A couple years back we noticed a beaver dam on Sutter Creek on the way to my parents house. Imagine beavers mining gold dust and using it to pack mud on their dams. Prospector beavers. We can’t get any closer than the road because its fiercely held private land, so we don’t know where the lodge is. The dam has had some horrible years, when its cut out and we think the beavers are gone or dead. But its back again, holding a solid pond that’s deep enough (but not too) deep.
The town is still sprinkled with snow patches, more so than usual. The low snow we had that dusted the hills in Lafayette and Orinda and coated the very base of Mt. Diablo, covered the foothills too. My parents, at 3700 feet, had 18 inches in a day. I missed the grand display, and only got to come for the melting.
I’m very jealous of missing out on watching how beavers manage snow and ice. Hope Ryden’s descriptions of beavers breaking ice to keep passage open is fascinating to read, and I would love to see it up close. She also describes the bubbles of beaver breath layered under the ice, which is delightful to think about. Bob Arnebeck wrote me recently that his New York beavers are already under ice. I wish I could find some snowy beavers. Maybe some right outside the window of a very warm lodge.
The other thing I’m jealous of in this weather is something I read about in a science paper once. In very cold weather, say 20 below, your standard ordinary soap bubble behaves differently. It rises from the warmth of your breath, and sometimes forms a strange plastic-like unpopping surface. But my favorite fact is this: Some soap bubbles will actually make a noise when they pop, like the tinkle of breaking glass. Now in order to try this neat trick you need to keep your bubble mix in a thermos and hope it doesn’t freeze before you blow a stream of perfect bubbles. Then wait very quiet and listen.
