In case you ever wonder about the name of the blog, yes, it’s a real place.
Here is a fading-light photo from my pocket camera of one of the beavers. We are happy to see them, both because beavers are cool and because their dams might be keeping more water in the shallow aquifer, thus benefiting our well.
On the down side, the beavers seem to eat up all of the tender willows, narrow-leaf cottonwoods, etc., after a year or two. Then they have to move elsewhere, but this year a pair is back in the old location.
Sure have been missing Hardscrabble Creek (the virtual one) during my hiatus.
Was up at Barker reservoir a week ago — an area where there has been a contentious beaver reintroduction effort in spite of the resistance by the cattle contingency. The Fish & Wildlife guys were up there with an excavator digging up the beaver dam for some reason or other involving the dike, hoping that the beavers would have time to rebuild before winter. I was eavesdropping on the conversation, so I may have mis-heard, but the man in charge was explaining how he succeeded his father in his position in the wildlife dept. & grew up following dad about in the Utah wilderness. With 40+ years under his belt, he said that wherever the beaver had been extirpated, the quakies failed to thrive. Whenever the beaver returned, the aspen rebounded. Just thought that was interesting in light of your observations about the willow & cottonwood trees. Hope your summer has been splendid. Beautiful creek. Looks a bit like one I know.
Beautiful 🙂
(Ah, beavers – the original coppicers?)