Steady Gets The Job Done

For the past several weeks there has been a beaver nightly gnawing away at a hackberry tree on the bank across the creek behind our house.  Most nights, when I let out Chloe, my English Springer, to run around for a final pit stop before bed, I can hear the beaver rustling through the dry scrub and dead limbs.  From the back of the house I can see where it's worn a slide sloping down the bank (the creek is down greatly...we've had very little rain the past few months).  A hundred yards up creek the reason behind his work is evident.  There is a dam that spans the width of the creek, but it's holding very little water with the water flow no more than eight or ten feet wide.  Perhaps it's expecting, in some knowing way, the weather to change.  For the creek to begin to fill.  Maybe the beaver is simply doing what is likes to do.  Maybe it's the natural imprint of nature operating in my back yard.

Then last week it chased my son one night when he decided it would be fun to try and get close to it and throw a rock to scare it.  I don't know that beaver get scared; perhaps annoyed, but this one was obviously mad because it charged my son who did the right thing and backed off.  After his telling me of this nocturnal stand off, it made consider this particular beaver more closely.

The hackberry, which is by no means a sapling, began to show signs of more attention.  I thought first an accomplice, but this beaver is a loner.  I've seen the tracks around the tree and at the top of the slide, but they indicate only one.  This beaver had a real stake in this tree.  Having seen its dam, I wasn't sure how a twelve inch diameter hackberry would benefit him at this point, and I wasn't sure how he would ever drag it up to the dam's location.  At his current rate, given whatever similar projects he may have going, I believe he'll be through the tree in another week.

I admire this patience and his ethic towards his work.  Oh I know there's a physiological purpose to his chewing, but perhaps it's something more than his teeth he needs to keep trimmed.  Perhaps it's an inherent challenge with wood, the fiber both nourishment and job satisfaction.  We'll see what the new work week will bring...