Swamplands

We have taken a couple more trips to the dams since my last post. In the first trip, most of our time was taken up trying to find the dam and make the shortest possible path to it from the driveway. Our second trip we brought along our friend Kayla, and the three of us explored further than the first time to try to figure out how things were laid out and to start to formulate a plan of attack. And although it's fun to muck about and swamps are beautiful places, we discovered that the construction was much more extensive than we first realized. Cue the sad trombone! There are actually three dams, though the westernmost one (closest to the bridge) is the largest. Once we came upon a dam, we would look over the edge to see yet another stagnant pool. I was imagining them going on forever, but after the third the creek was flowing, though it was wide and reedy and split into several smaller streams. I've drawn a little sketch for reference:

North is up in this picture. The blue lines represent where the creek should run, and the red lines represent the driveway, running along to pass by the cabin and cross the bridge. The squiggly cyan line represents the overflowing water, and of course the magenta curves are the dams. Dam 1 is the biggest and newest, and they get progressively smaller and older as you travel east in the direction of the water flow. We made some small holes in the dams at the yellow X's, both to try to drain away some water, and to see what would happen. Would they be fixed immediately by beavers in the night, or are these older dams not maintained like the big one is? The yellow line going perpendicularly through Dam 1 is where I think we should put the beaver pipe. That is the newest and largest area of construction, where the dam is built up at least as tall as me.

This time, I brought along the iPhone in the handy waterproof pocket on the front of my waders, and took some pictures. I find this whole area to be beautiful, even though it's not really "supposed" to look like this. To the beavers I guess it looks perfect, but they don't have to worry about a flooded driveway.

Anyway, a couple days later I came back by myself to see if the holes we had made had been patched up. It appeared as if they had not; though some new sticks and debris were crossing and blocking them somewhat, it seemed to just be due to the water flowing and not to beaver activity. I'm not an expert even a little bit, but from what I've read beavers will completely patch up a hole good as new in one night.

I have to tell a funny story about that morning. I was clearing out one of the holes and went to pick up what looked like a bundle of sticks, but when I touched it and saw it closer up IT WAS A DEAD BEAVER. I shrieked and gagged. I screamed aloud that I hated the country because I just kept finding and touching dead animals. Then I started to examine it (from afar); it was laying right on top of the hole I had made (there was still mud built up underneath, so it was right next to the surface of the water. I noted the back legs, sticking straight up with little feet and big claws. I saw the wide, flat tail, which looked rough and pitted from decomposition. I saw the clumpy, matted brown fur. I steeled myself, grabbed a stick, and tried to move it. It wouldn't budge, I imagined having to dig it out of the mud and gagged again. But as I continued to look. . . it turned back into the clump of sticks wrapped tightly together with dead grasses that it has always been! I kicked it a few times and it came apart and floated away down the stream, but now even though I'm not usually a mystical person I can't help but feel that it was a message of some kind. From the beavers, perhaps? I think if they could talk they would say to us, "you'll have to kill us to get us to leave. Otherwise, we're just going to stay here forever, breeding and eating bark and felling trees." Good thing they've never heard of beaver pipes!