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FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW
Food Piles Have you ever heard the old saying, “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink?” I do not like water in Antill my woods. That is water where water is not supposed to be. I was
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doing a routine check on a stand of timber that bordered a notorious beaver stream one day. Beavers had seemed to materialize from out of nowhere, and dammed the stream. Now, it had been a few months since I had been in to check this area, thus finding an active dam
was not a surprise. Finding a fresh food pile next to the lodge was a bit of a disappointment, however. Food piles are what beavers create when they are getting ready for the winter. It wasn’t that the beavers were active that caused me to frown, but rather that winter was approaching. When winter approaches, even in the South, along with it comes ice. I
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don’t much care for ice, especially since it has to get cold to make it. Too much time has passed since the days of my childhood, and I have lost my enthusiasm for cold weather. The beaver sets about building a food pile next to his lodge just in case the ice gets thick, and just in case it lasts a while. You see, a food pile is a collection of sticks and small trees that a beaver will cut off and float to his lodge. Once there he makes a floating pile or mat. These sticks will be accessible from under the water, under the ice, allowing the beaver to have a meal when the pond or swamp is frozen over, and he cannot find a hole to climb out of. Since he keeps all of his lodge entrances under water, a frozen pond means he is trapped at home or at least under the water surrounding his home; thus the food pile. Now consider for a moment a delinquent beaver. He is distracted. He knows winter is coming, and there is a need to gather supplies. Failure to prepare could be a capital offense, causing the death of himself or his family. He decides to get busy with the food pile. At first all goes well. He has found several juicy cottonwood saplings, and some willow was growing just upstream. But then he saw something else. It was magnificent and awesome. He had to have it on his food pile. He would be the envy of all. He began to gnaw and chew. It was tough all right, but what a beauty. Finally, he had it on his pile. Yes, it was tall and slender, and had a single bright, green “leaf” on the top, with the word “Johnson Road” on it. It did look
