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
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.
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!
