We like beavers; they keep the water in our 12 acre pond. But they’re getting a little too ambitious. They’ve build another dam upstream, and they’re gnawing down trees. So we decided to put a pipe through their dam to fool them (this idea owed to David Fields).

This is an ordinary 4 inch perforated drain pipe, bought at North Lowndes Hardware. It needs to go through that dam I’m standing on. How do you do that? First remove a bunch of sticks (gloves are useful for this):

Normally the dogs love to dig, but this time not so much.

Then, dredge upstream. Don’t let Gretchen fool you by taking all the pictures; she was dredging and digging downstream.

Eventually you get a trench. This will become harder once the water starts running through. So, what do to?

The dam goes a long way:

Here the beavers have supplied a convenient pry pole:

That made a big gap and Gretchen dredged it to make a good flow.

Meanwhile, we planted the pipe and covered it with sticks and mud, like the beavers do.

If the beavers think our rebuilding efforts are too messy, they can fill in for us. Meanwhile the pipe will keep the pond drained:

Or at least that’s the theory. We’ll check back later to see how well it’s working.

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