UPDATE: Sheetpile delivered this morning, by a very nice truck driver who spent the last four days driving down from Ontario. Apparently he has beavers on his property too, and wondered why ours didn’t tail slap at him. He gave the kindly beaver watchers canadian nickles with beavers on the back. Four sheets installed so far, they are moving farther away from the wall, nearly five feet, which will narrow the creek channel considerably. No one is talking about how this will affect the West bank, but I have some hunches. No sign of our hunkered beavers, they are staying out of harms way for now.
One of the things I appreciate most about our famous furry family is their cheerful capacity to adapt to unwelcome changes. When life hands beavers lemons, they settle down to making quantities of lemonade. The most recent evidence of this is their plucky and creative use of the straw baffles down by the footbridge. These plastic wrapped eyesores are performing the inexplicable function of keeping the higher water from the lower water, but the beavers have finally seen the sunny side. They are climbing on them, sitting on them, and tonight lovingly piling one with sticks.
A Dam Starter Kit.
If you need a little more good cheer this morning, take a look at beaver friend Moses Silva’s recent patriotic in vivo experiment. He wondered how beavers might vote in the upcoming presidential election. Of course beaver supporters are heterogenous group, and will make their own decisions come election day, but if you want to know how this particular experiment ended up, you’ll have to see the answer for yourself.
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=f_MfD_ZKMTo]
Inspired by all this sunshine, I’ll try some beaver optimism. Here’s hoping the sheet pile gets safely delivered and ten sheets get installed today. No beavers emerge from their hiding place during the work, and five people contact me to volunteer for thursday and friday watch. How’d I do?
