Carter and I were out walking in the back fields a couple of weeks ago (this was before he broke his leg, and before the last of the snow melted), when we happened upon what looked, at first glance, to be a big pile of brush.
Upon closer inspection, however, it became very obvious that this wasn’t just a pile of sticks left over from the neighbor clearing brush for his AVT or deer blind. This was the work of the local wildlife: a small beaver lodge. I’ve seen beaver dams before, and the occasional small tree that beavers have cut down, but because the small dammed lake was still frozen enough to support my weight, I was able to get up really close for the first time.
The size of the trees that have cut down is very impressive. The photos don’t show the scale very well, but these are the stumps of 4 to 6 inch diameter trees.
It’s hard to take a good picture of the dam when you’re standing on top of it, but I tried to get a shot which also showed the stream that they’ve dammed up to create the pond around their lodge. The dam is only about 2 or 3 feet high, but they’ve excavated earth to build the dam itself, and so the pond is probably at least 4 feet deep. It must be deep enough for the water at the bottom not to freeze, anyway.
I wonder how many of them there are, just one family group, or a whole colony? They’re awfully industrious: these trees, at the edge of the pond they’re creating, are huge! And will be coming down soon, I expect:
Timber!
out here 
We’ve met In Real Life a few times too, years back – you probably don’t remember me, but I was manning (name elided)’s book table at (place elided) in 2000-ish and you needed a place to sit down for a while 🙂 I’ve since moved back to Canada.
I’m afraid I don’t – I’ve got neurological issues and my memory for people and contexts is not of the best. I remember (name elided) and (event-inna-field elided) and if I saw your face, I might well remember meeting you. I have friended you.
Also, OMG, beavers! I was just on a walk today and we were looking at a strange arrangement of sticks in water, trying to see if they were chaos or reintroduced beavers. I thought probably with beavers around, there would be more visible signs. I come here and lo! I am now certain there were no beavers.