Category: Earth Day

‘Milling About’

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental April 13, 2011

Enos A. Mills on a beaver walk with National Library Association librarians.

Beaver works are of economical and educational value besides adding a charm to the wilds. The beaver is a persistent practicer of conservation and should not perish from the hills and mountains of our land. Altogether, the beaver has so many interesting ways, is so useful, skillful, practical, and picturesque that his life and his deeds deserve a larger place in literature and in our hearts.

I know the site has been a little Mills-heavy for the past few days, but I truly can’t help it. Look at this photo of him taking the national librarians association for a beaver walk. He’s even carrying a chewed branch! Now yesterday I found out that he wrote John Muir in summer of 1907 and said he’d been lecturing in 25 states (Roosevelt had appointed him chief lecturer for the Department of Forestry) and mentioned he was planning a trip to California in October and could he visit him? Muir wrote back in August to invite him to the house. (Which, by the way, you’re all invited to on Saturday to celebrate Muir’s birthday and Earth day!)

Did Mills come? Did he stay at the house and walk around the orchards with Wanda or play hide and seek in the attic with Helen? I haven’t found any record of it yet, but John Muir was his Enos’ grand hero and inspiration and I can’t imagine Mills turning down an offer like that. I will keep snuffling along until I find a photo of Mills and Muir under the giant sequoia or in front of the carriage house. It could happen.

In the meantime,we should all stay keenly interested in the beaver activities of our very own wunderkits, who have just about finished rebuiding a very reed-heavy primary. It’s rather beautiful and basket-like (just in time for Easter!), and hopefully cheryl will get us some photos soon, but we haven’t been able to visit at a photographable hour these past few days. I actually don’t have a clear idea why they’re rebuilding the primary, since there’s no longer any lodge to keep under water. But they are. So there. Maybe its habit. Maybe its the shortest distance between two banks and as good a place to start as any. You’d better go see for yourself.

Oh, and if you happen to have trimmed your non-toxic trees for spring cleaning, you might consider dropping off the cuttings as building materials. It’s hard work being a beaver.

Mills & Muir

heidi08 Earth Day, Educational, Environmental April 12, 2011

In the meantime I’ve been mulling over the Muir-Mills connection from yesterday’s discovery. Several years back JMA purchased the Kimes collection, which the JMA website describes as

The William and Maymie Kimes Collection forms a unique resource of Muir’s literary efforts. In the course of the research, the Kimes contacted libraries, private collectors, and Muir descendants. They interviewed many who had known Muir, and/or the Hanna (descendants of Wanda Muir) and the Funk (descendants of Helen Muir) families. Bill Kimes and Helen Muir corresponded extensively.

So yesterday I was able to look at the list of items and see that the Kimes collection contains 7 books by Enos Mills, including one about grizzlies, some flyers and some photographs of Mills cabin. No sign of “In Beaver World”

Which means what exactly? It could mean that its just missing or mislabled. The work was published in March 1913 and Muir died in December of the following year. It could mean that Mills knew Muir was aging and disinterested at the time and didn’t want to bother him. It could mean that Muir loved the book so much he loaned it out to a good friend before his death. Or could it possibly mean that Mills assumed he wouldn’t be interested? Might he have known something about Muir and beavers that we don’t?

Hmm…John Muir was very fond of trees….

Well this is just the kind of mystery a beaver-loving member of the John Muir Association might be able to find an answer to. Consider my attention officially engaged. I’ll let you know if I learn anything. Oh:it gets better. In summer of 1907 Enos writes Muir and says I’m travelling all over and giving speeches and am planning a trip to California in October, and Muir writes back “Come to Martinez.”

My home was 9 years old.

Take some time out of your day to enjoy this:

Another Dam Update

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Uncategorized April 12, 2011

Beaver building update:

Jon saw evidence of building at the primary dam when he went down yesterday morning at 5, and Jean called excited by more work. Tonight things are clearly indicating work on the street side of the primary. Jon says more work this morning. All my fingers are all crossed, and yours should be too.

66 years more to go

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Uncategorized April 11, 2011

As I was cruising around the internet yesterday I came across this paper by Don J. Neff, and titled, astoundingly, A 70 year history of a Colorado beaver colony. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I settled down to read it. Would we learn how a colony responded to the loss of a mate? To serious flooding? Or what happens after beavers disperse? 70 years is a good long time. I couldn’t wait to read the secrets observers unfurled during that time.

Alas, the paper was entirely about the work of the colony over 70 years, and not about the beavers themselves. It told the story of new canals and lost dams in much the same way that an observer describing a new off ramp on highway 24 would learn about the lives of the people who drive it every day. I was very disappointed.

Above Moraine Pond Warren found a series of ponds, the first two being of good size and each containing a lodge. About 75 feet upstream was found a pond which was formed when a lodgepole pine on the south bank of the channel fell with the crown pointing downstream. The beavers used the mass of earth in the roots of the tree as part of a dam which created a pond some 15feet wide and 4 feet deep. The boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park crosses the stream immediately above the fallen pine and marks the approximate upper end of the Moraine Colony.

However, no beaver effort is wasted. The most interesting part of the paper is the summary of the 27 years it was observed by Enos Mills. The author of the paper uses his colorful and detailed observations, but describes them as dismissively unscientific and fragmented. I of course bought his book immediately, but found a google version this morning and am thrilled to recognize exactly what I was looking for.

The entire text is searchable here, and don’t bother me after earthday because I’ll be reading my copy over and over again. No radio collars, no telemetry, no regression analysis, no dendrite chronology – just a man with eyes and ears and the rare capacity to really watch beavers. Oh and if that’s not exciting enough for you, guess who the young man Enos was inspired by, met by chance on a SF beach in 1889, and ultimately befriended? I’ll give you a hint. He lived in Martinez.

Muir wrote to Mills in 1913: “I shall always feel good when I look your way: for you are making good on a noble career. I glory in your success as a writer and lecturer and in saving God’s parks for the welfare of humanity. Good luck and long life to you.”

So Enos is famously called the ‘John Muir’ of the rockies, and once said “I owe everything to Muir. If it hadn’t been for him I would have been a mere gypsy.” [Literary Digest, July 14, 1917] . John Muir who lived in Martinez. Where our beavers live. Who died a year after Enos “In Beaver World” was published. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by destiny?

Say it with me now. It’s a small beaver world.

Good News

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, Earth Day December 14, 2010

I have begun tracking down potential speakers for the JMA Birthday Earth day event. Jack Laws is busy that day, and I had the [crazy] idea that it would be good to have a female speaker this year, since they never have. Tom Rusert told me such amazing things about Zara McDonald of Felidae Conservation Fund that I wrote her contact person and asked if she’d be interested/available. I heard back immediately that she was both and we are talking when she gets back from London. Wouldn’t that be an exciting focus for conservation? Wildlife Corridors for Mountain Lions? L

Later I got an email from Cheryl that she just learned that Monterey SPCA picked up a sick yearling beaver a few days ago who was starting to look a little better. They were in contact with Cheryl Milhilm at Tahoe Wildlife Care and the beaver was starting to take food. Just 31 lbs, it was found wandering around a dry creek bed. My guess is its an early disperser that just didn’t get lucky. Of course I could think of only one question;

Is it a female?