Alaska, apparently, but we had hard rain long enough to top both dams yesterday and make things a little more tenuous at the beaver ponds. This morning I saw ‘Reed’ slathering mud on the secondary and his sibling coming languidly back from downstream to check if he was done yet. Also a raccoon doing the breast stroke and a muskrat swimming in a manner I can only describe as ‘anxious’ out of the bank hole as soon as the beaver came back.
The pipe isn’t plugged NOW at any rate! The primary looks fairly robust, but the secondary showed some wear. It held up better than I expected. Obviously its not ALL made of reeds.
Well there’s no rest for the weary. Sigh. I received several emails yesterday containing only swear words from many a beaver lover who knows how hard these kids have worked on their dams, but honestly the beavers seemed to take it in stride. There are some problems beavers can’t fix. They can’t stop people from telling lies about them and they can’t prove that their relatives used to live in the Sierras. They can’t show family pictures of salmon comfortably leaping over their dams. They can’t publish a dissertation about how raising the watertable actually expands the riparian border even when they remove trees. Our beavers relied on us to stop the city, to keep away the trappers, and to limit the sheetpile.
But this one they can handle on their own.
Oh and for the record, rain on your wedding day is just inconvenient – not ironic. A divorce on your wedding day would be ironic. Or rain on the day you just installed a sprinkler system.
Just saying.
Oh and check out the lovely new brochure design from Amelia Niemi and Lorena Castillo. Isn’t it fantastic?
