One should not to waste this valuable season in Wisconsin worrying about beavers in one's back yard plugging up a culvert that runs under one's driveway.
But for some it is hard not to try over and over to unjam a dam, so that the black hole just outside Harmony Grove, doesn't turn into the black sea just outside the lagoons.
On my way back from the mailbox I often stop by to give the growing and ever changing situation a look.
That is when I pick up a handle.
Once I start pulling crud out of the pond, same as deadheading flowers, it is hard to stop.
News flash.
One little old crazy lady with a pitch fork and a pile of junk mail is no match for a mess of this epic perfection.
Our new neighbors, the ones with all the buck teeth, pay no heed to any neighborhood association rules. They still have not even paid their dues.
You do not want me to get started on the issue of property taxes.
What all this means is that I know I will never be reimbursed for the rake handle that just snapped in half while I was leveraging it against the rock wall with branches, sticks and muck woven together on the other end, catapulting me into the pretty patch of wild flowers, with yet another smashed up finger and mud splattered t-shirt.
This however, is how I met a daisy hiding amongst the milkweed in front of the rock wall that I just unhinged.
"Well, hello there," I said. "Maybe you can tell me what the hell has been going on. Do you know what their next move is?"
Turns out, daisies don't talk.
I got up, brushed myself off and walked back to the house to confess my sins and throw away the mail.
"We are going to need a new rake and one of your rocks is loose," I told my sweet Sven.
"You broke another one?"
"Yeah."
"Did you unplug the dam?"
"No. They have that thing booby trapped."
I am still trying my very best not to stoop to the Cleaver level.
After all, it must be hectic raising two little ones at a time. Maybe the Mister and Missus just haven't had a chance to look around and see all the damage they have done to me.
"Hey Millie," said Sven.
"Yeah?"
"The Beave was just up here."
"What??"
"The little one chewed his way up the bank and into your flowers. Then he turned to leave and grabbed one last bite on his way out."
I might have to bug that undercover daisy in order to collect the evidence needed for the day we all land in court.
For more Millie and Sven beaver adventure stories click above on The Cleaver Family.