Our neighbors are quilters and puppet makers, teachers and dancers, lawyers and sales clerks. We visit, share food, spread news with lawyers, writers, doctors, students, actors, midwives, cooks. Our neighbors make up our human family, and we know each other by our faces and voices, by the seasons, by the steadying procession of morning and evening routine.

It’s the same for Patti Smith, Marlboro resident and part of the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center in West Brattleboro since its founding in 1991. She is currently the Director of Conservation Initiatives and Public Programs.

Some of her neighbors just happen to be beavers.

This is a lovely article. Becky Karush, the author, is clearly enchanted by the experience as she sets off for a beaver viewing with this magical braided wildlife re-habber who happens to carry three orphan possums that she has to feed 7 times a day. Their beaver viewing requires a hike through muddy wetlands and ends with apples for the beavers and hummus and wine for the adults. A heady mixture of enchantments.

As we walk, Patti and Luanne look for carnivorous sundew plants. Patti, who spends about two weeks camping near the beavers each summer, moves easily, sees the small treasures of the wetlands quickly, yet she lets her visitors make their discoveries in their own time. It is clear that, just as she visits the beaver’s house, we are in her house, and she is a gracious host.

“In some ways, this study has been more than I expected it to be, because it’s not just the beavers. It’s sitting by the pond in the evenings, watching seasons come and go, the flowers come and go, and the bird songs, and the frog songs, and the fireflies.”  Then she laughs. “But I would like to meet some other beavers! These guys are very staid. I’d love to see different behaviors.”

She calls for Bunchberry and Dewberry again. A small breeze lifts a single long hair that has escaped from her braid. It flutters and streams, almost invisible and impossibly delicate, like the pinkie nail-sized spring peeper she will soon spot, the gray tree frog song that will warble just above our heads, the low-growing sundew Luanne will find, and the pale yellow swamp lantern flower; the looping wood thrush song that will emerge with true dusk, and the three-tone white-throated sparrow song, too; and finally, just once, the hermit thrush will trill, and all of Patti’s neighbors will be home.

Did any body else just get a strong wave of “Tom Bombadil of the beavers”? There is definitely a strain of tolkein nature-wonder in her writing. Maybe Patti loves her work and her world so much she brings that out in you. Remember we met her last year when she followed a favorite beaver as he dispersed into adulthood in her charming column, “Ducky, All grown up“. It was reprinted in the Beaver Sprite newsletter and promted me to track her down and write appreciatively. She wrote back,

So wonderful to hear from you. I have visited your website and am impressed by your work to save beavers, and touched by the story of your beaver family. I am also a big fan of Skip Lisle’s. Always great to meet other friends of beavers!

Best, Patti

Skip writes that he’s friends with Patti which should come as a surprise to no one. The whole read is a delicious fancy to savor so I advise you to go check it out for yourself, as it is much better than anything you’ll find here. In the mean time I couldn’t help think cynically about the different experience Becky and Patti might have enjoyed on a visit to see OUR urban beavers. Indulge me for a moment…

As we walk, Heidi and Cheryl  look for carnivorous homeless while Jon stuffs  the most noxious trash furtively into a plastic bag. No hypodermic needles tonight, and there is a feeling of cheer among the crowd to notice that there are three whole trees the city hasn’t yet  vindictively trimmed into oblivion. A fight breaks out in the brew pub and the argument is briefly reflected on the water in a patch of rainbow oil. As the sun begins to set the wind stirs the smell of stale urine from beneath the bridges and raccoons emerge to pick through containers of abandoned cat food.

I have to stop myself here. That is wayyy too much fun. Suffice it to say that Patti and Becky’s experience would be somewhat – different – in Martinez. Which just goes to show that beaver magic is very powerful and can work in almost any environment. Thanks so much for the beautiful read, ladies, which transports us all to a better world that we can only imagine.

My mother said, I never should

Play with the Gypsies in the wood;

If I did, she would say,

Naughty little girl to disobey.

Your hair shan’t curl,

Your shoes shan’t shine,

You gypsy girl, you shan’t be mine.

The wood was dark, the grass was green,

In came Sally with a tambourine.

I went to sea – no ship to get across,

I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse,

I up on his back,

and was off in a crack –

Sally, tell my mother I shall never come back.

Old nursery Rhyme

Ohh and to punctuate  the point that beaver magic works anywhere, at the powerplant last night Jon saw a new kit in the river. He says he had forgotten how small they were. It was bobbing on the surface of the water and trying to balance and eat tules at the same time. It characteristically stuck its tail in the air for balance, which meant the wind kept blowing it over again and again. Maybe with dad back we’ll have our own kits next year. Fingers crossed!