![]() With his tail sticking out in front of him and his great round belly as ballast, this mountain of beaver scrubs his belly with balled fists. Bunchberry, sated, relinquishes his place, slips into the buoying water, dips his head under a couple of times and then climbs back ashore on the tip of the little spit of land in front of me. ![]() Sundew, a veteran of two winters, arrives with an excited squeaky greeting and clambers over her father’s tail to sniff for nuggets. The chorus of amorous spring peepers reverberates. The robins give their good night tut-tut-tuts from the treetops. The sun is gone and as the landscape fades to monochrome, the soundscape becomes amplified. Willow’s mate, Bunchberry, closes his eyes as he chews. ![]() As we relax companionably, a second beaver steams ashore and settles down in front of me. Now as I run my hand across her cold wet back, I can feel each knob of her spine, each rib. Even then her jutting hip bones suggested that youth was behind her. Five winters have passed since I first met Willow on this shore. She reaches out with her dexterous paws and sifts through the vegetation in front of her until she locates one of the rodent nuggets I have left for her. I offer her my human greeting and she strolls up the bank and flops down beside me. Once beached in the shallow water, the beaver pauses, one paw raised. The source of the ripples steers a trajectory toward my seat. I see the sky reflected in ripples that slice a V across the dark, still water. Although the downstream beavers had projects at hand, something in this flood roused them they read in it a summons to restore the pond that they had abandoned some five winters before.Īnd so, on May 6, I found myself once again seated on the mossy shore of this familiar cove of Popple’s Pond. As the flow increased to a torrent, the waters of Popple’s Pond plunged downstream where, a quarter mile below, the flood aroused the interest of a crew of engineers, the likely descendents of the beavers that created Popple’s Pond decades ago. ON MAY 2, A TRICKLE OF WATER worked its way through a weakening matrix of mud and sticks in the base of the dam that contained Popple’s Pond. These stories offer respite to those wearied by the barrage of bad news, and a chance to reconnect with the nature that perseveres around us. Keep this book wherever you have a moment for a short adventure- to follow the trail of a bear cub through the moonlight, enter the low-roofed world of the snowshoe hare, or to stand in the midst of a melee of migrating amphibians. After three years with the beavers, readers are invited to accompany the author to other worlds where different characters await. ![]() The author, a native of this landscape, brings a naturalist's eye and a compassionate voice to these stories. Meet Terrible Jack the lonely moose, Henri the civilized goose, and the myriad small creatures that populate the night forest. Through the seasons, and through the years, these records-transformed into interwoven vignettes-invite the reader to enter the world of the beavers and the other inhabitants of the wetlands. They scramble ashore and poke eagerly about her feet as she prepares to picnic and to record the events that transpire on the shores of Popple's Pond. Willow, Popple, and their progeny begin the night's work of dam repair, scent marking, tree felling until a soft call alerts them to the arrival of the strange honorary member of their clan, this book's author, Patti Smith. Tucked away in a remote stream valley in Vermont, a dynasty of beavers has nearly completed the restoration of the meadows and ponds that adorned this stream in the days before the beavers of a continent were turned into top hats.
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