Fun visit with Oxford yesterday. We chatted amiably about beavers. climate change and infrastructure for two hours and then Jon took her on a tour of the once beaver-besieged city. She’s off soon to visit Napa and OAEC in Sonoma. She’s particularly interested in how climate change is teaching us to turn to natural resources as coping tools, and thinks beavers will be part of that. I had to agree, and encouraged her to see the Beaver Believer film. She grew up right in Walnut Creek,  attending Las Juntas and WCI before hitting Cal Poly and Oxford. She  loves animals and knew all about the Lindsey Museum. I must say had more than one moment of being proud of what the Bay Area does right.

Now it’s back to the grindstone trying to figure out how to get the urban booklet ready for the printers by adding a ‘bleed’ whatever that might be. Then its grant application and finishing the cards for the festival so I’ll be ready when the next 60% off  sale strikes Vista Print again. Remember kids will be solving the ‘mystery’ of the missing salmon by ruling out wildlife suspects based on learning footprints. They start with just the prints and then these cards teach they what animal goes with them and ultimately gives the solution. They are going to be dam cute , doncha think?

Now lets talk about someone else for a change, because New Paltz Preserve at the bottom of New York State is doing a wonderful job.

At New Paltz’s Millbrook Preserve, beavers thrive close to civilization

This land, to be kept forever wild by the volunteer not-for-profit group Mill Brook Preserve, Inc. (MBPI), is like a magical world within the heart of town. There are pine groves and streams, multiple ponds and beaver dams and lodges as well as wild mushrooms and old-growth trees split in half by lightning that somehow came back to life.

It’s an enchanted parcel of land that was once a battleground between developers and open space preservationists: One group wanted to trap and kill beavers and drain the wetlands, while grassroots activists wanted to protect and preserve its various habitats for both existing wildlife and human recreation. In the end, a compromise was reached and the beavers stayed in their lodges, the blue herons continue to take flight with their prehistoric wings, snapping turtles grow ever larger and the cattails spike into the air like newly painted gold fingertips reaching upwards to scratch the sky.

Now any story that starts out with a battle to keep the beavers is one that’s near and dear to my heart. I actually remember writing about New Paltz Preserve during those battles so its nice to report on happy outcomes.

But let’s get back to beavers. True, they are rodents, which kind of makes them sound dirty; but they’re big rodents, growing up to 60 pounds, and the Mill Brook Preserve is like a beaver workshop! They’ve created a dam that would rival some of the world’s leading engineers, felling trees, of all different sizes, at the same exact angle. Not only are their chompers of industrial caliber, but they also keep growing as they continually gnaw through the night. Beavers, you see, are predominantly nocturnal. I’ve read that, but have also tried to walk through the Preserve at all times of the day (and evening) in an attempt to catch a beaver at work. It’s like trying to catch one of Santa’s elves — it’s nearly impossible! But one day at dusk, I did see two little beaver faces cruising in the lower pond, and my puppy caught their attention, because soon those tails were slapping so hard it sounded like Def Leppard’s one-armed drummer.

Nice that you keep an eye out for them, but not so surprising that you saw them at twilight. It takes a LONG time to get enough calories out of willow leaves to fill yourself up. Plus remember that twilight in the summer hours is often pretty late, so beavers just like humans want their breakfast!

This feeling — of being lost, or at least alone and quiet, and watching a flock of soon-to-be-migrating Canada geese glide en masse onto the glasslike surface of the water — is what the Preserve was conceived to do. According to its mission statement, it was “created to preserve open space; conserve biodiversity and wildlife habitats; to allow the existing natural systems to provide flood protection, erosion control, drainage and other natural functions; and to provide recreational and educational opportunities for residents and visitors.”

Ahh green spaces that become neighborhood treasures. Mark my words, soon buying a house will become all about not what playgrounds it is near, but what kind of nature it touches.  As biodiversity in the larger world gets smaller and smaller, the greenbelt is one of the few paces left where it can increase. And if you let it have beavers, that will increase it even more.

The Preserve provides a great outdoor classroom for Duzine students, who can learn about existing habitats for owls, foxes, opossums, muskrats and of course beavers. “It’s an escape into nature in people’s backyards. It truly feels wild in there,” said Seyfert-Lillis.

It’s the wild spaces nearest you that you learn most from. Somebody famous said that once. Or if they didn’t, they should have.