Finally Bought Some Land

[j44ke]

It would be fun if a young toothy lad with ambition came along and restored the dam on your property.

We are accepting resumes. Families welcome.

[Mabouya]

We are accepting resumes. Families welcome.

If you really want some beavers to move in I bet the Dept of Natural Resources (or whatever the equivalent is called in your area) can hook you up. More typically they have to deal with "relocations" from areas where they aren't wanted (I don't know if they try to find new homes for them or if they dispose of them in a less humane manner) so they may be able to help.

On the down side, if none have moved in there may be a good (bad) reason. Again, the DNR folks can probably diagnose the situation and suggest options.

Caveat: I know next to nothing about the critters.

[j44ke]

I can’t remember exactly the complication but it is something like people requested relocated beavers and then a few weeks later had a really nice beaver hat. So the state does relocate beavers but it seems like it is tough to get one. They usually go to less populous areas. Our landlords lost their beaver family (someone secretly trapped all the beavers) and they actually got a replacement beaver from the state (the landlord knows everyone) but the beaver packed up and headed downstream about 2-3 miles. They tried to keep the beaver dam going, but it seems like you need a beaver for this to work and it fell apart and their pond drained. Now it is a nice wetlands but their canoe looks a bit forlorn.

[htwoopup]

One of the interesting things this city boy learned being in a Canadian town with five rivers is that beavers seem to create a multi-animal environment. A lot of other creatures end up sheltering over the winter in the beaver hut. I have been told that the beavers even share their food with the otters, mice, etc that they welcome in. I have also been told (I don’t know if it is true or Quebec folklore) that one of the reasons that beavers choose where they do to build a dam is the sound of rushing water. Supposedly they have very sensitive ears and don’t like the sound of rushing water so they then build a dam to stop the sound. Which then creates the pond which then creates an area with more stuff that they eat and a whole other better environment. Sort of natural real estate development. So, perhaps if you clear out the stream a bit to get it to flow more you will naturally attract a beaver which attracts another and then you are good. A swimming hole by the time you are 60.

[marley]

I would tend to believe the rushing water folklore - from yesterdays ride - one of several sites in this park with Beaver activity. We have seen them swimming around moving branches to a dam and they will slap their tales to scare you off.
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[72gmc]

A PBS Nature doc from a few years ago (called Leave it to Beavers, of course) goes into a lot of this—the rushing water sound, hosting animals in the beaver lodge, restoring wetlands with a beaver dam. It’s a great show.

[j44ke]

This pond is about 5 miles away from our property as the crow flies, but I don't know how far that is in beaver distance - probably 25 miles. It has two fat senior beavers and 2-3 smaller beavers patrolling its waters. Just before this photo, I popped up over a berm along the road mid-ride and startled the bunch. A few tail slaps later and this was all that was left. Young beavers are pretty cute. I should have drawn out a map on a piece of bark and floated it over towards the house.

[htwoopup]

Before seeing the posts from Marley and 72gmc above, I went to our town environmental people to ask about what I had thought was folklore. (Probably for the vote thread...we have an environmental department chief who has a person that does stuff with "wet" animals like beavers, otters, fish and a person who does "dry" animals like deer, mouse, lynx and a person who does "boreal flora" and someone who worries about farming and how it is influenced and does influence...and I pay less taxes here than on a smaller house in Long Island NY and there are better schools here).

Any way...the "wet" animal woman said that the noise thing is real. In fact, the town does something that I found interesting to protect the drain pipes that route the streams under the roads. She said they used to try to move the beavers to save the infrastructure but they figured out that they can put obstructions a bit upstream of the drain pipes sometimes by pounding in sticks and sometimes with piles of rocks. This causes the water to have different currents and make noise and "fall over itself" (a rough translation from the French). Then the beavers do their branch/ dam work around that obstruction to quiet it and then that drains gently and quietly (but drains is the operative idea) through the now protected drain pipe. In that way, the town spends less money while protecting the pipe and the road and has happy wild life.

After reading Jorn's post above, I reached out to her again. She said 5 miles is nothing if you are upstream and it is a straight shot. She said if it is turning (I think she meant twisting creek in how it runs) between you upstream and the current pond then it is a bit of a long way...but not because of distance. I think (because French is not my first language and I suck at it) that she was saying because if it is twisty then there might be other places that a beaver might find attractive to stop and try to make that his home. What she suggested, if you are upstream, is to place a pile of rocks perhaps on the edge of the deeper part of the stream to make it change course/ have to go over the rocks/ make it "fall over itself"...I think make noise and turbulence. And then you might attract a beaver or two. She said don't worry about the pond downstream...they don't fully block the stream they just slow it/ calm it so the downstream pond (she said this without knowing the details though) should still be fine.

I say all of this because I have found the best thing after a hot summer ride is a dip in the water. A natural pond or lake is even better than a hot tub (that I am also suggesting off of the house towards the garage perhaps).

[htwoopup]

Just an aside...autocorrect on above said mouse...I typed moose. We had one which was lost and disoriented swimming off of our dock on the lake. According to the "dry" animal people who came it was 700-800 pounds. Ugly as sin. But cool to see. They tranquilized it and took it away. Although she swam out into the deeper water and they had to commandeer some pontoon boats to get her so she didn't fall asleep in the deep and drown. Any way...I meant moose. I don't know who in this town does the thinking and caring for field mice.

[j44ke]

Here's the outflow from what used to be the beaver pond and is now a wetlands. There are a lot of sticks on either side of the stream and jammed under the fallen log, but I haven't be able to look closely enough to see if they have teeth marks. We did see a couple saplings cut at the edge of the wetlands, but again, couldn't quite get to them without risking ice and freezing water. More research later!

[mnoble485]

Great photo Jorn, almost makes me miss snow...almost.

Mike

[j44ke]

Great photo Jorn, almost makes me miss snow...almost.

Mike

Thanks! I have full-on cabin fever right now. Pouring rain outside and I was all geared up for riding today after misreading the weather report. Worked on country house and city building stuff all week and don't seem to have achieved anything in either regard. Hurry up and wait. Ready to chew my leg off.

[caleb]

This pond is about 5 miles away from our property as the crow flies, but I don't know how far that is in beaver distance - probably 25 miles.

A couple years ago, my wife and I were driving across Montana and ran across a plaque about beaver trapping in the area. Apparently Montana used to have a lot of beavers, and a lot of beaver ponds. During the top hat era, they were pretty much trapped out, and their ponds were drained. They've never made a comeback, partly because they're really bad at moving across large distances of dry land, and partly because farmers and ranchers using the land that used to be beaver ponds prevented the beavers from repopulating. The point was that getting rid of the beavers totally changed the landscape of Montana, perhaps even altering the climate, likely permanently.

Where was I going with that? Oh yeah, I think you should truck some beavers in.

[j44ke]

The carpenters have hit their stride now. All ceiling joists in and plywood down plus pop-up room (my wife's office with a view) begun.

[j44ke]

Better details on these non-panorama shots.







As you can see, mud has become a bit of a problem. Have to park the car down the hill and walk up through the woods for traction.

[davids]

I didn't know Mentos made black!

mentos-fruit_0.png

[j44ke]

Took me a little bit to figure that out - just like a Mentos commercial.

[davids]

Took me a little bit to figure that out - just like a Mentos commercial.

It was a bad joke and I'm sorry as can be.

By the way, the house looks great. Keep the updates coming, please!

[ides1056]

Having become familiar with the productivity of these creatures, I would have loved to see their ancestors' handiwork before Clovis man eradicated them.

Castoroides - Wikipedia

[j44ke]

We got a very nice handwritten letter from one of our neighbors who has been using the property (with permission of the former owner) we just added to our collection as part of their morning perambulation and wondered if we would allow them continue. We gave them permission and will visit them in a week (they have sheep and a goat!) Of course, we spied on them through their social media and asked a few repositories of local knowledge (our landlords, the postal carrier) about them first.

Several neighboring properties have bright orange signs up that say NO TRESPASSING or POSTED and often NO HUNTING FISHING OR TRAPPING WITHOUT PERMISSION OF OWNER etc.

What's the experience with signs? I know from a liability standpoint you are damned if you don't but it doesn't really protect you if you do. If I don't need them to keep the peace, then I'd rather not use them. I don't see trash in either property, no obvious lumber removal, ruts from motorcycles or quads, so the land hasn't been abused even before we bought it. But I look across the boundary and see all the signs on neighboring properties and wonder if I am just being a naive city person.