Lakeside Living 9: Beaver Fever by Ruth Ross Saucier

               

The lake began life as a marsh more than fifty years ago. In a move that would not be allowed today, a developer dammed up the northern end of the stream with an earthen dam, and the marsh soon filled up creating a small lake. Well, it was really a large pond in most peoples’ eyes, and some used-to-be Texans I know remarked that in Texas it would be nothing more than a pothole. But it was water, and the local wildlife approved of the lake and the dam.

Particularly the beavers. Except, of course, they knew that it could be improved, so they set about nestling in and re-engineering the lake in ways that pleased them.  The stream and its new earth dam were a good start, but the beavers had bigger dreams. By the time I moved in and went

exploring, the beaver dam was a wall six feet high holding back a pond sixty to seventy feet across and fifty feet wide.

My home on the lake was bordered by woods mostly consisting of alders and fir trees. Beavers cut down trees and brush for both eating and building purposes. There is nothing more enticing to a beaver mama and her babies, though, than a lovely tender alder between three and eight inches in diameter—the perfect size for munching, cutting down, teaching babies, and ferrying to your perpetually growing home.  So it was inevitable that one day we found an alder eaten mostly all

the way through. Did you know that beavers typically eat about two thirds of a tree and leave it for the wind to blow down? While their motives are unclear, I suspect a beaver OSHA safety regulation. After ascertaining that the tree could slam into the house, we ended up having to cut the tree down ourselves.

In addition to the large beaver dam at the southern end, our local beaver colony had also built a small den on the northern end, directly across from my house.  This locale appeared to be the place for babies to be born and nurtured. Every spring and summer, baby beavers appeared, swimming purposefully in the cove, intent on nipping small brush and carrying it away to their local den with an underwater entrance.  The new babies hadn’t quite gotten control of their tails yet: their tails tended to float and they sculled with their tails up high, slapping the top water with great industry but little effectiveness at first. With time and practice they learned to zoom, but at no time did they ever forget themselves and just play like otters; their lives were busy with purpose and visions of damming the world.

But it was the huge beaver dam at the far end of the lake that was a marvel of engineering. The sheer volume of water it contained gave credence to a bit of local folklore.  Several years before I bought my house there, a few of the locals had evidently taken exception to the remodeling of their beaver neighbors. Not only had the beavers built a huge dam at Lake Symington, they had built a string of dams farther upstream as well. So some of the locals decided to blow up three of the beaver dams —simultaneously.  Each destroyed dam disgorged thousands of gallons of water, trees, brush, mud, and rotting muck into the stream, gathering momentum and volume as it flowed downhill into the lake.  The lake experienced a mini-tsunami, swamping yards and trampling boats and docks.  The homeowners were reputed to have been displeased; but I’m betting the beavers just saw it as a chance to remodel.

Lakeside Living 8: Otterly Ridiculous by Ruth Ross Saucier

      When I first moved to the lake, it took me nearly two years to sort out which critters were swimming in my little cove: otters or beavers?  Chance flashes of tails brought the answer: both. But their tails rarely showed above water and their heads were too close to call; I needed more evidence to reliably identify my neighbors.  Eventually, I discovered their habits and their seasons were different.

      In the spring, the otters would show up in the early morning and fish the little cove in front of the house, diving and swooping, traveling 50-70 feet underwater and only resurfacing for air or to nibble on a sushi snack that didn’t immediately surrender. Their long sleek lines would curl over smoothly as they dove and rarely if ever did they show their long, pointed tails. But their speed and fluidity were unparalleled. 

Otters getting a breath leave the ice pockmarked.

      At some point in late spring the otters would move out of my cove and wouldn’t return until winter.  The lake would rarely freeze; but when it did, the otters came out to play. One year the lake developed a thin skin of ice and snow.  Before the ice melted away, though, the cove was full of otter sign: the thin ice was pockmarked with holes where the otters had surfaced. Each hole soon began to skim over with ice, but the pattern was unmistakable.

      One winter morning I woke to a bleak vista. The lake was frozen hard, with only a few places where the water was still open. There was a bitter wind gusting out of the southwest, causing swirls and clouds of snow to scud across the open ice. But there was something weird out there, a large dark lump on the ice about 200 feet out. The binoculars didn’t help, the clump was unmoving; probably somebody’s stray tarp or … but wait!

      As I watched, the clump began to heave and disentangle itself into two large otters and three babies. The family started a wrassling match right there on the ice, heedless of the frigid wind. They dove and rolled like a frenzied ball of snakes, the orb seething and twisting over and over until one of the babies zoomed away from the pack and slipped across the ice and into the open water.

      A split second later he slipped up and out of the water, rejoining the family frolic. But the whole family got the message now. Running and slithering across the ice, they all took turns sliding and slipping into the water hole and resurfacing onto the ice as smoothly as they left.

     And then they were gone; lured into the dark water and its promise of sleeping fish. And I, once again, was left with nothing but the memory, seared indelibly by my profound joy.

Lakeside Living 7: Duck Seasons ~ by Ruth Ross Saucier

When you live on a lake you find yourself telling the seasons and predicting weather in more natural ways.  The house faced the lake (SSE), so when the wind began blowing off the lake toward the house, we knew bad weather was on its way, no matter what the weather station or the meteorologists said. When the wind shifted a change was coming; and when it finally blew from the back yard down the lake, we knew the weather was guaranteed fair. Somehow wind direction is always clearer when you can see it moving on the water.

Recognizing a change in seasons became easy once we learned to read several indicators. Frog song changed across spring into summer. While it began with tiny high-pitched frenetic sound, it eventually deepened to big belching “jug o’ rum” calls by mid-August: a song that was guaranteed to drive away sleep, since bullfrogs have absolutely NO sense of rhythm.  But the best indicator of the advent of winter and spring were ducks.

Normal lake life in Washington state is populated by your basic mallard, the home team duck, who lives here year-round and announces spring by producing  loads of babies.  Baby ducks are fodder for everything else in the animal kingdom; locally common predators include bass, eagles, osprey, and anything hungry enough to think that a two-ounce ball of fluff makes a good snack. When you

Mallard ducklings with good mama.

see ducklings daily, though, you also recognize who is a good mama duck, and who is shell-shocked (pun intended) over having little ones trailing around behind them. The babies whose mama watches their every paddle will have a higher survival rate by far; but the babies who are little alpha wanderers, paddling off to see the world with no regard for where mama is, will be the first to be culled from the flock.

The ducks that migrate through are the ones that tell you when winter has arrived and when it finally leaves.  Washington state is on a flyway for hundreds of bird species that migrate between Alaska and Mexico, but we knew to watch for buffleheads. 

Buffleheads are the clowns of the duck world, the smallest diving duck in North America, and they spend their summers in the Arctic.  When it gets a little chilly there, they migrate south to Washington, where their appearance is the sure sign that winter has arrived.  And as long as they lounge around, winter still haunts the lake. Spring may flirt with you, but it never comes to stay until the last bufflehead wings north for a summer stay in the balmy arctic.

The best time comes when the lake first begins to thaw, because the top water melts first.  Underneath maybe an inch of free water, the ice lingers and the ducks walk…on water.  Or, they land with great confusion careening across the ice with complete lack of control.     Duck on Icy Landing Approach

Lakeside Living 6: Dear deer by Ruth Ross Saucier

     When your new house is sited on a deer path, you get a revitalized appreciation for many things in life: deer-resistant plants [your deep-seated desire to raise geraniums is utterly thwarted], deer deterrents, and matted deer nests in your flower beds. 

     When your new neighbor (whose house was also sited on the deer path) decided to plant vegetable gardens, but found them regularly decimated, I helpfully recommended a motion-sensitive sprinkler.  The sprinkler was modestly successful at driving off the deer, but it also soaked visitors (me) and delivery people with equal abandon.  No lasting harm there, but when a local dog found the sprinkler to be a joyful experience, he trampled the entire garden into a muddy mess.

     My then husband who was new to the depredations of deer, was delighted when mama and her spindly-legged baby wandered through the yard lightly trimming the hedge.  She then brought baby over to nibble on my only surviving rose, gently pulling off leaves.

     “Well, that isn’t so bad,” he said, “At least she’s leaving the flowers behind.”

     “Really? That’s not usual…” I said, as she inhaled an entire blossom, one huge delectable mouthful.     But we immediately forgave them, for the speckled baby was undoubtedly hungry, and we could not find it in our hearts to deny her. (The rose bush made several comebacks over the years, but finally disappeared when a beaver nipped it off at ground level and dragged it over the frosty grass to the lake. No doubt it was considered a prize for nailing together a lodge nearby.)

     It was early afternoon, though, when we experienced another deer habit.  Mom had twins that year, and they were daily visitors, grazing as they meandered through the yard.  But this afternoon, they grazed as usual and then bedded down. They stayed in the yard for nearly four hours, grooming and stretching, nibbling and napping. 

     No sign of mama, no sign they were ever going to leave.  It was pretty clear that mom had told them that only old people lived here, so they would be safe hanging out until she returned.  Then mom finally returned, gathered them up, and they were gone. 

     Only later did we discover that this is a normal part of the weaning process…but for a while, we were grandparents to twins.

Lakeside Living 5: Launching Adolescents by Ruth Ross Saucier

Great Blue Herons are modern pterodactyls with wingspans of six and a half feet and a call that is harsh and prehistoric. Supreme predators of the waters’ edge, the ancient Celts believed them to be reincarnations of children who died young.

My small mountain lake hosted a heron rookery, and their presence could be seen on almost any day, stalking the shallows for sushi. But one morning, just before I needed to leave for work, I saw something that left me shaken and confounded in equal parts.

Herons are normally solitary hunters.  It’s rare to see more than one at a time, but this morning I was witness to a spectacle.  My lake front faced a cattail-covered peninsula that jutted out into the water a good fifty feet.  At the tip of the peninsula was a partly sunken log, and as I watched, a juvenile heron awkwardly flapped his way out to the end of the log and balanced precariously there. On his heels came five more herons, each settling a little farther back on the dry land of the peninsula, and each perching in the same direction, facing junior’s tail feathers, the wind, and the lake.  

And for all I could tell, they proceeded to settle in and watch the juvenile heron, patiently, as he seemed to gather his wits and his courage. I needed to leave for work, but this was such an event, I could not tear myself away. They waited, the bunch of them, all monitoring Junior as I held still and watched in awe.

The watch went on and on and eventually I dubbed members of the audience Mom, Dad, Uncle Harold, Aunt Josephine, and Cousin Mabel. Junior remained on his perch, tentatively raising his wings, bobbling a bit, re-positioning his feet  and ducking his head, but each time he would settle back to parade rest. 

Finally, Uncle Harold had had it. He launched himself into the wind and straight over Junior’s head, flapping those ponderous wings to gain altitude slowly, a process that lasted more than a hundred yards down the lake.  Once he was high enough, he turned tail to the wind and came back toward the peninsula and my house, and high in the air he passed right over his family below.  A few heartbeats later, Aunt Josephine followed his example, launching herself into the wind, following the same flight path while Junior watched and wobbled on his log.  Sure enough, one at a time, each of the rest of the three copied the example laid before them, and soon all that was left was Junior, still wobbly and now completely alone.

Frustrated and a little frightened, he waited a bit longer, flexing and teetering, but clearly agitated now that everyone had left. Finally he hurled himself clumsily into the air, but instead of following all those good examples and flying into the wind for altitude, he turned abruptly away from the lake.  Careening wildly, he tried for a 180 to follow his family’s last known direction.

But his skills with low altitude cornering were no more developed than he was. His flight path now took him straight at me and my two-story house.

The fifty feet he had to gain altitude was in no way enough to clear my roof. He was coming straight at me, flapping madly. Oh my God, he was clearly going to smash himself headlong into my house! 

My hand flew to my face  as I watched him hurtling straight toward a head on collision. At the last moment, I covered my eyes as I struggled to think: who was it again who served as an animal hospital for wild birds? Where were they? How could I find their number?  I listened for the crash and thump, envisioning broken wings and a huge wild bird that would not appreciate my help…but I couldn’t hear anything, so I threw myself out the door and around the house.

But there was nothing, no sign of a collision. Somehow his clumsy flight had cleared all obstacles and he was on his way. 

Lakeside Living 4: Swan Song by Ruth Ross Saucier

     I was sitting by my picture window one morning, marveling at the view—or, actually, at the complete lack thereof. Normally, I was 30 feet away from waterfront. However, 

overnight an impenetrable winter fog had blanketed my mountain lake, obscuring everything except the very edge of the lake, perhaps ten feet of water.  The grass was frosted over hard, leaving not a hint of green.  In fact, everything before me was some shade of white or gray: frosted grass, a solid white wall of fog, and a thin strip of silvery water.  The white out was complete, the fog curtain blocked everything.

     The utterly still, gray-and-white panorama lulled me quickly into fantasy.  Perhaps I wasn’t living on a little mountain lake at all, but on a great ocean. Just beyond the fog was a grand vista of sailing ships and a tree-lined harbor.

     But as I began to elaborate on my time-killing fantasy, the perfectly frozen tableau inexplicably began to change. The solid, flat wall of fog began to balloon out in two areas near the water level.  The fog wall bulged out, getting bigger and bigger with no clue about the cause. 

     Finally, the pregnant fog spheres burst open to reveal pristine white swans: the first I had ever seen on the lake. The swans glided by, not even disturbing the surface water and producing an elegant tableau in white and silver. A moment later, they disappeared--leaving behind nothing but the fog wall and the secrets it guarded.

     

     But wait--were they royal swans? Was my lake a feature of castle gardens? My fantasy took over once more.

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?”

Lakeside Living 1: the heron & catfish vignette ~ by Ruth Ross Saucier

     I lived on a small lake for nearly 20 years. Only trolling motors were allowed, and those were used rarely--so the lake was a refuge for an amazing cross-section of nature. Birds, fish, mammals, rodents all flocked to it and lived around it for the water and the food. If you parked yourself in front of the view and held still, you never knew what you’d see, because the show was always on.

     I was staring at the lake from the deck one day when a heron came into view. He was stalking something painfully slowly, his skinny legs not even leaving a ripple in the water. He lifted one leg and then froze for the longest time, slowly cocking his head slightly to peer into the water. He waited and I waited with him, barely remembering to breathe. In a split second he slashed through the water and his head reared back with a big, fat catfish flopping madly.

     The struggle continued for a while and the heron

finally lost patience and threw the catfish up onto my lawn. The heron followed the catfish onto the lawn to inspect his catch. There the catfish continued thrashing, so the heron stabbed him, once, twice, and scooped him off the lawn and juggled the persistent fish in his beak.

When the catfish refused to submit, the heron hurled the fish to the ground twice more and stabbed him again and again. I was wincing from the violence of this National Geographic struggle, but I could not tear my eyes away. Finally the catfish was barely fighting. Satisfied, the heron scooped him up and juggled the fish in his sword-beak until the catfish was facing down the heron’s gullet, all whiskers swept back.

     Stretching out his neck, the heron began gulping the fish down until every last bit disappeared. But no; the catfish became a sizeable, writhing lump that squirmed down the heron’s neck until it vanished.  Undeterred and relentless, the heron slowly resumed his hunt.