Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers, and happy Thursday to everyone else, pilgrims and natives alike. Honesty who hasn’t done a favor for someone and later regretted it? Whether it’s that roommate you let borrow your civic or the boyfriend you gave your trig notes too, we’ve all made deals we lived to regret. Take Ukraine for instance.
It’s actually kind of sweet they made an national holiday for it.
Of course just because the relatives are coming over and you’re busy basting is no reason not to complain about beavers. God knows every day is a day to complain about beavers. Right?
A busy beaver wreaks havoc in Olathe
An unwelcome guest at Olathe Community Park has done a lot of damage to trees there.
Working at night, a suspected beaver rapidly gnawed his way through several trunks, and high winds did the rest. Rather than gathering larger wood to build a dam, the animal is apparently after the tender twigs and leaves at the top of the tree and is storing them in a hidden den as food for the winter. At least three trees are down including the pictured one which represents about 15 years of growth. More than a dozen others have lost bark to the busy creature
What I particularly love about this story is the photo. Notice they put up orange caution fencing around the scene of the crime to keep the neighborhood safe. Good lord I almost expect to see a chalk outline of the tree itself. Or maybe some crime scene tape marking off the area.
Darrin Scott, parks director for the Town of Olathe, has set out a live trap in hopes of capturing and relocating the beast. As of Nov. 22, parks personnel haven’t caught the beaver, but they also haven’t seen the animal or spotted him on camera, so they’re hoping their attempts at capture have made him uncomfortable enough to leave the area.
Sure. Great idea. It’s 32 degrees this morning in Olathe and the area gets three feet of snow on average so a beaver dropped into a soon freezing home will quickly starve. But hey, it looks good in the paper so just say you’re going to “live trap” and everyone will feel better. And sure, don’t bother wire wrapping any of the remaining trees to prepare for next time, because why on earth would you waste time with actual solutions that when you can just kill the intruders?
One of my favorite modernish Thanksgiving traditions is to watch the Buffy episode about its celebration, which, if you never have, you really should before you leave this life, even if you’re not a Buffy fan. She’s in college and a angry Chumash indian and when his ghostly tribe attacks the southern California campus and a surprisingly profound discussion of what the holiday means ensues. Here’s a little taste, For clarification in these scenes the blonde tied-up fellow is a vampire, and the woman in the front of the second clip is a 1000 year old ex-demon. Everyone is plain folk like you and me, well you anyway,
Enjoy your ritual sacrifice with pie.
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