Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

DECEMBER 2007

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No, we don't have standing snow, at the present time. Only a light brush of the stuff. This picture is from last year, a little later in the season, and the basins froze solid and cracked, and when spring came leaked badly, causing us lots of patching problems. This winter it is in storage. (All right now, cold storage.)

539

These are apples from the two trees the beavers destroyed at the end of summer. Luckily we harvested a good crop just before the destruction. But now they are gone, not to be replaced. Or, rather, to replace them would be foolish, given our situation.

I guess the beavers were "just doing their thing." Can't really fault them for being beavers. To them the trees were choice--just what they wanted. And they put them to what another might call "good use."

It makes you think about how inter-related things are. I mean, we like apples and beavers like such smallish trees. And they belong here at a lake, whereas maybe we don't. It starts you thinking about how complex an ecosystem such as ours is, and how people alter it by building homes and living here because it is so pleasant. But things are complex and the degree to which things are inter-related is unfathomable, really.

Some people might use the word "God" in such a context, but I'd rather not. People attribute all kinds of human feelings to what they call "God," and most are inappropriate. It is a joy to live here, and it is we who must make accommodation. In other words, we must give way, when such things in the natural world happen. It is hard to do, though, especially when we know that beavers eat trees, not apples.