View of the chute the beavers use to harvest tree branches; with figure

"A figure in a landscape: strip the artifacts away 

And leave a habitat composed of water,

trees, and glaciated soil."

from The Interior of the Future

by John Koethe

Well maybe not trees. The beavers, in the 5-6 years the cabin has been completed, a period coinciding with higher water levels, have taken down thousands of trees. There are three beaver lodges nearby and so the attack has come from every direction. While they are fun to watch and their efforts have opened some unexpected vista's, moving thru the felled trees is a challenge. The bird habitat is reduced and the more highly visible cabin a bit of a security risk. My brother-in-law an expert in everything beaver tells me that they will eventually take all the nearby trees and move on. He also refers to them as nature's little wonders. However by that point we will be a moonscape with tripping hazards. I placed wire around some trees, an expensive solution and we have also brought in spruce seedlings, since beaver are less likely to eat them. But to some extent we have to try to imagine a different landscape than the beautiful poplar grove we started with. The sloughs are often surrounded by drowned trees from rising water levels as well. As they obtain their water via groundwater, rain and snow melt the beavers do not build dams here and probably do not influence the levels much. Some 15 years ago the sloughs began to dry up, some completely and the populations of beavers and species of ducks like Blue Winged Teals crashed. The beavers have come back with a vengeance pushing into new areas in a competition for space and harvesting wider areas around the sloughs.

I have mentioned the rather pivotable role beavers have played in my life in an earlier post here.

https://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-beaver.html

But I wish they were a bit neater. 

And attempts at negotiation are going no better than those with the tent caterpillars earlier in the summer.

                                 

Image from ISFDB website. 

Illustration Future Future Fiction, Number One, Nov. 1939