Yesterday the coordinator of Sulpher Springs Wildlife Course called me and wanted to arrange a class around a beaver visit. I sadly had to tell her we had no beavers to visit at the moment, and she was very disappointed. It reminded me that there are so many things I miss about not having beavers: following family members, seeing them build and interact, being surprised ever time I would visit the dam and seeing all the new wildlife drawn to our urban creek.
But of all the things I miss this may be the most poignant. That view of the big nose heading your way. I just love this photo Suzi! Thank you so much for bringing the moment to life and making it ours forever. There are many things we will have in our memories for a lifetime, but that is one of my favorite.
And just in case we’re feeling sad about the loss of what was, here’s a treat from our Napa friends. No matter what kind of beaver-missing holiday blues might experience, every time I see this I start giggling. It’s not hard to know where this photo came from, that’s for sure. I mean, if your indexing system was mixed up accidentally and you didn’t know what photos came from where, and you saw THIS photo: you would instantly remember.
Napatopia is so proud of their curve-tailed beavers they’re even mentioned in the RCD end of the year film which Robin sent my way. Two beaver moments include a photo by Hank and a photo of measuring the dam.
Some nice wintry writing from Vermont as usual, this by columnist Faith Gong for the Addison County Independent.
Faith in Vermont: A Thank-You to Snow
Snow refreshes our view of the world’s beauty.
Stare at any one scene long enough and, no matter how beautiful, it will become commonplace. I am thankful for the large picture window over our kitchen sink, through which I look out over a rolling field surrounded by towering trees. But after several months of seeing this same gorgeous scenery multiple times a day, I was starting to take it for granted.
Enter winter, and snow: With the leaves off the trees, the weeds reduced to sparse, dried stalks, and the smooth snow revealing paths where once there were none, my daughters and I set off one afternoon to explore.
We began at the beaver pond, which was frozen enough to uphold careful walking (with occasional feet-through-the-ice incidents providing just the right amount of adrenaline-pumping excitement.) We located the mound of the beavers’ house, where the beavers overwinter in cozy burrows dug beneath the muddy banks. Then we followed the frozen stream, a tributary of Muddy Branch, about 500 meters south.
It turns out that “our” beaver pond is part of a network of beaver ponds, with impressive dams blocking the water in at least three spots along the stream. We saw the tracks of deer, rabbits, birds, and mid-sized mammals (Coyote? Bobcat? House cat? We enjoyed speculating.) We found an enormous tree, easily a century old, which dangled huge gnarled branches into the frozen pond below. My daughter climbed one of these branches and found an old board nailed across the bottom boughs, remnants of somebody’s old hunting stand.
It was another world, but it had been there all along, just a few yards from our house. And without the snow, we could never have accessed it so easily.
Now, my thoughts will often slip across the field, past the trees and the old barbed wire fence, to where the beavers busily fell trees and build their houses and dams, the deer drink from the stream, and the bobcats hunt for food. They haven’t heard the latest news of political intrigue, atrocities of war, or sick relatives, and they don’t care. They’re just doing what they do, and what they’ll go on doing after today’s news is older than that huge old tree.
Somehow, I find this immensely comforting.
Why is the entire state of Vermont so sanguine and wise about beavers? It can’t just be Skip Lisle, or Patti Smith. I think we should all have maple syrup on our pancakes and think about that for a moment. I almost never write mean things about Vermont misunderstanding beavers. Thank you for this lovely column and many, many others.
Speaking of wintry things I enjoy, at the moment I’m completely mesmerized by Kisima Innitchuya. And I’m guessing at least one of the readers of this will be too. I’m not a big gamer so I started off by getting killed by a polar bear several times in many interesting ways, but it is so magical to be friended by the white fox and employ my spirit guides that I don’t mind trying again. The Innuit narrations and cultural guides you ‘earn’ are brilliant and magical. And the tribal voices telling stories are really wonderful. Maybe I’ll even meet a beaver?
At a whopping 99 cents its a luxury you can probably afford, and it’s worth every penny.
