Uncategorized – Page 8

A whirlwind of beavers

heidi08 Uncategorized March 18, 2011

P1000097 — Rick Lanman (left) Michael Pollock (center) Cheryl Reynolds (Right)

Back down the mountainside after a dynamic presentation, good conversations with enthusiastic rangers followed by a cheerful lunch and drive swapping stories. This is an excellent picture of my traveling companions. I would be disappointed that the one of me didn’t take, but I have this slide as a token of my treasured adventure, which is much, much better. Look closely, this was presented by Dr. Pollock and summarizes research he did comparing the benefit to smolt production (baby salmonids) from large woody debris (LWD) placed in a stream bed versus the benefit of a beaver dam in a stream bed.

.

Take a moment to truly let these numbers sink in. We go from a benefit of tens of fish to more than a thousand fish. Not to mention that ‘replanting’ woody debris in ponds is expensive and time consuming. Beavers do it for free and do it vastly better. A powerful sermon in the growing beaver gospel!

When I got home there was an email from Glynnis Hood pointing me to this radio program. It’s a lovely interview and describes her excellent research and upcoming book. Go here to listen. I’m off to sleep for a couple hundred years. Wake me when we have new kits.

Yosemite

heidi08 Uncategorized March 15, 2011

20110315191124 — Yosemite at Dusk: Cheryl Reynolds

We got to the park just as the sun was setting and Cheryl snapped this picture just as it was starting to rain. Earlier I brought Pollock around the beaver dams and the Marina, and out to the Muir house for good measure then Lemon Grass for Pad Thai while we were waiting for Rick to fly in. Turns out Pollock was born in Walnut Creek which was very small world. On the way up we saw rushing falls, flowering trees, magpies, and a coyote. Then we checked into the fantastic hotel and had an excellent dinner and two bottles of wine. A quick sleep and then up tomorrow to present. I’m less nervous now that I feel like we’re old beaver friends.

More tomorrow.

Neglecting the Obvious Choice…

heidi08 Uncategorized March 11, 2011

Guess what? Bertola’s, the yellow restaurant next to the beaver dam, is closing down. Yesterday’s Martinez Gazette tells us that a new owner will open a pub on site with three levels of dining. Jim Blair is a longtime Martinez attorney, interested in the history and local color of the town. He wants to draw on its strengths and unique flavor. So of course he’s going to name the Brewery after the most famous residents of Alhambra Creek.

No, not those residents, silly. Not the ones on national news that people still come from out of state to see. Not the ones you can reliably watch every evening from the property’s back fence. Not the ones that have a yearly festival in their honor and that thousands of people associate with the name of Martinez. Apparently, Mr. Blair’s looking for a more apocryphal hero to draw customers to his establishment. Go figure. Worth A Dam wishes him well but we cannot recommend highly enough that he considers offering one of these dam fine beers:

Or there’s always this…

Work, work, work!

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Uncategorized March 7, 2011

Is there no rest for our beavers? Are periods of hard work not followed by periods of rest? Apparently not, but they aren’t called busy for nothing. Let’s hope they stay on top of this. I already received two alarmed emails from passers-by that were worried the city (or a certain nefarious property owner) was ripping out dams! i assured them the dam-age was natural in cause, and hopefully our beavers will go onward and upward from here.

Our friends in Kings Beach did some tree painting this week (mason sand mixed with latex paint discourages chewing) to keep the hungry city folks from crying ‘beaver’ when their cottonwoods are nibbled. They stopped on the way to shake down an aspen that had been beaver-chewed but stuck in some branches. Now its nice and low and in a perfect place for eating. Ahhh its lovely to see beaver friends in the sierras. Check out their snowy dedication!

I read this in the patch police log this weekend and am still trying to figure out what it means to our beavers. Fortunately it wasn’t one of us, taking water samples or picking up trash.

Not A Drop to Drink – A man was cited for drinking from the creek near Castro and Escobar streets.

just got the original log from Daniel Cameron Smith at Patch (thank you very much!) Looks like a case of ambiguous dangling participles, but I’m going to go with drinking ‘in’ the creek as in sitting in the creek drinking a beer, not ‘from’ the creek, as in lifting the murky water to his lips! But moving violeation? really?

15:55 Susp. Person 110227034

Occurred at Castro St/Escobar St. WMA LSW BBCAP, TSHIRT DRINKING IN THE CREEK ON THE GRASSY KNOLL ABOVE THE BEAVER DAM DRAINAGE. Disposition: Moving Violation Cite.

Oh, And the president asked about you last week, I thought you’d want to know.

And on a final, civic note, if you didn’t watch this last night, you really should:

The Best Button

heidi08 Uncategorized March 4, 2011

A day of thanks to our website wonder, Scott Artis of burrowing owl fame, for restoring our navigation links. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see their glorious Next and Previous features, and keep reading indefinitely! Thanks also to Jean Matuska who was willing to help out if she had to, and got us pointed in the right direction.