Lakeside Living 2: Nothing’s sacred to a beaver~by Ruth Ross Saucier

    When my house was first built it faced the lake and was surrounded by three vacant lots that were mostly forest. The privacy was perfect.

    Mostly.  There was a one sightline in the forest that needed plugging. So I decided to buy a couple of those cylindrical hedge trees [Arborvitae for those of you in the know]—they’d make a perfect screen and complete the privacy of my deck. 

 It was August. That’s never stopped me before; I plant when I’m in the mood, not when it’s good for the plant.  It was pushing 90 degrees and the humidity made breathing a soggy experience.  I found a couple five-footers and lugged them to the car. Once home, I lugged and tugged them along the side of the house and finally got them positioned. Just that much had me miserably hot and sweaty, but this was going to be the project of the day, dammit, so I persevered.

Stupid.  I grabbed a shovel and started to dig. Hardpan. The entire lot had a layer of hardpan a few inches under the topsoil, but normally you could break through it to soil that wasn’t a layer of cement without a lot of turmoil. This hardpan, though, went down about five inches and required getting out the pick. I had to make a bigger hole, too, since the roots needed someplace to go that wasn’t the texture of concrete. A couple of hours later this soft, namby-pamby librarian was soaked in sweat and huffing and puffing like Thomas the Train.  Sweat is running freely down every crevice and my clothes are sopped.


Three hours total and the trees were planted, staked, watered, fertilized, and ready for their new life guarding my privacy. I staggered inside and stumbled into the shower.  Cleaner but no less exhausted, I wobbled downstairs to get something to drink. Glugging down a second drink, I paused when I saw motion in the yard.  The next thing I remember, I was out the door, across the deck, flying across the lawn, and screaming incoherent threats.

      Waddling faster now that he had a demented banshee after him, a BIG beaver was lugging a five-foot-long Arborvitae branch to the water. I galloped right up to him and he, after calculating his odds of survival, decided to drop the branch and make a break for the water. I skidded up to the edge of the lake as he rose from his dive and slapped the water with his tail. 

       Sweating all over again, I whirled and scooped up my prize: a major branch off my newly planted tree. At least I had saved that!


       From the deck my husband Dan inquired, “Just what were you gonna do with him if you caught him? And hey, now that you got the branch back, whacha gonna do with it, Elmer’s?”