BEAVER LEGACIES

heidi08 Festival July 7, 2018

There was a nice article about the festival in its new location in the Martinez News Gazette Thursday. I vaguely remember chatting with the reporter, Donna Beth during the day before a sea of children commanded my attention.

New site works for Beaver Festival

Amy G. Hall, the Napa street painter, paints a beaver dam during the Beaver Festival in Susana Park

“It’s perfect for artwork, perfect for the stage, and people love it,” Perryman said from her own both, where she distributed sheets on which children could affix stickers they obtained from other groups after learning how important beavers are to their surroundings.

Those sheets, once decorated, resembled the chalk mural by Amy G. Hall, the Napa street painter. Hall wasn’t the only one to apply chalk to sidewalk during the festival. Anyone with a yen to do so was invited to create their own illustrations to the walkways

It’s nice to see how inviting the event looked from the sidewalk, like a real community festival, irresistibly inviting you in.

(I’m almost wish I could have been there myself, but of course, we were rather busy that day,)

Meanwhile the beaver world continues with its steady list of accomplishments that have nothing whatsoever to do with Martinez.

Like the Methow project, for instance.

CTFW utilize beavers in Methow salmon recovery work

Project relocates nuisance beavers into tributary streams along Methow River

Winthrop – Colville Tribes’ Fish and Wildlife is continuing its salmon recovery efforts in the Methow River basin with the help of some furry friends. The department is in its fifth year relocating beavers to key parts of the river as part of the Methow Salmon Recovery project to improve habitat for “threatened” Upper Columbia River steelhead and “endangered” spring Chinook, as well as coho, and summer Chinook.

According to Wagner, project goals are to improve fish habitat by: reducing summer water temperatures, increasing late summer stream flows, increasing juvenile salmonid rearing habitat, improving stream habitat complexity, trapping stream sediment, and in some cases reconnecting floodplains.

The question really is how will Kent Woodruff’s brainchild and project survive after Kent himself has retired? Will there be a lasting legacy that carries itself forward without his watchful eye?

I’m guessing yes. This is such a beloved project with so many partners that I’m betting it will carry on in Kent’s name long after he is smoking a pipe comfortably on the porch, Suzanne Fouty was asking me the same question about the beaver festival when she was here and that future I’m less sure of.

I’m not sure anyone else would be dam fool enough to take it on.

BY THE old Moulmein Pagoda

THE AFTER-GLOB

heidi08 Festival July 6, 2018

We have just three transactions left to complete the items from the silent auction! And they should all finish up today which means no more phone calls and no more festival details. On Wednesday we went for a walk in Susana Park and stared disbelieving at the space where a beaver festival used to be. The fish tank and many tents were all gone, there was nothing on the stage, and Amy’s lovely chalk mural was mostly faded into remnants, like the lost mosaic of some ancient Greek temple. We could just make out some teeth, and part of a wing.

But it looked mostly like melted ice cream on pavement.

I heard yesterday from the ice cream artist who had been out of commission for a few days. She said she had been understandably exhausted after the festival so she and her husband dropped everything and went backpacking in the Sierras. (!) When I commented on the paradox of being exhausted and going backpacking she explained that it wasn’t physical exhaustion she felt after her two day effort. It was mental exhaustion because she was trying to get everything just right so hard for so long.

Which I totally understand.

REFLECTIONS ON THE WATER

heidi08 Festival July 2, 2018

Over the years I’ve learned that every beaver festival has a different mood or vibe. Nothing is permanent and everything changes. Some seem full of children, some seem full of impatient parents and some are packed with die-hard martinez beaver defenders. This one seemed thick with passionate naturalists. Many younger and older adults who were drawn by the movie, the book, or the promise of learning more. The adult-heavy crowd meant that fewer children completed the sticker program this year but the ones that did clearly loved it. One child in particular collected all the stickers but patiently kept them because she wanted to put them on herself, carefully, at home.

There were still plenty of children though, fully engaged and eager. Here’s the proof:

I don’t think its possible to over-emphasize how meaningful it was to Amy in the middle creating such a magically wild world. It was a constant reminder to everyone there that in a very real way we are all responsible every day for the nature around us, and for the wilderness we allow underfoot. Once when Suzanne Fouty asked Amy if she minded how temporary all her work was, and how subject to erosion, Amy said that’s actually what she loves about chalk art.

It was a constant reminder to “Live in the moment“.

And what a moment it was! I called our child winners of the raffle yesterday who were so excited to be chosen! 28 children completed the post test and 19 of those got the answers correct. (Many were thrown by the idea that humans were ‘animals’ too.) Today we’ll send off the beaver puppets as a reward for the winners hard work, Then we can focus on closing out the remaining silent auction items. There are about 25 transactions left to complete.

This was one of my favorite parts of the mural. I’m so fond of the ripples made on the water by beaver movements, To my way of thinking they’re kind of like a living dynamic canvas that constantly records his/her movements on the watery medium..

Of course there were other favorite parts. The exciting myriad of bees and ladybugs. The curling and popular snakes. The glorious peregrine and the constantly evolving musicians.

But the famed beaver mobile remains a perennial favorite of young and old alike. My engineer brother in law was fascinated and wanted to know at once how it worked.

There was one last amazing thing that happened on July 30th and it had nothing what so ever to do with Worth A Dam or the beaver festival. Illuminaries artist Tim Hon created this downtown about three blocks away from the park on ferry street. The talented graffiti artist known for his promient Oakland Warriors pieces happens to live in Martinez, and wanted to memorialize the beavers he personally watched with fascination when he moved here.

A DAY FOR THE AGES

heidi08 Festival July 1, 2018

Yesterday was a eye-popping, gasp-inducing. heart-warming collection of everything you ever cared about packed together in one tree-lovely place. We were exhausted by the end from staring and straightening and I won’t be able to say anything reflective about it until at least tomorrow. I thought I’d just give you a few photos this morning so you had an idea of how it unfolded.

That will do for a start. Suffice it to say this festival had the best energy, the best music, the best volunteers and the best truly fascinated and appreciative attendees of all of them. We are grateful for everyone that participated and happy to have celebrated the Martinez beavers once again!

BEAVER FESTIVAL XI

heidi08 Festival June 30, 2018

Showtime! We’re off to the big BF. Yesterday was a kind of little bf, sitting in the park while Amy chalked this and chatting excitedly to the many onlookers. Poor Amy started working at 7:30. Here’s what she had done by the end of the day.