Friday, April 27, 2012

Beavers making a comeback in Westchester County NY

As I blogged about in the past there used to be a healthy beaver population behind the old UPS plant in Elmsford NY, that'd be part of the Saw Mill River but don't really know their current status since it's been awhile since my Dad took us as kids to see them busy at work.  Googling the subject recently there was one spotted a few years back in the Bronx River downaways possibly looking for a mate, got a writeup in the Times and I did watch a YouTube video of one in one of the lakes in the Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill which I hike alot.  Anyway today is my day off and it's a beautiful one, sunshiny and cool and nippy with a good breeze so parked along a stretch of the North County Trail in Yorktown Heights in upper Westchester County, it's right there on 35 just past the Amawalk Reservoir before you enter town.  I was walking in aways and noticed part of the paved bike path quite flooded in spots and there were about five sandbags down.  I noticed this about a week ago too and it was unusual in that we've been having a drought of late, reservoirs at no more than 90% capacity but today I saw that someone, probably the DEP put up a sign saying "Caution - Do Not Walk on Beaver Dam" and there it was in all its glory, at least two beaver dams made of various size twigs and branches and mud and that's what's been causing the stream to flood and slowly turn into a small pond.  The users of the trail which is quite popular here don't seem to mind and everyone seems to be accomodating to the beavers though I've yet to see one here.  It's a slice of heaven in these parts, a real tonic for your nerves and every now and then you need a magical moment like this.  BTW went home yesterday early afternoon and just got out of my car when a fancy maroon sedan with a chauffeur pulled up, the back door opened and a fine British gentleman in a suit asked me a set of three questions - "where is (a certain local address nearby)?", "where is the nearest cemetery?" (I gave him an answer but kinda muffed it, there was a closer one nearby but I'm lousy with spontaneous directions) and finally "where do you go to register a birth?"  I can understand the first question but the three in toto were oddballs especially going from birth to death and if anything it stimulates the mind on an otherwise boring day when you're getting ready to go in late for work.  Should I get all conspiratorial about it?

41 comments:

  1. Pretty impressive, the beavers making a comeback there. Nice as they are, they a a fauna that takes a lot of flora , so be interesting how that turns out.
    As for the chap in the limo, my
    guess..MI5 ..looking for
    a recruit. Play your cards right and you may have a Beretta 418 and start drinking vodka martinis..
    shaken, not stirred. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Isn't it better to walk on a beaver dam, than a damn beaver?

    Sheesh... their priorities are all mixed up...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nippy my ass. Its fucking freezing. I hate NY and all things appertaining thereunto. This day has been a Greek tragedy: a road crater jolted my NEW radio into silence and possibly wrecked my alignment, my gps had a psychotic break and got me lost, I was here 3 hours and a guy hit the Taco in the parking lot damaging the beloved grill guard and necessitating the Fishkill cops, and I was out in that so called nippiness shivering like hypothermia for an hour. The guy actually repaired it and gave me a hundred cash and we called it good. Now tomorrow is this freakin reunion in Rhinecliff and I don't wanna go. I want a dozen hard rolls, a ride to the Buddhist monastery and a two minute vid on the goat path by the BM bridge. I am too fn through with New York.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And THEN as I was out there freezing my ass off I chanced to notice that one of the Gita Nagari peacocks must have got up on the roof of the Taco, because there's peacock poop on it. A peacock is a large bird. This is not like goldfinch poop or even crow poop. At this moment it became the most pathetic comedy on earth and I once again wonder where my documentary film crew is. I wanna go home back to the woods and the farms where everybody drives a truck and talks like me. And I never wanna come back, even though the river is still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen (lookin downriver as I crossed the NB bridge it made me cry).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Newburgh/Beacon Bridge? Now there's an ancient looking bridge. All of Rte. 9 from Fishkill to Poughkeepsie has that aura of squalor or depression, you see storefronts boarded up every now and then but there is the Dairy Queen. You go in the Giggles up in Wappingers Falls and even the porn is depressing and you see Mexicans browsing around looking for God knows what. I like Hannaford's though. I always get Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck confused in my head the latter town where Chelsea Clinton got hitched.

    ReplyDelete
  6. & DAMMIT they're taking away all my FYE stores 'cause there's so much downloading on the computers is my guess. The Po'town Galleria, big as they come but somehow I don't get as much out of it. Sometimes when I'm planning a long day trip I'm going over in my head where to go, along the Hudson Valley or upper CT. but somehow I prefer the Danbury/New Milford area what with Stew Leonard's and Super 7. Rte. 7 in New Milford definitely needs a Gander Mtn. and mega-Barnes & Noble instead of just a berry farm and Walmart. BB I had the same thought about the gentleman in the car and I have been mulling over a job change, just can't take it anymore. BTW apparently the few predators who knows how to handle a porcupine since I was consulting my field guide yesterday is the fisher but even they occasionally meet with a fatality.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Satyavati devi dasi said...

    "I hate NY"

    I'm pretty sure that NY and New Yorker's can do without you as well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah, Satyavati devi dasi, another Tolerant, Compassionate, Liberal/Socialist who preaches "diversity and civility". Or should I say another Liberal/Progressive/Socialist Crack-Pot has shown us what lairs they really are!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Saty, nice to see you again...

    ReplyDelete
  10. WTF being Socialist have to do with me hating NY? Please make an attempt to get out of that very small box you live in. Tolerant yes diversity? I personify diversity. I am fully permitted to hate NY.
    That being said I took 9 south to Cold Spring, visited the church where I got married then took 9d to the BM bridge lookout, its all closed in now I see, guy told me a girl fell and got killed. Did a vid all down the mtn then made my way round to the TSP north to Peekskill Hollow, did vid up Gordon Rd, stopped at my old house and introduced myself, spent 2 hrs talking bout how my Da built it, from there toi Chuang Yen Monastery and then up the TSP to 84 back to the hotel. And let me say this: I grew up here. I have hate priveleges for it. I can hate it at will because like it or not (and I don't)it is still a part of me. So get off the political horse about it, cause it got nothing to do with any of that.

    ReplyDelete
  11. And I got Scott a doz hard rolls and for me the best damn bagel I have had in years, lady put like half a block cream cheese on it. It rocked my morning.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Satyavati devi dasi you hate everything that isn't RED.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Was that anything like the Mao Sitong Monastery?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Darth, do you say things just for the sake of saying them?

    The Chuang Yen Monastery is the home of the Buddhist Association of North America and it's just a few miles from the Taconic State Parkway on Route 301, east of Fahnestock State Park.

    The 'red' comment is ridiculous and not worth a response.

    And neither is your other comment.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Our Moderate Dave Miller and token Lib has said...
    “Silver, have you ever gone on a conservative blog and defended President Obama and his wife like you just did here?

    Unless and until more cogent bloggers like you and even RN, visit the raging conservative blogs and sites, the places like Lisa, Darth, Geeez, etc., and refute that President Obama is the most anti-American president in history, every issue will stay political.
    It is just my opinion, but the extremists have made a decision not to attack policies, but the man himself”



    Well Davie and the rest of you Nerds out there who can't find your ass with both hands,
    Us "Extremist" conservatives attack Obama because of his Socialist policies
    and want Obana with his Socialist agenda to fail because of his POLICIES, not because of his “Color” or the “Democratic Party” he claims to be part of, when we know that he is really a member of the socialist party. The lame-branes who think that they are going to get Free healthcare for all, Free quality education for all, a Four weeks vacation, a distribution of MY income to YOU. Some people hate President Obama because they strongly disagree with what they perceive as his socialist policy preferences and because of claims of President Obama's long-standing ties to extremist Marxist ideology. Not because of the reasons that you and your buddies in the Progressive corner say we do.
    Read my lips: NOTHING IS FREE!
    How great is “FREE” when your healthcare decisions are made by some gov’t hack who doesn’t know or care about you?
    When a Conservative or anyone else who doesn't support Obama, refers to him as a Socialist, they are made fun of by you people as if we are the clowns that you sheep are.
    You people are the arrogant and extremists. Not us as you stated on that Progressive slanted rag! Socialists truly are arrogant , they use the bias media to promote Obama’s Wall Street Occupiers thugs, the use them so that they can claim their own hands are clean.. They use people like those late night idiots Letterman and Bill Maher to make personal attacks on Sarah Palin and her family in order to put Obama into a second term. The liberals, Marxists, Communists, and Socialists, in Hollywood are all making Multi Millions of dollars yearly and no one ever attacks them. Wonder why? It’s easy, it’s because they are Marxists, Communists, and Socialists, that’s why!

    ReplyDelete
  16. How great is “FREE” education when school administrators determine what you will study and what career you will have, and brain-wash you to think they way that they want you to think, for the rest of your life based on the abilities that they taught you. Who needs a vacation if you’re working only 30-hrs a week and all your needs are supplied by the government, and standing on bread lines for the rest of the week. ? How beneficial are labor laws that limit the opportunities for employment by squeezing the profits out of business through excessive taxation and regulation? What is fair about having your hard-earned income taken from you and given to someones else who did not earn it, but sits around smoking pot or crack the whole day long? The beauty of free-market capitalism is that people all people are rewarded according to their productivity and their will to work for what they get. . Yes, that means that some get rich and others do not, but everyone has opportunity to be what they want to be. No one tells you to be a garbage man because that's what they need at the time. Socialism leads to equality of misery, not prosperity, when did you ever see a wealthy or a well to do person in any communist nation? . Do you really believe that government can provide you with a lifestyle as we have here in America? Give me a break! The a-holes in Washington now can’t even balance a budget, so how are they going to balance your life?
    I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and the only ones that make any sense at all are the Republican ones who seek what is truly FREE! Without the handouts and redistribution of wealth. The Progressive's are pure Bull-Shit. As we see in the White House right now with our socialist president.

    ReplyDelete
  17. 1. "The liberals, Marxists, Communists, and Socialists, in Hollywood are all making Multi Millions of dollars yearly.."
    2. "The beauty of free-market capitalism is that people all people are rewarded according to their productivity and their will to work for what they get.
    3. Syllogism does not compute...

    ReplyDelete
  18. "The beauty of free-market capitalism is that people all people are rewarded according to their productivity and their will to work for what they get.


    Yeah right, so why protest Wall Street Hard working brokers? Why protest Mike Bloomberg, Why protest successful Business people? Hypocritical aren't they!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Sorry Z, now I am getting mentioned on your blog for a comment on another. Rather than respond there, Darth chose to use your space.

    My pleasure Saty, it's always good to have another token...

    ReplyDelete
  20. Well you asked for a Link, so I gave you the whole shebang. Happy now?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Tell me Satyavati, have you been fitted for your nose rings yet?

    ReplyDelete
  22. "Yeah right, so why protest Wall Street Hard working brokers? Why protest Mike Bloomberg, Why protest successful Business people? Hypocritical aren't they!"

    Because Wall Street is nothing about actual capital formation and everything about fiat currency hot off the presses from the Federal Reserve Bank. Duh.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Back to the beavers in Westchester County. If these rodent engineers become troublesome, the Hudson Valley is lucky to have Wildlife Busters ..
    apparently Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray show up in a converted ambulance and....

    ReplyDelete
  24. BB, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen a real beaver in a river.

    I saw one once at the Kern River in So Cal, and of course in my annual treks to Buffalo, I do get to see a number of beaver dams in that neck of the woods.

    ReplyDelete
  25. You know I could post an actual image of a Sasquatch and everyone would still be rappin' politics.

    ReplyDelete
  26. The beaver waterproofs its fur with an oil (castoreum) from its anal scent glands. Other info, there is a parasitic beetle that only and specifically harasses the beaver, life is tough eh? When going underwater valves close the beaver's ears and nose and a skin flap goes over the mouth leaving those great big orange incisors for carrying branches and whatnot underwater. The rodent? about 3 ft. big or larger and the paddle-like tail also serves as a rudder for swimming and for slapping the water when threatened. You should never be bored, time spent not circle-jerking could be devoted to a field guide. Look how smart you'll be in a few years if you put down the Jenna tape and pick up a book...or even a tube of toothpaste. It's one thing to engage in these other hobbies and pasttimes when you already have that base of knowledge under your belt but to go with Mocha Chicks when you're a complete ignoramus it's like your life is being wasted but I digress......

    ReplyDelete
  27. They say that beaver ponds are great trout habitat ..As a teen, I tried a couple times, balancing a canoe on my shoulders through the mosquito country of the Lac du Flambeau Ojibway reservation in the WI northwoods once, and again a year later guided by a cousin whose family
    had a resort in Indianhead country.
    Lotta work--no fish: but what a place to commune with nature. Those small ponds in the deep woods
    are still and clear; the forest and its creatures extend right to the waters edge. (a deer pays no attention to a canoe with quiet
    folk-you can practically touch them with your paddle...the beaver accept you after figuring out you
    are after trout...not them.

    ReplyDelete
  28. "You know I could post an actual image of a Sasquatch and everyone would still be rappin' politics."

    That's only because Sasquatch is a libertarian.

    ReplyDelete
  29. ..a rich libertarian, to judge from
    the Jack Link Beef Jerky "Messin'
    with Sasquatch" commericals..

    ReplyDelete
  30. I was talking with my friend about Sasquatch, he believes in it and I said well if they were really out there the Government would've caught one by now. He said even if they did they'd probably cover it up and I asked Why? and he said they're weird that way. He said they'd make him into some lowly janitor at an Army base in NC. Said Stalin and the Russians had some thing/program going about creating something along the lines of the 'Quatch but I didn't follow him but we both agreed that you would have your freaky women out there who'd drop you and go after the Bigfoot guy, would probably also be some kind of porn subgenre:)

    ReplyDelete
  31. David Miller is trying to be non-partisan here and therefore very much holds his punches. Referring that Obama was just " average" as President is like calling Ted Bundy an "average" criminal. Regardless of whether one agrees with the reasons for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is little argument about the incompetence of the Obama administration in in way that he has handled the recession. The American people are much poorer now then they were under Bush because of Obama and his administration. Make no mistake about it, Obama is responsible for the “worst recovery” in any recession since the Great Depression.
    The record of Obama on the economy is much worst than any recession in the past. The economy was at near-depression. Obama has never taken any personal responsibility, he has never taken responsibility for the failures of their economic policy during the almost 4 years he has been in office. This upcoming election should not even be close, even if someone think that Obama is below average. The only reason it is going to be close is that 45% of American are committed to vote Democratic regardless of the relative quality of the candidate, and a good part of the people WILL vote for Obama only because of his color. Obama sure can’t run on his record, since the economy is still in terrible shape after three & ½ years of his leadership. Instead, it appears he’s going to campaign on the conceit that Bush left him with a much worse economy than anyone. As much as the job market is concerned, it newest statics show that it’s getting worse and not better. The “inherited a recession” BS just isn’t going to work any longer, it’s old news and never was true anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Sidbirt, is there something wrong with making a conscious decision to try and be non partisan?

    Certainly, I hold my punches, because I have found that of one is interested in dialogue and learning from others, a certain level of decorum is needed.

    As for Obama's record on the economy, the facts show that Obama never got the level of stimulus he wanted. The GOP would never support.

    Now, this is the same GOP who argued after the 2010 elections that because of their wins, the Dems had a moral obligation to go along with their plans.

    Funny, how they did not pursue that line of reasoning after Obama and the Dems won in 2008.

    So....... why should we be critical of a President for a bad economy, when his plan to address that very economy, was obstructed at every time by the opposition?

    Tell me, please tell me, what should the President have done the moment he took office in regards to the economy to have made the recovery better?

    What exactly are economists now saying with the benefit of hindsight?

    ReplyDelete
  33. Here's a fresh thought, Bush bailed out the banks, Obama bailed out the auto industry. I've never understand this false paradigm that Bush and Obama are somehow different, polar political opposites. Obama is simply following the Bush model and here's another fresh thought: maybe they both suck.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Z-man, that could very well be.

    I love that you are at least willing to say what Obama did was in practice no different from Bush.

    So... here's my question...

    If Obama bailing out the auto industry makes him a socialist, and it does in the eyes of many, why shouldn't those people also consider Bush a socialist?

    Any ideas folks?

    ReplyDelete
  35. For the record I was never a fan of Bush so in answer to your question if we can come up with the right name for Bush maybe we can then apply the same to Obama. I think Bush is the one who really spawned the whole Tea Party movement with the bank bailouts but the bailouts just continued under Obama. If you wanna get all John Birchy about the whole thing they're all bad and cut from the same cloth.

    ReplyDelete
  36. z-man... they could be whole cloth brothers... i just get pissed off at the partisans who act as if their side is purer than the driven snow...

    I certainly know the dems/libs are not right on everything and have done some pretty bad politicking against the GOP, Bush, and many others.

    I just don't like it when folks act as if only one side engages in this type of stuff and then gets all righteous when they are called on the inconsistency...

    And now, off to work aca en Mexico... paz hermano!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Dave Miller said...
    I just don't like it when folks act as if only one side engages in this type of stuff and then gets all righteous when they are called on the inconsistency...


    Well David, neither do I and that's why I rib YOU for doing exactly that.
    So don't go playing Mr. Innocent, as if you are Mr. Moderate !

    ReplyDelete
  38. Apparently Lee you missed part of my comment where I specifically said libs do it too and are just as guilty. "I certainly know the dems/libs are not right on everything and have done some pretty bad politicking against the GOP, Bush, and many others."

    I do not accept where criticisms of President Obama, when people call him a socialist for giving government aid to GM, but deny that Bush did the same thing with banks.

    It is that type of intellectual dishonesty that I just won't accept.

    If you read what I've written over the years, and there is a long record, you'll see for the most part, I've been pretty consistent on that point.

    And as someone who has supported many GOP candidates over the years, yes, I am a moderate, and proud of it.

    It is the partisan hacks and true believers who are killing this country.

    There are few issues that are as black and white easy to understand and solve as people would have you believe.

    I believe the majority of our solutions are in the grayer areas of life and politics...

    ReplyDelete
  39. I think both Bush and Obama are part of the problem, never got the love affair most conservatives have had with Bush.

    ReplyDelete