{"id":8192,"date":"2022-12-26T07:29:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T15:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2022-12-26T07:29:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T15:29:51","slug":"baby-beaver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/baby-beaver\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Beaver"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-8192\" data-postid=\"8192\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-8192 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>I have seen a great many sights in or along Oregon&#8217;s riparian areas in my lifetime, but a sighting a while back topped them all: a baby beaver gliding in a creek and then gnawing a tiny stick of willow from a bank. This marvel occurred four blocks from my home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was on a walk with dear friends and their kooky dog. We stopped at a bridge to admire daffy ducks and something near a log caught my eye. It wasn&#8217;t a duck. It was a small beaver, alone. I double checked its beaver status, meaning observe the tail: if it&#8217;s flat, you have a beaver, if it&#8217;s narrow, you have a nutria, an introduced species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was flat! I could not believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This marked the third time in my life I&#8217;d observed a beaver in nature. The other two times were at the Oregon Coast and magical, but they didn&#8217;t compare to this sighting. I had been so blue of late, wondering about my role, my writing, my father, my future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the appearance of this little heavenly bucktoothed creature. My friends were excited at the observation but certainly not to my fanatical degree. <em>Jesus!<\/em> I now knew how a Christian might feel if Jesus did actually return!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What a Christmas gift from Oregon&#8217;s Watershed Gods. I&#8217;ve given them a lot the last quarter century, and here they were thanking me.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have seen a great many sights in or along Oregon&#8217;s riparian areas in my lifetime, but a sighting a while back topped them all: a baby beaver gliding in a creek and then gnawing a tiny stick of willow from a bank. This marvel occurred four blocks from my home. I was on a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8194,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions\/8194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}