Growing up in South Mississippi and South Louisiana, we have an appreciation for water. A large portion of our farm is in low lying areas that are wet 12 months out of the year. It is swampy!! This is a challenge when we are trying to harvest timber and on certain parts of the property, we can only cut timber 1 month out of the year. I preface all of this to say that when Beavers move in, they cause huge problems in an area that is already wet and soggy.
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that one of our creeks was backed up. I didn’t think anything at first but then I noticed that it kept getting worse and worse. The tell-tell sign was that there were several small trees that had been cut down near a culvert. This is a 60-inch culvert that my son and I had replaced several years earlier.
Beavers are creative builders and you have to admire their engineering skills but they are extremely destructive and can cause major damage. This damn was about 3-4 feet high and right in the middle of this culvert. There wasn’t a lot of great options to break up this damn. We tried tieing a boat anchor to a rope in the hopes of snagging the damn and breaking it free but after 30 minutes we gave up.
The only way to bust this damn up was to go inside the culvert with rakes, hoes, and shovels. It took us about 2 hours and getting soaking wet but we were finally able to clear out all of the debris. That has been a couple of weeks ago and we haven’t seen any new signs of the beavers. Here’s hoping that they stay away!!
