Cheryl took this video with her iPhone last night above the Ward street bridge. The kit came out of a bank hole up there and was a little too eager on his approach. Since we saw him there and his uncles there a couple days ago but by the primary on the 9th I’m assuming he’s been “staying abroad” since the last big high tide which was on the 16th.

In the mean time we know he has family to keep him company and plenty to eat so we’ll assume he’s good. If mom doesn’t come fetch him he will either walk home or take the next high tide on the 30th. Stay tuned.

Speaking of the unexpected, that was quite a ride last night. I checked in with our beaver friends in Napa, they are all OK but cleaning up what fell at the moment. Robin is so sweet she actually went down to check on the beavers!

It was frightful!!! Haven’t heard from the others yet, but I’m fine with just some minor damage (dishes). Started feeling increasingly panicked, so grabbed a big flashlight and some loppers and headed to the dam. No sign of the beavers–probably huddled together in the lodge, poor babies!—but everything was in order. Eerie, but in order. I think some algae had moved. I do wonder what they thought.

Ahh, I’d be more worried if it happened during the day. At 3:20 am they were probably all swimming happily about and probably just noticed waves. I found these helpful observations from the Washington DC zoo when they had a big quake. On exactly this day in 2011 we learned how beavers respond to earthquakes.

D.C. Pandas Don’t Care About Earthquakes

The Zoo staff released a list of some of the animal responses as the ground started rumbling. The apes had some warning and didn’t mess around:

Beavers took to the water:

The beavers stopped eating, stood on their hind legs and looked around, then got into the water, too. They all stayed in the water. Within an hour, some of the beavers returned to land to continue eating.

The Heidi house rolled for a good long time, and several books were knocked off their shelves, but we’re fine. I thought it telling that wooden letters reading PEACE fell from one doorway. But as of this morning we carefully put them back.