Two months ago, if you were sitting on the patio overlooking my gardens, you would have had to peer in and around the canopy of apple trees to see the old piece of hand-painted barn board hanging from the wisteria-laden arbor. Barely legible, it read “Beaver Brook” with a darling silhouette of its namesake.

Beaver Brook rises in Chester and flows south 30.7 miles, passing through several small ponds and lakes. The brook forms the boundary between Londonderry and Windham, then flows through my backyard in Pelham. Eventually the brook crosses into Massachusetts and flows into the Merrimack River in Lowell.

Our property (and the house my husband grew up in) sits up quite high from the brook, but every now and then you can hear the mallards down below. If you are quiet enough and can ease your way down the steep, sandy embankment, you may get to see the turtles sunning themselves on fallen birches.

In September we were preparing to go off for a long weekend. As we looked around the yard to make sure we had taken care of everything before we left, we remembered the apples. For the first time in seven years, we had apples on our Cortland tree (though the McIntosh was looking sickly as it always does this time of year).

The Cortland, however, had never looked so good and showed no sign of disease, nor did the apples hanging from her branches. We ran off for the ladder, so we could pick them before “something happened to them.” Happy with our harvest, my husband and I packed our things and our three dogs, and set out to enjoy the Maine coast for three days.

After returning we performed our standard ritual of walking the gardens, checking in on the koi pond and the greenhouse. As we rounded the fence enclosing the vegetable garden, we were stopped in our tracks.

Oh no! Someone had come into the yard, cut the fruit-laden lower branches off one of the dwarf trees, and hauled them off. Horrified, I thought, “Who would do such a thing?”

I looked around frantically to see if anything else had been damaged. As my husband stood there trying to rationalize why someone would do this, I let out a scream. “Over here! Over here!”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Our Cortland, although still standing, had its thick trunk whittled to a slender waist. Strewn about the lawn, chips of what used to be the tree’s trunk gave a clue. This was no human vandal, but a Castor canadensis and its large sharp teeth! Beavers (Castor canadensis) are the largest rodents in North America. They live in rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, or other wetland areas. They feed on a variety of vegetation, but the outer bark and cambium layers of fast-growing tree species such as alder, willow, aspen, and birch make up their principal diet. During the summer they eat herbaceous aquatic plants such as sedges and cattails.

They increase their tree-cutting during the fall to build up their food supply for the winter months, anchoring branches on the river bottom or bank near their lodges. Although there are many suggested ways to protect trees from beaver damage, not all have proven successful.

Looking for signs of entry, we walked the fence around our two acres, while my husband reminisced of his childhood here on the brook. He’d seen everything from great blue herons to great floods, but never a beaver.

Finally we headed towards the potting shed, which sits at the very edge of the steep embankment leading down to the brook. An old wrought iron bed rail, until now, had made do as a gate, to hold back an unwary visitor or a curious dog from the steep drop. But it didn’t keep the beavers out; the disturbed leaf litter leading down to the brook was the telltale sign they had been very busy hauling branches under the rail.

So today I was sitting on my patio. The Beaver Brook sign, still barely legible, but now clearly visible, swayed in the autumn breeze. The sunlight danced off the four-foot-high metal skirts that now adorn the remaining fruit trees. When I closed my eyes I could still see the shadow cast by the Cortland tree.

We decided not to cut down the Cortland completely, but to leave about four feet of trunk as witness to the story to be told. I will nurse the McIntosh back to good health, and I think one day I’ll give that old sign a new coat of paint. And maybe a stone Castor canadensis will find a home here.

By Cheryl Cravino, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Cheryl Cravino