Friends of Martinez Beavers – Page 83

Admiration

heidi08 Beaver News, Friends of Martinez Beavers January 7, 2010

Yesterday I was so thrilled with the new logo I dangled it appealingly in front of Jean Matuska who helps with the web design and said, wow wouldn’t this look great on the header, gosh too bad no one knows how to put it there. Mean while I was dangling the logo appealingly in front of the designer Kiriko Moth and saying, gosh wouldn’t this look great on a hunter green table cloth, too bad its the wrong color.

Joyfully, Kiriko offered to print the opposite of the design, and send that to our tablecloth order. And Jean figured out how to tuck the logo into the photo strip. Once we saw how easy it was to change the header I asked very politely, maybe someday, when she was burdened with free time, we could choose the photos together? Because our original web designer, Michael Cronnin, just picked those photos without our input. And Jean, who was inspired to great heights by the lovely logo and a charming owl protest on sunday, said, pick the photos and I’ll do it for you.

Give a hoot!

It was her 10th anniversary, so when they got back from a celebratory dinner, she made the switch! I wished her a very happy anniversary and assured her it was excellent luck to fix a beaver website on such an occasion. (Since beavers mate for life.)

I love the new photo strip, all originals from Cheryl Reynolds, more than I can say. But I thought it would be good to pause and remember the old one fondly. It saw the beavers from a time of great danger to a time of civic protection. From a time when we the site had 80 readers a day, to a time when it had 800 readers a day. It was a gift from a friend who donated generously with his time and made the painstaking transition from martinezbeavers.com to martinezbeavers.org/wordpress. It featured the dam and the flow device because that is what everyone needed to focus on. Now it features our heroes. The strip is dead. Long live the strip.

What to Leave Behind…

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers December 31, 2009

The news is filled with stories of New Yorkers being invited to write down things they want to leave behind in this decade and shred the paper to get rid of it. I have several thoughts about this. First of all, no true pagan would rely on a paper shredder for these important cleansing rituals. Sheesh. (I guess it was a no-burn day). But second of all, its worth a post. What would I leave behind when the wagons move on to the twenty-tens?

Sheetpile
Mary Tappel
Extermination as a management techique
Damaging the beaver habitat
Any reference to beaver as a sexual slang
My Martinez Rotary Club Experience
People who think beavers aren’t native to America
Not having our kits survive
Any twisted reference to how much the beavers “cost” Martinez
Kids Fishing at the Dam site
People who don’t return emails
News Media stealing our pictures and acting like they took them
All beaver puns, including but not limited to “gnawing problems” and “bank failure”.
Naturalists who insist on walking on the dam to get the best photo
Sheetpile
Oil in the streets making oil in our creek
Drunks and homeless who leave trash at the dam
Being told we can’t replace trees the beavers take
CDFG who seem to only say yes to killing requests
APHIS and USDA who help with the killing
People who steal things off the website without asking
Spelling Mistakes
People who complain that beaver dams will block salmon passage
Development and Redevelopment without respect for open space
People who say that Sheetpile through the lodge won’t harm beavers.
People who harrass burrowing owls, acorn woodpeckers, badgers and other species
Politicians who manipulate facts and financial data to control opinion
SPAM
People who think Muskrat are Beavers
Politicians who text friends during meetings or events
Anyone who reads a political twitter page
People who make jokes about shooting the beavers or using them for coats
Setting up the popup tent
Taking down the popup tent
Eye conditions affecting beavers
Buying ink cartridges for the printer
WordPress being weird
Sites that block you from copying photos or text
Paypal taking money for each donation
Not getting the tshirts for free
Comcast limiting the number of emails I can send or receive
Sheetpile and Lies about Sheetpile

Hmmm. I think that covers most of it. What did I miss? Don’t worry. I only complain once in a blue moon. Have fun tonight! Ohh and go read about Martinez successful rebranding effort!

UPDATE: One thing the beavers wanted to leave behind in 2009. The big willow right by the primary dam. Lets just say its position is no longer “precarious”.

Tis the Season…

heidi08 Burrowing Owls, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers December 24, 2009

Okay. It’s the real Eve. I have cookies to cut and beavers to decorate. I will leave you with this bit of cheer which never ever fails to make me smile. Especially the words “mostly” and “you know what?”

Meanwhile, supporter GP wrote Martin Salter, the anti-beaver MP in england, (as did many of you, thanks!) and got back a copy of his official pro-salmon anti-beaver paperwork, which I sent along to the beaver-salmon research group of Brock Dolman. And Scott of JournOwl has been working hard to save the remaining owls with a ton of new supporters organized by SFEP Lisa Owen’s Viani. She has put him in touch with Michael Graf, the environmental attorney in El Cerrito that helped us with our sheet pile tragedy, and they may be able to get something slowed down legally. Our own VP Cheryl went and walked the area with Scott yesterday and took this photo of a remaining owl awaiting foreclosure.

Photos: Cheryl Reynolds

Christmas Eve, Eve

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers December 23, 2009

Ahhh. Even when I was a child, with no responsibilities but opening presents happily and remembering to say “thankyou”, I preferred Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Very very soon I realized that the anticipation was (for me) better than the event itself. Thinking about what I would be given or the expression my sister would make when she opened her whatever, was always better than the actual experience itself. In part because imagination is Infinite and the event is finite. (And don’t even get me started talking about the depressing void of boxing day) So Christmas Eve was at the heart of the holiday season for me.

Now as an adult, Christmas Eve is more like the event itself. Because there are dinners to prepare, guests towels to assemble and counters to keep tidy. I have officially moved the glorious anticipation day up by 24 hours: to Christmas Eve, Eve. I invite you to try this as well.

Think about it. Christmas Eve, Eve, has almost no responsibilities, and if there are things that need to get done, there aren’t yet people they need to be done for. It’s buffered by a pleasant warm sense of good things to come, and a cozy fullness of life and possibility.

Beavers, on the other hand, are definitely Christmas Morning kinda of creatures. They don’t seem burdened much with anticipation or disappointment. They live in the “now” and have an enviable enthusiasm for whatever it is they’re doing at the moment, even though they’re able to plan ahead and work on future goals. A beaver can come the next day to a job sight carrying tools he decided he needed the day before, but never once during the intervening time worry about meeting his goals. S/he makes the plan. Executes the plan. Revises the plan. Shares the plan. And eats the plan.

Happy Christmas Eve, Eve. If you need more good cheer, check out beaver friend Joe Eaton’s article today in the Daily Planet about the otters in Jewel Lake. A certain beaver pond is mentioned.

Happy Solstice to You Too

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species December 22, 2009

Scott Artis writes that the owl kick-out order was apparently granted just in time. Before the ink was dry on the CDFG signature allowing the eviction of the burrowing owls and the fumigation of the ground squirrels, Kiper went to work.

In any event, I stumbled upon the first round of evictions by Kiper Homes’ consulting firm way sooner than expected. As I wandered through the unlocked chain link fence I found a team of 3 actively enlarging the burrows of the owls my wife and I have come to obsess over in terms of their protection. I continued down the middle of the street looking over burrows marked with flags of orange and red, plexi-glass fitted one-way doors blocking burrows that sheltered a family during breeding season, and adjacent burrows that provided extra cover were now overflowing with soil and rocks. The eviction of the first section was just about complete and the process continued uninterrupted in the background as I spoke with the principle biologist. I couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder as the shovels filled in burrows that months earlier I had cleared of garbage and debris.

Scott and his wife were there, sadly recording the damage as burrows were widened and fitted with one-way doors, and other adjacent areas were filled with soil and rocks. Scott had a talk with the biologist hired gun on site, who admitted that the squirrels were enormously important to the habitat and thought they deserved protection. In this discussion Scott also learned that there is no data on how evicted owls recover, or whether they recover at all.

The eviction process simply functions by ASSUMPTION that displaced owls do fine and is apparently at the behest of the California Department of Fish & Game who no longer requires banding of the evicted. So again I am left with the feeling that the owls are a Species of Not So Special Concern.

Burrowing Owl Eviction Begins.

Obviously Kiper (rhymes with viper) wanted this done in time for the holidays. Who can celebrate with their family while bands of hoodlum owls are loose in the neighborhood? When I look at Scott’s smart, bitter video I know exactly how he feels. There but for the grace of 200 people…

Have I told you all lately how much I love you?