Wonderful things…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? June 14, 2014

Fantastic new promotion this morning for the beaver festival from our friend Sarah Koenisberg of the Beaver Believers. It will get your toe tapping and your incisors chomping at the bit for this year’s festival. Feel free to share.

Martinez Festival 2014 promo from Tensegrity Productions on Vimeo.

Another great article this morning from Cows and Fish in Canada

Beaver dams can slow the flow of water and cool it for fish to spawn. Sediment can also reduce the speed of water during a flood. | Mary MacArthur photo

Beavers can help protect waterways

Natural water management | Studies show that ponds with beaver dams had more water during periods of drought

PRIDDIS, Alta. —

Rempel helps manage the 4,800 acre Anne and Sandy Cross Conservation Area. He said beavers should be part of a holistic conservation plan on the former ranch south of Calgary.

The ecology groups Miistakis Institute, and Cows and Fish, collaborated to reintroduce beavers to the watershed in 2011.

“Wherever habitat is suitable, beavers change the watershed,” said Lorne Fitch with Cows and Fish, the Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society.

The change can be good when beaver dams and ponds increase groundwater, slow the flow of water and cool it for fish spawning, he said at a May 29 workshop in Priddis.

Sediment captured by beaver ponds broadens stream valleys with rich soil deposits over time. Up to 6,500 sq. metres or 382 tandem truckloads of sediment can be stored in each pond.

Beavers build ponds in a stair step style that can change the land gradients and reduce the speed of floods.

Good job Western Producerr! But honestly do we really require any more research to know that beaver ponds have more water in drought conditions? Honestly? Maybe we should also do some research on it being harder to see through a doorway when the door is closed? And children preferring jellybeans to green beans? And the canine inclination to rely on olfactory stimuli for information rather than social media?

Oh never mind. It’s a good article and we all start somewhere. Go read the whole thing here.

Meanwhile, did you hear the great news in downtown Martinez? We were one of the 20 winners in North America of the Benjamin Moore contest to repaint downtown. Sauciey’s bakery made a cake-sized replica of main street to celebrate. Guess what they included?

Martinez one of 20 cities in North America to get Benjamin Moore free coat of paint

MARTINEZ — It really is exciting to watch the paint dry on Main Street. That was the consensus when a crowd gathered to celebrate a colorful face lift for downtown.

Martinez is one of 20 cities across North America chosen for a free, fresh coat of paint by Benjamin Moore & Co.’s Main Street Matters program.

The public, local notables, business owners and shopkeepers joined Benjamin Moore executives for a full-blown party with music, balloon bouquets, drinks and a remarkable cake.

Saucie-cake — Martinez News Gazette – cake and baking team.

See that little ally in between the buildings? It’s the best part:

“It is the pinnacle part of the celebration,” Theresa Doolittle, owner of Saucie’s Bakery & Cafe said about the eight-foot long cake replica of Main Street Martinez, garnished with edible wetlands, a beaver and trees.

How delicious! I hope you save that piece especially for the mayor!

Come to think of it – maybe it would be better if he didn’t even notice. He just might send down Dave Scola to re-frost it?

(WGN in Chicago no long has this clip in their archives- but don’t worry. Heidi always will. Do yourself a Saturday morning favor and listen again.)

Great beaver viewing last night – but no baby sightings. At one point we were closely inspected by three beavers who came to the other side of the flow device near our bank to investigate!

Don’t leave beavers on the cutting room floor!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? June 14, 2014

As of today the Beaver Believers has 77 backers and have nearly met their initial goal of 9000. Last week, Fur-bearer Defenders signed on as their first corporate sponsor! There’s an interview with Sarah about the film here on FBD radio. (The other interview is with Simon Jones who has headed the VERY successful Scottish beaver trial, so it’s all worth your time.)

With new confidence that the film will reach its kick starting goal, Sarah released a stretch goal today. This will fund a more ambitious project with better grapics, more indepth information, and Oh incidentally MORE OF MARTINEZ.

What a whirlwind these last few days have been! Thank you all so much! Five days, 72 backers, and more than $7,500 already pledged – this is a dream come true.

An extra special thank you is in order for our first corporate sponsor, The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals! They are a non-profit organization based out of Canada that works to minimize human-wildlife conflicts and end the commercial fur trade. Check them out at http://furbearerdefenders.com/

We’ve made incredible progress but please keep spreading the word through your networks. We’re feeling confident we’ll reach our initial goal of $9,000, so we’ll be announcing our first “stretch goal” tomorrow. Our starting budget reflected the absolute bare minimum needed to get this film cut, but a bigger budget would allow for a longer, more thorough, and well-polished film; the addition of maps, graphics, and illustrations to help explain the scientific parts of the story; the creation of an original score recorded with actual musicians; and so much more.

THANK YOU!!!

-Sarah and The Beaver Believers Team I don’t see your name written up here. Mine is at the topish left. And Cheryl’s and Mike’s and Malcolm’s. Where’s yours? Did you know that we’ll get more about our urban beavers if you do your part? You could join at the 5 dollar level and show the world you’re a beaver believer! Or you could donate that nest egg you’ve been saving and really have something to show for it.

Donate today! Sarah has generously offered to send some footage for the beaver festival promo, so can you spare some support to thank her?

Showtime!

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured, Festival June 4, 2014

THE BEAVER BELIEVERS | a documentary

The urgency of climate change provides an unexpected opportunity for new partnerships and creative solutions in watershed restoration.

This inspiring yet whimsical film captures the vision, energy, and dedication of a handful of activists who share a passion for restoring the North American Beaver (Castor Canadensis) to much of its former habitat and range. Although this goal might seem esoteric or eccentric, The Beaver Believers shows us how this humble creature can not only help us restore streams and watersheds damaged by decades of neglect, beaver can also show us how to live more harmoniously with nature in an era of destabilizing climate change.

When beaver come into a watershed, they transform the stream system to meet their own needs for food and security. In so doing, their dams and ponds also create the conditions necessary for many other species to thrive. It’s a kind of generosity that is born of self-interest yet results in flourishing for all. What better metaphor to take to heart as we face the challenges that climate change brings?

In the end, our film is about much more than beaver and the people who believe in them, it’s about a new way of understanding our watersheds and our role in nature. By “thinking like a beaver,” we can create more bountiful ecosystems and more plentiful water resources, while also providing for our own needs and enriching our human communities at the same time. Beavers can show us the way and do much of the work for us if we can just find the humility to trust in the restorative powers of nature and our own ability to play a positive role in it.

Say hello to the launch of the new documentary ‘the beaver believers”. If it all looks vaguely familiar it should since they were filming last year at the beaver festival. They’ve been hard at work interviewing the other players and now are ready for film. Won’t you send them a little support to get post-production moving along? It couldn’t be easier and they have some adorable thank you gifts. I got the DVD of bloopers and out-takes because THAT’S what I really want to see! (Suzanne Fouty stepping in a cow-pie, or Sherri Tippie swearing like a sailor! hahaha) Go choose your own and show the world you’re a ‘beaver believer’.

Did you notice Cassy and our own Beaverettes in the promo? You better go watch it again. Go check out their slick website to see how it all fits together. I can’t put my finger on it, but this girl looks kinda familiar.

Okay, every one can stop making “Leave it to Beaver” puns now…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, featured April 16, 2014

The ultimate one has finally arrived.

Staying On-Beaver-Message

heidi08 Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental October 12, 2013

This is Keenan, one of the students of the Semester in the West group who are working on the “Beaver Believer” documentary. He is editing some of the miles of footage they shot this year with beaver professionals around the country (including here in Martinez). Oh, look what they posted on Facebook he’s editing now. He even dressed for the occasion. Gosh, I hope he doesn’t take out all the swear words. It won’t be the same story without it.

Let’s be candid, and you may not be at all surprised. I am not the kind of person who does well with being edited. (Think of me like that plant that doesn’t blossom when pruned, but does best when completely ignored and left alone to grow in the sidewalk.) Because I forced myself to travel through the howling caves of graduate school I have learned to appear to cooperate with the process, but all I ever really manage is to “endure” it. I hate it when someone snips out one word or inserts another. Hate it when that red pencil slashes its way through my carefully planted word garden.

Learning that they were editing my footage yesterday was much, much more disturbing. Like being a recently sketched comic book character chased by a giant eraser. Keenan was very gallant, and said that I was so eloquent theren’t were very many “ums” or swear words to edit. But I can do the math. This is supposed to be a 30 minute documentary. And they filmed heavy weights like Mary O’brien, Suzanne Fouty, and Sherri Tippie. That leaves about 1.5 minutes for Heidi, half of which will be the beaver festival and 45 seconds will be of me talking.

And what pithy one liner did I manage in an hour interview that was worth including? I can’t imagine. You see my dilemma.

Well, I did ask for the cutting-room floor leftovers and Sarah the producer said no problem, so maybe I’ll find use for the bulk of the interview yet. In the meantime another very fun thing happened to take my mind off the digital amputation. A student from UCB contacted me when I was on vacation because she needed to do a paper for a class called “Environmental Problem Solving” and thought of the Martinez Beavers as her topic. Brita came yesterday for an interview with me and to meet some Worth A Dam folks while watching beavers on the footbridge.

Earlier she had been invited to the Alhambra Watershed Meeting and met Mitch Avalon and Igor Skaredoff from the beaver subcommittee. Now I love Igor and Mitch but the beavers made sure we were wayyy more interesting. She got to see all three kits, Junior and Mom before the uncle paid a visit. You could see that this particular term paper research was the most fun research she had ever done, and we filled her with beaver good news before she left. She is a senior finishing up a double major in the field and hoping to head to graduate School in the fall.

The future for beavers just got a little brighter.

ESPM 100 Environmental Problem Solving

Analysis of contrasting approaches to understanding and solving environmental and resource management problems. Case studies and hands-on problem solving that integrate concepts, principles, and practices from physical, biological, social, and economic disciplines. Their use in environmental policies and resource and management plans.

Don’t you just love that this class exists in the world? Let’s read the syllabus. There should be a whole section on beavers.