Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, my father and grandfather paid off the mortgage on the farm through income from turpentine. This is a catface, where the bark was scraped off a pine tree so its sap would ooze out, to be caught in a metal cup nailed below on the tree.

Catface and beaver pond

The rest of the tree long ago was logged.

Behind the pine tree stump and the adjoining oak tree, you can see a beaver pond.

Beaver pond

Nearby are numerous dead trees, girdled by the beavers, who always seek to expand their ponds.

Beaver deadfall

The beavers have still more dams upstream on Redeye Creek.

Yet another beaver dam

If the catface tree hadn’t been logged, the beavers probably would have girdled it and it would be another deadfall. This is why we need to reduce the beaver population on our land.

-jsq

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