Smokey Mountain Breakdown

For Friday Ark at the Modulator










Oh, Wook! It Toofy de Cwissmas Beaver! What Toofy doin' today?


He be chewin' up lots o' sticks 'cause he gots lots o' company comin' fwo Cwissmas. All he family comin' and dey gonna dwive him cwazy! He busy.



How busy be he? He vewy, vewy busy.



I've been trying to catch at least one of the architects of the dams that have sprung up on Big Creek for some time now. Parks and Wildlife reintroduced them to the area some years ago. They've settled in quite well. There are stretches of the creek that would have been completely dry this summer had not the beaver dams held back the water in places. Near the Pink House in the Holler is an impressive series of dams.

Today was overcast and as I drove by, there he was. Now that we've had a few rainfalls, the dams need some work. He's much smaller than I imagined. Given the amount of wood he's cut and stripped, I thought he'd be bigger. Only a small section of his industriousness is shown. He had stripped wood up and down a 75 foot stretch of creek.I think he had accomplices, but they weren't out.