On any given day, the place you are most likely to find the Owl and her trusty sidekick WFTA K9 Ranger Katie Puppy walking is at the College Pond Conservation area. As you all know, I am obsessed with the Merriam Barn as well as the three mighty sugar maples that stand guard behind it. Also the apple orchard, the pond where you will first hear red-winged blackbirds every spring, and the troll bridge that crosses Cherry Brook, and the windy trail of rocks and roots that borders the brook back to the orchard. College Pond is a treasure.
Recently the waters in the Pond and Cherry Brook have been rising. Downstream from the earthen dam, the water rises around the Troll Bridge due to beaver activity farther north. A trail to the west gets muddier and muddier. And now the waters are busting over the big dam on College Pond–I had never seen moving water crossing over until last week and I will say it is more than a trickle.
Conservation is investigating if there is an issue with the “beaver deceiver” installed there — with debris piling up near the exit of water, and possible corrosion of parts of the deceptor, our little fuzzy buck-toothed engineers may have taken advantage to build themselves another home.
A few folks have sent in feedback to WFTA that the dam was impassable.
Fortunately for Weston, and something about which we all need reminding, we have a massively engaged Conservation organization as well as the best NGO on the planet (biased a bit), WFTA. Yesterday, the Conservation/WFTA team of Jordan and Joel got stuff done and built a few bog bridges in a couple of hours. We are pretty lucky to have folks who take care of our 2000 acres of conservation properties and the public’s access to them. Yay us!
That should hold us until the beaver deceiver company comes to check it out. Katie Puppy took a victory lap to confirm viability and we are all good here.
Get outside (skip Saturday though, brrrr).
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