The Angels’ Share

Puddock Hill Journal #9: Nature Takes Its Toll

A small natural tragedy befell us this week at Puddock Hill.

While string trimming around newly planted trees on the big pond slope, the guys discovered that a pair of four-foot-tall dogwoods had been severed at their trunks two inches off the ground. We planted these trees just last fall to help form an understory bracketed by high-bush blueberry shrubs downslope and larger trees, mostly oaks, on the upslope. Now our plans had been partially, if temporarily, foiled.

The cuts appeared so clean that a loppers might have been suspected, but no one had been around there with such an instrument in a long time. It seemed a mystery at first.

Then our property manager, Larry, remembered spotting a pair of beavers swimming in the pond last week. He took a video that showed a world of cuteness.