First a little background…

Apparently at least one beaver has built a dam on a stream that passes near a local town’s downtown area, we’ll call the town Beavertown.  On Thursday, one of those beavers was reportedly “acting erratically” and some good samaritans caught the beaver and brought it to a vet.  The beaver’s condition was listed as “guarded.”  This actually made the news on our local NBC affiliate…

So Friday, I’m watching the wall to wall coverage that our local NBC affiliate is airing on the storm that rolled through.  Around 10AM they had the Vice-Mayor of Beavertown on via phone and asked him about the condition of the beaver dam, if the dam would be destroyed if the waterway threatened to flood the business district… and the condition of the beaver caught the other day.  The Vice-Mayor assured the anchorfolks that the dam which had been lowered in anticipation of the storm was intact.  The town did have cables around the dam that could be used to pull it down in the event the town was threatened, but he didn’t think that this would be necessary.  Finally, he was sad to report that the beaver had died an hour before…

I couldn’t help but watch this “drama” in a bit of stunned amazement…  When we lived in Virginia, the pond behind our home had a tendency to attract beavers, and they weren’t welcome.  They chased away the ducks and geese, and the dam affected the drainage in the pond.  Plus, they were destructive, killing several trees in order to get the materials to build their dam.

At 12:45 the situation got even sillier…  As the station had gotten a report that Beavertown officials had pulled on the cables AND DESTROYED THE BEAVER DAM!!!! :O  Then they recapped their conversation with the Vice Mayor and that he had told them that he didn’t think that they would need to take the dam down, and that the beaver caught Thursday had died but they didn’t yet know the exact cause of death… blah blah blah…  Finally they were trying to get in touch with the Vice Mayor for an update on the situation.  You’d think a bridge had collapsed or something…

Well, 15 minutes later they get the Vice Mayor back on the phone who informs them that no, in fact they have not torn the dam down.  The stream has risen to the point that it’s higher than the top of the dam and is flowing over it, however Beavertown officials believe that the dam is still intact - just under water…

Umm… News flash people-  BEAVERS BUILD DAMS!!!!  It’s what they do, and when nature causes their dam to fail, THEY BUILD A NEW ONE!!!  Thus is the circle of life…

The next reporter that they had on was explaining how the rain had made her wet - I really, really wish I was kidding, but no she was explaining that even though she and her cameraman had rainsuits on, since they had been out in the rain for the past 6 hours - shock of shocks - they were now wet…  At this point I decided it was time to switch to re-runs of King of The Hill…