So far no more beavers...

I just got back from a visit to the property with my friends Gisela, Kathi, and Joanne, and so far so good! Not a single buck-toothed, buzz-sawed bite of baby oak tree has been taken since we battened down and built the anti-beaver protective tree cages. Yea!

Not a Creature is Stirring...

So, it is now one of my favorite parts of Christmas time--everything is done: the house is clean, the food is prepared, the gifts are wrapped, and everyone is sleeping--except me! I've taken my annual Christmas Eve photos, to remind myself how peaceful everything was:

Evil Beavers!

Sure, they look innocent enough:

But the dead stumps from 20 dead baby oak trees out on our new property tell a different story! Today we fought back. First Mark and Monica un-log-jammed the bridge, which the beavers had taken over, we assume to build their lodge:

While I do feel sorry for them and do not want to create downtrodden, homeless beavers, we do not want the backed-up creek flooding our (that sounds so cool!) new property. We compromised and loosened up the logs jam but left the bulk of their underwater home intact. 

Next we worked on building wire cages to place around the base of the baby trees (mostly oak, which must be very tasty for beavers, since more than half of the trees have recently been buzz sawed by the buck-toothed bandits!)

  

Besides building our hopefully beaver-proof tree cages, we also sprayed the trees with an animal repellent that will supposedly cause an "instant state of fear" in beavers. It smelled REALLY bad, so I imagine it may actually work. We will know soon enough!

What a happy day!

Today was perfect!

Our Property, in Manteno, IL

Hi Peggy

Steve and Teddy sleeping peacefully I think this time it will work.

Let's See Here...

So, I'm trying to figure out how to open this blog up to multiple authors, and it turns out I can grant you permission to create new posts, or you can just comment on mine. I'm not sure how that will look, so I'm waiting for one of you to give it a try.