Busy as a Beaver

 We live on a small private lake outside of Granite Falls, Washington.  Over the years, instead of being a logging town out in the boonies, we have become a bedroom community.  Better roads into town, larger cities growing a few miles away, and people looking for acreage in the country have developed the land surrounding us.  We don't own a dog or a cat, so we have become somewhat of a wildlife refuge for the animals squeezed out of their old habitats.  


I took this picture of the beaver that I watch out my office window the other day.  Then today, when Ron was out mowing, he called me out to "show me something".  I followed him around the deck to the side yard where he had been mowing and this is what he showed me.

 Before I started berating him for chopping down yet another tree, I noticed that the cuts were conical in nature.  The branches looked like they had been chewed off.

 The down tree is in the front of this picture, the house in the background.  There can't be 50' between the two!

I asked Ron to leave the tree laying on the ground to see if I can catch the beaver at work.  He/she has an established trail from the lake to where it has been working harvesting trees in our front yard.