Do you know that feeling that Christmas night when you’ve already opened all the presents from all the relatives and been excited and/or disappointed all day in regular intervals. And after you reach way back in the pile to get your last aunt’s or second cousins gifts you find ONE FINAL PRESENT with your name on it. A present that you never knew about! A sudden opportunity to increase your haul and erase the disappointing socks or whatever you never wanted in the first place. You thought christmas was over. And here it is suddenly starting again!
Guess what Cheryl and Jean saw four of yesterday? I’ll give 
you a hint. It has fur, ears and a tiny tail. That’s right they saw FOUR kits instead of the lucky three we thought we had. Four is a lot! We haven’t had that many since 2008. It’s been seven long years since we had four new kits to fuss over and worry about. Here is one of our favorite mornings of all times, before the city decided to kill the beavers, before Worth A Dam, before I knew anything about websites or beavers. 
This was so long ago that I don’t even have the footage anymore, I didn’t know how to save it back them. We were just watching something wonderful in the town where we happened to live.
Four is the product of a strong healthy mom and a calorie-rich habitat, which I was starting to think the beavers had worn down. Especially since we only got a single kit last year. Encroaching phragmites or not there must be some feeding going on, because a beaver that has four babies is well fed. That brings our current count to NINE! Mom, Dad, 2 two-year olds, Junior and FOUR KITS! We’ve only had nine once before!
Wow, that bank hole must be crowded!
I guess during that early video from Moses one must have been still asleep? and missed out on the swimming lesson? I can’t wait to see four for myself and find out what this unexpected edition has in store!
I noticed that my letter to the editor was published in the Gazette. I was greatly annoyed by the loss of the fallen tree, when so many other nuisances are allowed to accumulate in the creek and this seemed like the best way to say it.
The tale of the invisibility park
Once upon a time there was a town with a patch of green that stretched between the creek and corp yard where everything that occurred became magically invisible. No one knew why.
At any hour of the day homeless, transients and criminals could drink alcohol, smoke weed, huff, sell drugs or even examine the contents of stolen property and even the police who visited would avert their eyes because the park, and everything that happened there, was invisible. Maintenance never disturbed the layers of trash, sleeping bags or empty bottles strewn there and the creek was allowed to become cluttered with debris.
Meanwhile, 30 feet away, a still living tree that had leaned into the water, providing food and shelter for birds, fish and beavers, was swiftly removed at considerable city expense. Because unlike the other miles of creek littered with shopping carts and tires, this particular section was NOT invisible.
– Heidi Perryman
Any time I can express public disapproval of the city’s ridiculous actions creatively enough to avoid looking mean, I’m a happy, happy girl.
