Here’s the thing…

The first time I saw our beavers was walking with my father on the Marina Vista bridge in 2007. I was so excited I felt like alice looking through the doorway to another world.  I have closely watched them for 8 years now. I have learned how they work and how they play. I know the sound they make when they want attention and the sound they make when they want to be left alone. I know they take time to make decisions, and I know that when dams washout they rebuild at their own pace. I have learned from watching other people watch beavers that it’s upsetting when dams get destroyed in monumental storms and I tell our friends in Napa or Nantucket or New York to have faith, and that beavers have their own logic for when to start building. I comfort people when they ask if the beavers have moved on, and I know that every year has its own challenges. I remember that beavers are hardy enough to be the first to recolonize Mt. St. Helen’s after the eruption and Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster. I know that having a safe place to live in what for them must be for them a very dangerous world is tremendously valuable, so that even if the beavers have to commute for their favorite dinner, it’s still worth it. I know all this.

But sometimes…when its been 36 days without a sighting and no signs of beaver activity at all, even I, possibly the most enthusiastic beaver cheerleader that world has ever known, who has spent going on 3000 mornings writing about beavers, who spends an entire year planning their party, even I get discouraged. What if they have finally moved on? No one stays for ever in one place. What if the washouts or lack of habitat finally pressured then to look for greener pastures? What if this is our post-beaver period?. Would we still have a festival with no beavers? Would I still maintain the website with no beavers? Would I still give talks about beavers without having any beavers? Would I stay here in this PB town and watch the mud wash away and the flow device rust or would I move in with our Napa friends? Or become a bitter beaver-less donut without a center forever more?

And then something happens.

That’s the secondary dam with fresh coyote bush across the top. And a curvy willow branch was eaten above the primary. So unless public works is eating branches and building dams at night, Martinez still has beavers. We still have beavers! Happy new year, Merry Christmas and we still have beavers! Someday, eventually. inevitably, we will get to the end of this glorious ride, but not today. Not yet. And you can guess how I feel about it.