Picking up after the beavers

With the warm weather, it's time to jump in the water and find out what's happened over the winter. The pollen is thick on top of the water, but, under the surface, the water's clear. We found a couple of small logs that the beavers had cut down, but hadn't been able to drag to their lodge on the neighbor's shore.

We're still a few weeks away from being able to start serious work in the water. The lines that hold our dock steady have broken, the result of the churning of the ice. I have a couple of ideas on how to fix this. One of the challenges, however, is that the kivvers who live under the dock are fairly aggressive and will nip at me while I'm working under there. We'll reach an accommodation before long.

In all, we fared well through the winter with just the typical number of branches down. We have several trees that should come down at some point, but none poses an imminent danger to any of the buildings. Although the beavers like birch trees, these trees are too big, too old, and too far from the water for the beavers to be interested.