Reflections on the Fourth Week of Winter – Not Patient with Mysteries

Old Dam Broken

    Thursday night, Deer Creek roared through the valley. Rain pelted the windows, and wind howled through treetops. I crawled into bed and pulled a flannel sheet, comforter, and nine patch quilt over my head. The creek’s roar penetrated the house’s eight-inch thick logs and the covers.

    The sound also triggered a memory of slipping and landing on hands and knees in frigid, sparkling water an arm’s-length deep. The creek had babbled while I walked beside it that sunny March afternoon, but, pinning me down, the rushing current roared inches below my ears. Would it have battered me against the rocky bottom all the way to French Creek and beyond if Spence hadn’t offered me his hand?

    I shivered.

    The January creek, filled with melted snow and the day’s hard rain, had to be higher, wider, and more powerful. Would the current wash the resident beavers away with their dams and bank dens?

    Instead of jumping out of bed to Google the answer, I yawned. “Be patient,” I told myself. “Check the dens in the morning.”

    The raucous lullaby lulled me to sleep.

    Friday morning, I pulled on hiking boots, pushed my arms into a winter jacket, and grabbed my camera. When I opened the front door, Spence yelled, “Wait.”

    Feet thudding to the floor, he set his computer on the coffee table, jogged across the room, and grabbed his winter vest. “I’m coming too.”

    We squished across the field, down the path, and onto the flood plain. Receding water had deposited chunks of creek ice and clumps of twigs. Picking our way around the debris, we ambled along the narrower branch of Deer Creek to the old beaver dam a few feet below the hillside feeder stream that marks the north boundary of Wells Wood.

    Water splashed and hurtled around a fragment of the beaver dam. The current had washed away the other two thirds.

    I peered upstream,but branches blocked my view. “Do you think the bank den washed away too?”

    Spence shrugged. “I’m not Google.”

   I bit my lip and considered options. Wading through the muddy, hurtling stream to check the den in our grouchy neighbor’s bank? No. That left brave trespassing with the hope Hutch wasn’t home or wait for the flood to recede further.

    I’m not patient with mysteries.

    “We’ll have to walk up Hutch’s bank.” I paced beside the feeder. No shallow spots.

    Spence called from a bend. “We can try here.”

    I joined him by white tipped rapids two feet from a rock the size and shape of a bushel basket turned on its side.

    He stepped onto the rock, wobbled, and stretched his other foot to the gravel on our neighbor’s property. Spence extended his arm across the water. “If you slip on the rock, you’ll get really wet.”

    Grabbing his hand, I stepped onto the rock–round not slippery–and leapt to the bank.

    Our feet squished though mud and stretched across several more flood-fed feeders along Hutch’s beaver-cleared plain. A four foot wide feeder stopped us. Too muddy to guess its depth. I didn’t care. I could see the bank den with its stick lodge top in tact.

Old Dam Bank Den

    “Look. Beavers.” Spence whispered.

    My eyes scanned the flood plain. “Where?”

    “By the lodge. In the water.” Spence pointed. “Two of them.”

    With its head and hump of its back exposed, a beaver swam toward a downed tree.

    I lifted my camera.

    The beaver dove.

    I lowered the camera and scanned the water for the second beaver. Also submerged.

    Spence put his hands on my shoulders. “If we’re quiet, they might come back.”

    I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t answer but doubted the beavers would surface. They’d heard humans near their den so would stay inside an hour or more.

    Water swirled and rushed.

    Five minutes later, crack.

    I jumped, and Spence let go of my shoulders.

    On the hill above us, someone had shot a 22 rifle.

    Time to leave.

    As fast as squishing mud would permit, we hustled to the bushel basket rock and stepped over the white tipped rapids. Exchanging grins, we moseyed down our bank to the confluence of the Deer Creek branches.

    I didn’t consider wading across swirling brown Deer Creek. Instead, I gazed up the wider branch for a peek at the new dam.

    Bank to bank water.

    A white cap topped a wave extended halfway across the branch at the new dam site–the only sign the dam might have survived.

   “The bank den above the new dam’s even higher than the old den,” I said convincing myself those beavers survived the flood too. But the den downstream was lower. “Let’s check the third den.”

   Spence bowed and waved his arm for me to lead. “I’m following you, babe.”

    Giggling, I walked twenty yards and halted.

Flooded Path and Flooded Deer Creek

    Water covered the creek path and spread across the flood plain.

    I turned to Spence. “We can’t get there from here.”

    He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you want, we can go up to the field and walk down the tractor path.”

    I nodded, trudged up the hill, across the field, and onto Spence’s tractor path. Run off flowed in the tire tracks so I walked down the hump in the middle.

    Spence walked beside the path. “Do you want to come here where it’s drier?”

    “No,” I said content in the moist middle. But the path leveled on the flood plain, and the hump disappeared under water. I giant-stepped to the side with Spence.

    A few yards later, the first of three flood plain streams blocked our way. “I can’t get to the creek.”

    Spence chuckled. “You could say the creek came to you.”

Path to Creek

    I moved off the path to catch sight of the bank den. No luck. Stepping over a feeder and onto soggier ground, I spied the pile of sticks topping the lower bank den. But, intervening tree branches obscured the view. Satisfied that the third beaver family’s bank den survived, I inched around a mature maple to get a better camera angle. After each step, I took a picture.

    Slosh-click, slosh-click, slosh-click until my right foot carved a sloppy “s” in the mud.

    My torso twisted in the opposite direction.

    I raised the camera above my head.

    My right knee thudded into the soggy ground.

    Mud splattered my jeans.

    Yuck.

    At least I wasn’t kneeling in the rushing water.

    Spence penguin-stepped toward me. “Are you okay?”

    Grabbing the maple above half a dozen shelf mushrooms, I stood and inhaled the musky aroma of wet bark. “Yeah,” I mumbled but didn’t add if you don’t count feeling stupid.

    I watched my boots and took another step. Lifting my chin, I snapped one last picture.

    We slogged up hill to the log house.

    Content to sit in the Adirondack chair by the toasty wood stove fire, I looked through the sliding glass door. Treetops bent in the wind. As if mimicking the slopes of beaver mud slides, rain cascaded in angles. Elongated drops morphed into icy pellets and covered the deck with a sparkling glaze. The sky darkened. Teensy snow flakes fell.

    Saturday morning, ice and snow blanketed Wells Wood. No need to check on the beavers. Their fur and snug dens would keep them safe no matter how much snow fell.

    How much did fall?

    I grabbed a plastic ruler, pushed my bare feet into boots, and slid the door until it stopped in the snow piled on the sill tracks. Pulling in my abdomen, I squeezed through the opening and stuck the ruler into the deck snow. Eight inches.

    Everywhere?

    I leaned to the right and stuck in the ruler. Leaned left. Stuck. Stepped forward. Stuck. Eight inches everywhere.

    I squeezed back inside.

    Spence chuckled behind his hand. “Did you see that?” He whispered to our cat George licking his fur on the sofa beside Spence. “She put her bare feet into the boots.”

    Of course. I’m not patient with mysteries.

Downstream Bank Den Lodge Top