Vermont Wetlands Tour with Julie Moir Messervy & Susan Teare

Text by Julie Moir Messervy, JMMDS. Photography by Susan Teare.

When you live near a beaver pond, you never know what those pesky creatures are going to do next! This past summer their obsessive need to stop the trickling of its waters made them try to stop up the stream near our Lake House. Their dams, created with painstaking care, combine gnawed branches with mud tamped in place by their little paws. While others curse them, we admire their industry, even when my husband had to continually rip out these new dams when they started flooding our field. But sure enough, we’d return the next morning to find the dams repaired and water backing up behind them once more.

But what I love most about beavers, besides the way they swim around in the pond and slap the water with their tails when they see us, is the paradise they create in the wet meadow that lies between our ponds. Every year, they build new canals, ponds, and dams, mowing down willow shrubs, red maple saplings, and lately, due to the paucity of good material, even the invasive buckthorn bushes that love wet feet. What’s left is a host of beautiful plants that look their best in August through to late fall. Elderberry and Spiraea, Joe Pye Weed, Sneezewort, Queen Anne’s Lace, Asters, Milkweed, and Goldenrod…everywhere! Heaven.

Our amazing photographer Susan Teare recently came to our house and got up early with me to take these beautiful images on a lovely autumn morning. Enjoy.

Wishing all our readers a happy, safe, and peaceful Thanksgiving.