I wrote this for the city grant but thought it would be a paragraph worth sharing here. Hopefully this can help explain things.

The Martinez Beaver Festival is a beloved community event in its 18^th year that celebrates urban wildlife and a uniquely cohesive chapter in the city’s history when families, public figures. Businesses. teachers, institutions, city officials, and interested individuals came together to support the local beavers and find a humane solution to their presence of Alhambra Creek. The milestone achievement  remains one of them best-known stories about the city and draws interested attendees from round the county, state, country and even beyond. The festival reminds attendees that solutions are possible when communities work together and is the sole event in the city dedicated to wildlife. The beaver festival provides a fun family venue for learning about beavers, birds, fish, and the variety of species that make up our wild neighbors,  teaching attendees how best to live alongside them.

It was  twenty years ago today
Beavers  came in from the strait to stay
And they took a tree beside the creek
Built a dam they guaranteed  to leak
So may I introduce to you
The story that has lasted years?
Mainstreet Beavers in Martinez D-A-M

The main street beavers in Martinez  built a dam
They hoped we would enjoy the show
Main street beavers in Martinez built a dam
They city said they had to go
Mainstreet beavers, Mainstreet Beavers,
Mainstreet beavers in Martinez built a dam

It’s wonderful to watch them
Its certainly a thrill
So many otters, birds and fish
Attracted to their pond you know
Attracted to their pond!

They promised he could fix the flow
So the water wouldn’t grow and grow
And he alone knew  what to do
what no really thought was true
And then they introduced to us
The one and only from Vermont
Here comes Skip to fix Martinez d-a-m.

Feel free to sing along…

Love everything about this except the square filter. Why reinvent the wheel exactly? Pretty sure Mike made it round for a reason.

One of the special guests at our beaver festival this year was Reese Mercer the director of the beaver advocacy group Western Beavers from Oregon. The group is also fiscally sponsored by ISI. I made sure she got a special invitation to join the Aqua Squad activity so we could share some ideas about how to include children in learning about beaver benefits directly. Because adults always tag along as well! She enjoyed what she saw so much that she asked to repeat this activity at their county fair event later in the year. Of course I agreed and gave yer links to all the designs and materials so she could repeat them for the next generation of water guardians.

She sent a summary of the event this morning and I couldn’t resist passing it along:

Beaver Facts Scavenger Hunt
Kids carried a small passport and visited four participating booths as part of the “Become a Water Guardian!” scavenger hunt. Western Beavers partnered with the police department, Oregon Hunters Association, the Bowman Museum and the Crook County Weed Management Association, with each booth holding a different beaver sign and question. Together, the four answers reinforced a simple message: beaver dams can make water cleaner, deeper, cooler and slower-moving.

Each correct answer earned a sticker in the passport. After collecting all four, children returned to the Beaver Booth for a Beaver Believer  sticker and a special drink, “The Irrigator,” from a local vendor. The activity became something kids actively sought out and told their friends about – a strong sign that it had become part of the fair experience rather than simply another educational handout.

It makes me very happy to think that there are many more young beaver believers and water guardians running around in Crook County because of this. And I’m especially jealous about the special drink name and idea.How fun!