America is currently being educated by its students. Wednesday’s walkouts in Kansas and Florida and D.C. taught the grownups that problems are never too big to face and that if you have courage and right on your side, even towering bullies can seem smaller. I never counted on this generation to be the one that saves us all from the NRA, but what do I know?

I never expected Nebraska University students to lead the way on the ecology of beavers either.

ASUN passes Green Fund bill on beaver monitoring

The Association of Students of the University of Nebraska discussed a Green Fund project during its weekly senate meeting on Wednesday, March 14.

Green Fund chair Jackson Cutsor yielded his time to applied science graduate student Brooke Talbott to present Government Bill 44, titled “Green Fund: Urban Green Space.”

Talbott said beavers are the focus of the project, which is split into two phases. Phase 1 of the project would extract $3,304.98 from the 2017-18 Green Fund budget to purchase a timelapse camera and other equipment to observe the beavers and the wetland environment on UNL’s east campus.

Sen. Emma Schock asked about the lifetime and durability of the camera. Talbott said there could be issues with flooding in the proposed area on east campus, but the camera can be moved.

“Basically the reasons these cameras break is they get flooded out, so as long as we’re talking to the right people [and] placing it high enough, they don’t [break],” she said.

So college students in Nebraska are using their funds to watch beavers in urban areas with night cameras as part of their Green urban initiative? Because beaver wetlands are worth spending money on. You read that right.

Yes, they are.

Here in Martinez we realize that even urban beaver ponds are actually crossroads and way stations where anything might happen. An otter could meet a raccoon, and a stickleback could meet his end in the beak of a green heron. The ancients understood that crossroads represent the meeting of two realms of being, a duality of spirit and an opening for magic.

Since beaver ponds aren’t just a crossroads but three dimensional intersections where encounters take place above and below the water line and everywhere in between, the possibilities are endless.

And on this fine St Patrick’s Day this blessing seems the very truest about beavers.

May those who love us, love us.
Those who don’t, may God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles,
so we’ll know them by their limping.