelf for the stage.

The idea will be that children step up to a mic and say how beavers can help California like by saving water or slowing fires or making more birds etc and then the a boyscout will help the child get the collected beaver of their choice to keep. Cheryl will be standing by to take a picture. Parents will beam and ooh appreciatively. And then the NEXT child will do the same thing.

And will keep it up until there are no more children of no more beavers and everyone there has heard over and over WHY BEAVERS MATTER.

I am partial to the mountie myself. Which will your child choose?

HURDLES AND HIGH JUMPS

heidi08 Beaver Art May 30, 2022

I was never skilled at Math. It was the subject that I least enjoyed and I still have occasional nightmares of foggy final exams for Algebra courses I didn’t even know I was enrolled in until that day.

But I enjoyed statistics. Go figure. They made sense and I was willing to learn and follow the rules. I had a inspiring smart teacher that made us do every calculation by hand first, And I did my homework every single night. Sometimes twice. Which was super weird for me because I tended to only do papers, not actual homework. But as I climbed on through advanced statistics I started to get the feeling towards the end, Okay. That’s hard enough. STOP. I have learned ALL I can learn. I have worked as hard as I can work. Don’t teach me one more thing. I couldn’t bear it.

I remember distinctly sitting in class on the June day when Dr. Stampp was teaching us the formulas for the two way Anova right before the final as a last lesson. I remember bursting into tears which I could not conceal. She felt so bad she told me later she held her note book up so she couldn’t see my face. The Two way Anova would be on the final. I eventually learned it. I got a 100% and an award from the college for my work in the class. But I just have easily could have failed. Or exploded into a tangle of neurons. Brains splattered everywhere. It could have gone either way.

This festival is starting to feel a little like that.

I keep running into walls: FRO unable to help us, Alhambra Valley Band being unable to play. the EBRP mobile fish tank cancelling due to technical problems. And I keep doing the homework and solving the puzzle by pulling the solution from the furthest recesses of my – er – mind. And it’s working. Erika filling in for FRO. Alan’s trio filling in for AVB. Bees in the space where the fish tank might have been. It’s working.

But just barely.

The newest chapter is the exciting tale of Amelia’s computer dying and all her artwork inaccessible. Amelia has helped us with the beaver festival graphics since 2010 and we owe her more thanks than one person can possibly give. But this year we need to find our way without her. How? How?

The San Luis Obispo beaver brigade has a great graphic artist who works with them and has been friendly in the past to us and our work. I thought maybe I’d ask her for help. Which I did. And which she very generously said she would love to provide.

Terre Dunivant of Gaia Graphics will step in for this year’s festival brochure. We had a great talk about it this weekend and she is very on board with the job. On with the two way Anova!

Whenever I worry about the festival not working I remember this scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and it makes me smile.

Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you!

EVERYTHING’S COMING UP BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and climate change January 2, 2023

Amazing news report from KCBX yesterday. I had to fiddle with it to make a video. You’ll understand why when you click “play”.

How’s that for news you can use?

The meeting with the PRMCC went great, although I had to wait a long time to do my pony show. During the discussion of fire safety and the olive tree grove and funds earned by the Martinez Marina I had a flash back to every single dam city council meeting I anxiously sat thru for the beavers. Honestly just hearing anyone ask for a “motion” and a “second” traumatizes me.

There’s a fantastic new article about beavers from Montana FWP and we’ll be talking about it soon. I thought we could start though by checking out the amazing artwork. I had to write the author and the magazine to find the name of the artist, but this work is from Liz Bradford of North Carolina. You can bet I made sure Amy our chalk artist saw it too.

“JUST BEING HERE”

heidi08 Beaver Art May 18, 2022

I really needed this.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://vimeo.com/516013916″ lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

heidi08 Beaver Art May 13, 2022

Well we’ve fully entered the manic depressive phase of beaver festival planning, because I’ve already been elated by the initial promise that the EBRP fish mobile wanted to join us this year and yesterday dashed to hear that won’t in fact be possible. c’est la vie. I’m sure I’ll be ready for the padded cell soon.

Tuesday I have too appear before the Parks Recreation and Marine Cultural Commission and get final permissions. Lucky for me lingering covid means I can appear virtually via zoom. At least I won’t have to get into all that fuss about getting the special water key or opening a hydrant.

A lot happens at a beaver festival, even without a fish tank.

If you weren’t free wednesday night for the Cary Institute Presentation you can see everything you missed on the video here. I enjoyed everything about it although I would have tossed more credit to Mike Callahan and Skip Lisle for moving flow devices from the crazy to the practical, but that’s just me.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/HR38sfA0afI” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]