Mud Season Be Damned

As in any community that depends on tourism and second home ownership as major components of the local economy, the building trades in Ludlow are very active and employ an awful large number of the residents, even in a down economy. Now that the winter is over and our resort has closed, the sounds of hammers and saws resonate throughout the woods all over town, all day, every day. There is a “but” coming here, and the “but” is mud season.

Mud season is not a joke, it is not merely some folksy Vermont reference to April showers, and it is not a relic of a gentler time relegated to Norman Rockwell prints or the conversations of old-timers in the village cafes. Mud season is real and we’re in the thick of it, literally. With so many of the roads up in the hills around town remaining unpaved, they can get pretty nasty when the snow melts – worse so after a particularly snowy winter like the one just passed. Ruts that can run up to my car’s wheel wells, pot holes big enough to curl up in and take a nap, and mud that splatters everything in sight and then coats everything with a thick layer of dust when it’s warm and dry are the norm this during time of year. It’s a good time to head for more temperate climes.

The “but” problem for the building trades is that during mud season, the town officially closes many of the dirt roads to commercial traffic over a certain weight. What this means is that if you’re in the middle of a building project and you haven’t had the foundation poured or you haven’t had your lumber delivered before the roads close, you are likely to spend your time sitting and twiddling your thumbs until things dry out at the end of April or early May. Projects ill-timed to accommodate for mud season can really cause headaches for the unprepared builder. There is one set of notable exceptions. Let’s call them “Nature’s Carpenters”, at the risk of being too cute. I’m talking about beavers, lots of them. And they definitely have been busy.

I took the photos below yesterday, April 15th, alongside Route 100 between Plymouth and Bridgewater, Vermont. The valley floor there is narrow in spots with lots of running water that feeds the many lakes with clean, clear runoff from the surrounding mountains. It’s the perfect spot for beavers to go to work, mud season be damned (pun intended). The conical shaped stumps are characteristic, and the sheer size of the dam and the volume of timber felled by the critters is remarkable but typical. In some of the photos here, look carefully and you’ll see the tooth marks in the stumps. I’m not certain whether dam building is a more effective way of catching fish than dropping a line or casting a fly (the methods preferred by biped carpenters), but it certainly is enough to leave me marveling at the beavers' handiwork.