The Mixed Blessing of Beavers
As if I weren’t busy enough myself, I’m taking on someone else’s backlog!!! A while back, a family of beavers built a dam on our neighbor’s land, right on the property line with Heathcote Community. The dam is on a part of the stream that humans had dammed back in the 1800’s with an impressive stone wall, diverting the stream for the Heathcote Mill. The mill eventually ceased operation, was later a horse barn, and has been Heathcote Community’s Conference Center for over 40 years. The pond the human dam created reverted back to marshy floodplane, filling in with soil. Bank-retaining trees, such as Japanese fantail pussywillow, have been planted along the winding stream.
The most notable modern feature is that a driveway now runs along the top of that stone wall, accessing the properties of two Heathcote neighbors. Now that beavers have dammed the stream, their pond had flooded that driveway and cascaded over the stone wall, eroding the gravel and asphalt of the driveway and causing our neighbors to have to drive through a new stream when they come and go.
Since the beavers are actually on our neighbor’s land, Heathcoters had several academic discussions about them, but didn’t rush to action. One neighbor did, hacking a huge chunk out of the beaver dam and hauling it away in his pickup. It took the beavers only a few days to repair it, and the water level rose quickly over a few days, again threatening the driveway.
Beavers have a superficial reputation for being highly distructive of the environment, felling numbers of trees and flooding areas with their ponds. However, when you look at their activities in more depth, beavers are actually quite a blessing to an area like ours.
Shortly after our beavers established their pond in the tree filled, marshy area, a family of ducks appeared. Heathcote often has duck pairs pass through, visiting our pond and then moving on to more secluded areas. Now the valley has a safe area for them and I’ve been thrilled to see the babies. Another Heathcoter reports seeing a muskrat at the dam.
As soon as the beavers repaired the dam, I saw a family of otters arrive, including at least 3 young ones! This is more good news, not only because the beaver pond is becoming a habitat for a whole new range of wildlife, but beccause otters make holes in beaver dams (to allow larger fish to pass; easy catching on the other side) thus otter holes help mitigate flooding.
Further, the ponds that beavers create help the water table recharge by slowing down the stream and they deposit enriching minerals in the soil.
So how can Heathcote and our neighbors cohabitate with our beavers and their neighbors–ducks, muskrats and otters? I’ll be meeting with my neighbors in the next few days to discuss solutions I’ve researched. I’ll report back soon. I’d love to hear your experiences with beavers, too!
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Launching the Hippie Chick Bubble
As a writer, I’ve often joked that I never have to make anything up. I have the laziest muse on record. I just stand in one place and crazy, goofy, fringe things happen. Or maybe my eyes are just open.
I’ve certainly lived an interesting life. I grew up in a haunted house, been “out and proud” and “genderfluid”, been to film school, been a widely published performance poet, and I live in what some would call a “commune.” I lead homeschoolers in classes that take place up in trees and in the creek. And now I’m planning a child as a polyamorous coparent. It’s not my stories but the rules of life that I’m making up as I go. This is my diary.
You can use tags to follow many threads through my entries over time–coparenting, intentional community, veganism, love, sustainability, etc.
I’ve come to realize that living at Heathcote, a cooperative community in Maryland, has helped me to walk my talk more authentically than if I lived on my own. Read about my community experiences here on Hippie Chick Diaries. I’ll add content to help you explore if Intentional Community is right for you, such as reviews of communities I visit and links to communities and information organizations.
Watch for regular features of this site, like the bumper sticker of the week, and emails to and from my favorite online social network friend, onewitheverything. Coming soon is my list of great names for a band. Feel free to email your suggestions! Some posts will be longer articles with photo galleries and links to explore topics further.
In this first post I have to sing big love to Paul, of Co Op Tek, and Roni, of Skinny Minny Media, for walking me blindfolded through website development. I’d trust you guys in traffic! Thanks for your patience and excitement on this project.
Here we go! Keep that Hippie Chick bubble off the ground!
–Wren Tuatha
