“There’re Beaver Up On Hodges Creek”
Lowell L. Getz
Having lived 83 plus years, I obviously have been witness to an unbelievable
number of changes in my lifetime. Technological advances, in particular, are almost
unfathomable. As an ecologist, however, with an interest in nature from when I can first
remember while growing up on a farm in southern Illinois, it is the changes in the natural
surroundings that are most striking to me. When I came upon the scene in September
1931, European settlers had been present in our county for over 125 years, and
agriculture carried on for nearly that long. As a result, a number of the larger wildlife
species long ago had been extirpated by hunters and from clearing of land for agriculture:
white tailed deer, beaver, bobcats, river otters, cougars, black bear, Wild Turkey, and
timber wolves.
When first I became aware of my surroundings, agriculture in that part of Illinois
consisted mainly of small, 80-160 acre, subsistence farms. Almost all relied on horses
and mules to work the fields and for other work around the farm. The primary crops
were wheat, corn, a few acres of oats, and hay (mainly red clover). Each farm had a few
milk cows, which provided milk, cream and butter for the family and some for sale to
help the family finances. Several dozen hogs were raised for income. Two or three of
these were butchered in the winter for use by the family, the meat preserved by sugar
curing or made into sausage patties that were canned (few farms had electricity). A
dozen or two “feed cattle” were purchased as yearlings in the fall and “fed out” during
the winter for sale in the spring. Corn, oats and hay were used to feed the livestock,
whereas wheat was a cash crop sold to the local elevator. Crop rotation, involving a
sequence of corn-wheat-red clover-corn, was employed to maintain soil productivity.
Manure from cattle and horse barns was the only fertilizer available. Approximately one
third of the cropland was in clover each year. In addition to cropland, most farms
included several acres of pasture for grazing milk cows, horses and mules.
Many of the fields were surrounded by osage orange hedges with three to four
foot widths of dense grasses and forbs on each side. Most osage orange hedgerows were
trimmed back to about five feet high during the winter. A few were let grow, the trees
forming a dense canopy thirty or more feet high. County roadsides and edges of farm
lanes were covered with dense growths of grasses, forbs and small shrubs. Pastures were
mainly dense grass with a scattering of large trees and shrubs. In late summer, when the
crops needed no attention and the hay had been put up in the barn lofts, farmers would
mow the pastures or go through them with a “grubbing hoe” (an “industrial strength”
heavy hoe) and cut out young seedlings (“sprouts”) to prevent trees from taking over the
pastures. Some of the lower more steeply rolling parts of the pastures were mainly
wooded. Trees in these places were cut for firewood for kitchen cook stoves and heating
stoves in winter.
The landscape of that time, while predominated by cultivated fields, thus retained
considerable remnants of the original pre-settlement natural habitats, as well as a lot of
“rough land” in the hedgerows and roadsides. Much of the year, cover for wildlife was
also present in the form of clover and, for a few months in late spring and early summer,
wheat fields. This scenic landscape, provided ideal habitat for many species of wildlife,
including reptiles, small mammals and song birds.
Cottontail rabbits were everywhere. When my dad made the last couple of passes
through the wheat field with the wheat binder, dozens of rabbits that had been living in
the wheat would scatter in all directions. A walk through any pasture would be sure to
kick up several. Rabbits provided a ready food supply for foxes commonly observed
running across roads and in pastures. Their dens, with young peaking out, could be seen
in the wooded ravines. Dried dead white-footed mice hung by the scruff of the neck on
thorns of honey locust trees and on barbed wire fences, to be eaten later by the
Loggerhead Shrikes that put them there. Bluebirds nested in cavities in the “corner
posts” of fences (extra large osage orange posts, large enough to withstand the “pull” of
fences from two angles). Chattering Barn Swallows flitted about barn lots scooping up
insects and then darting through open barn doors to feed their young in half-cup shaped
mud nests stuck on the rafters. Meadowlarks could be heard singing from along
roadsides and clover fields. Killdeer scampered along closely grazed pastures, giving off
their shrill “Kill-dee, kill-dee, kill-dee” calls as they faked broken wings to lure you away
from their nests. Bobwhite Quail whistled “Bob-Bob-White!” calls from the pastures and
field borders.
Small bright bluish Indigo Buntings and Dickcissels (resembling sparrow sized
meadowlarks) sat on telephone lines. Bright yellow, black-winged Goldfinches (“Wild
Canaries”) sang from fencerows. There was a constant din of “caucusing” Crows as they
foraged out into crop fields and flocked around their nesting trees. Brown Thrashers,
Cowbirds and Mocking Birds, all sounding similar, chorused from below shrubs in fence
and hedge rows. Cuckoos (“Rain Crows”) called from wooded areas around the house
and in trees in the pastures, portending a coming rain. The haunting warbling call of
Screech Owls were common night-time sounds, as was the “hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo” of
Great Horned (“Hoot”) Owls. At any given time one could see several Turkey Vultures
(“Buzzards”) soaring in wide circles in the sky, looking for hogs or other livestock that
had died and been dragged into pastures to decay.
Eastern box turtles were commonly seen in pastures and wooded areas. Buddy
Rands and I collected over 20 in one day from my Dad’s horse pasture. Snakes were
seen slithering away as we walked in the pastures and along dusty roads--blue racers,
black racers, fox snakes, and hog-noses (“spreadnatters” because of their behavior of
spreading the head and neck, as does a cobra). Hog-noses would roll over on their backs
when we approached, playing dead. If we rolled them over on their belly, they would
immediately roll over onto their back. Although not “wild life” per se, dung beetles were
an abundant fixture in the dusty lanes. Two of them, male and female, rolled with their
hind legs, small marble-sized balls of horse dung to a burrow where the female would lay
her eggs in the prepackaged food supply for the larvae.
As soon as we were old enough, beginning when no older than 7, kids of my age
began roaming the county roads, pastures, streams, ponds, and railroad tracks out and
around our nearby small home town, Chesterfield. We wandered the country-side, in
spring picking black berries in openings in the woods, raspberries in the shrubby field
borders and wild strawberries along the railroad tracks, where we also dug sassafras roots
for tea. In the summer, we would go fishing in the nearby streams and ponds and
camping on the banks of Macoupin Creek. No tent, just a canvas tarp thrown over a rope
tied between two trees. In autumn we would go to the woods to collect hickory nuts and
black walnuts, removing the soft black hulls of the walnuts by hand (our hands becoming
stained dark brown from hulling walnuts—a status symbol). We also collected hazel nuts
from along shrubby fencerows. In winter we went sledding on steep snowy pasture
hillsides, in between runs warming ourselves over a fire. Then, there was the summer we
boys and a several of the girls went skinny-dipping in Bear Creek, another nearby small
shallow creek we frequented. But, that is another story, for another time.
When I look back at what we did and where we went, when so young, and
realizing what present-day kids of that age are not allowed to do, it is abundantly clear,
that in so many more ways than one, we grew up in a different world than do the kids
today. Those were more innocent times. Children were presumed to be careful and
responsible. Stress on our parents during the Great Depression most likely contributed to
kids being left to do “their things.” For us it was an opportunity to experience nature in a
way not available to present-day kids. We became intimately familiar with the local
flowers, trees and shrubs, and wildlife species--what they looked like, the sounds they
made, where they grew or lived, and their activities. All these species were an integral
part of our early lives.
Most days during the summer, I would ride my bike two miles into town to meet
up with my friends. We would then ride off to one of our “stomping grounds” within
three or so miles of town. I do not know when it started or who first told us, but from our
first memories we told, “There’re beaver up on Hodges Creek”, a small stream about two
miles northwest of town--one of our favorite places to investigate. In those days, saying
there were beaver anywhere in the state was equivalent to telling someone “Big Foot”
lived over in Palmer Woods, a wooded area three miles southwest of town. But, being
young and credulous, we believed there really were beaver up on Hodges Creek. Every
so often we rode our bikes out to the road that crossed the creek upstream and then
walked the pastures alongside the creek looking for a beaver dam. That we never found
one, did not dampen our enthusiasm or our curiosity. We kept going back time after
time, believing that one day we would find a dam and confirm there were beaver up on
Hodges Creek. We never did.
Eventually we all outgrew that phase of our lives. Other things became more
important in our lives when we entered high school. Girls, maybe? After high school all
of us journeyed far away from Chesterfield, off to college or to the military. I did both.
But, I never forgot the streams, ponds, pastures, railroads, and dirt roads we travelled on
the way to our favorite haunts. Though far away, those familiar sights and sounds with
which I grew up, continued to resonate in my mind. So many echoes, so many images.
Memories of our trips to Hodges Creek in quest of the elusive beaver were extra special.
OK, by then I realized that none really had been there, but did not want to relinquish one
of my singular childhood memories.
Things changed over the next few decades, especially farming practices and land
use. Mechanization of farming following World War II, employing complex and
expensive tractors, combines and other farm equipment, facilitated consolidating no
longer profitable small farms into larger holdings. Hedgerows were removed, creating
larger fields necessary in which to maneuver the heavy equipment. Agriculture changed
from subsistence to cash farming, the cash crops limited to grain production, corn and
soybeans (which replaced wheat). With availability of effective inorganic fertilizers,
crop rotation, which utilized red clover to maintain soil productivity, was no longer
necessary. And, without horses or mules to feed, hay was not needed. Rapidly,
agriculture became essentially a “dual monoculture”—corn and soybeans. Milk, cream
and butter (more likely oleo) were purchased at the grocery store in town. With the
disappearance of cows, horses and mules from the farm, there was no need for
pastureland. Most level grassy pastures were bulldozed of trees, shrubs and grasses to
create additional cropland. Only those places that were too steep to cultivate and stream
bottoms were not cleared. Because grain farming, with more efficient mechanization,
took less time, there was time to mow closely the roadsides within the agricultural lands.
It became the badge of a reputable farmer to have neat, closely mown roadsides and field
borders.
In a very few decades the landscape went from one with considerable “natural”
habitat (pastureland with scattered trees and shrubs in dense grasses, agricultural fields
bordered by wide bands of grasses, forbs and osage orange hedges, vegetated roadsides,
and cover provided by wheat and clover fields) to a more barren countryside. The
“natural” habitat that remained was scarce and highly fragmented, with extensive
expanses of sterile cropland in between small isolated patches of “rough land.” Few of
these patches were of sufficient size to support breeding populations of wildlife.
As might be expected, many of the species which were so much a part of my early
life soon became scarce. Seldom does one see or hear species that once had been so
much a part of my being. Others, formerly abundant, became less common and no longer
prominent components of the landscape. It is now a different, less colorful and more
quiet, natural world from that in which I grew up.
But, something strange began happening regarding long extirpated species, a
combination of becoming tolerant of human proximity, protection from hunting and
concerted introductions. Soon after I moved away, white tail deer started appearing in
the state, rapidly becoming abundant, so much so that they became a nuisance to farmers
and a danger to motorists. There were sufficient patches of wooded cover for the deer
and plenty of food in the corn fields. For hunters the return of white tail deer was a
welcomed event. Their presence brought back a hunting culture that long had been
missing from the region. Later, Wild Turkey became established in Illinois, following
introductions in several places throughout the state. Breeding populations occupy the
wooded areas, the birds flying out into adjacent croplands to feed. Beaver were
introduced into streams in several parts of the state, whereas others dispersed in from
adjacent Missouri. It was not long before beaver became abundant throughout the state.
The narrow corridors of wooded ravines adjacent to even small streams provided building
material for their dams. River otter were also introduced into several rivers within the
state. They rapidly increased in numbers, soon becoming a nuisance when they moved
out of the rivers to feed in farm ponds stocked with channel catfish, which are commonplace throughout the southern part of the state. Bobcats slowly moved into the state from
the south, along forested floodplains of rivers and larger streams. Although not abundant,
breeding populations are now established throughout much of the state. There even are
confirmed records of both cougar and black bear in the vicinity of Chesterfield. Neither
of these has established a breeding population, the records obviously representing
individuals wandering in from the south, along wooded bottomlands. But, still, they
move through the county now and then.
What fun we would have had in tromping around the woods and pastures and the
ravine alongside Hodges Creek had these species been present back then. Wonder how
we would have felt camping down on Macoupin Creek, alongside of which there was an
extensive wooded flood plain, had we known a bear or cougar could be wandering “out
there in the dark?” But, we all had left home before these species arrived back. Our
memories are of that long ago landscape, when the smaller species were still abundant.
We were fortunate to have been born at a time when there were still sufficient remnants
of the original pristine environment to harbor so many species of wild life. We
experienced nature in a way that is no longer available. True, one can journey to State
and National Parks and other protected environments and see most of the species we
grew up with. But, these represent “living zoos”, the species no longer are a part of one’s
everyday life.
Now days, Crows “caucusing” from the trees in our housing area (Crows have
adapted well to human urban conditions), take me back to those years on the farm,
evoking long ago memories of sights and sounds that were so much a part of my early
life. And, late at night, when the house is quiet, I close my eyes and let my mind drift
back in time. I see rabbits scurrying from in front of my Dad’s horse-drawn wheat binder
and jumping up and running ahead of me across a pasture. Song birds of all sorts are
flitting around hedgerows and sitting on telephone wires. Buzzards are soaring overhead.
Dried white-footed mice hang by the scruff of the neck from the thorns on a honey locust
tree. The gray hook-billed Loggerhead Shrikes that hung them there are sitting atop
nearby low red haw trees. An eastern box turtle lumbers across a dusty road. A
“spreadnatter” flattens its head and rolls over on its back. A Rain Crow call tells me that,
irrespective of what the weather woman on TV has just predicted, there will be rain
tomorrow. I hear the shrill whistling of Bobwhite Quail in the distance. The trilling
warble of a Screech Owl drifts in from a tree in the back yard. And, yes, a couple small
rotund dusty dung beetles are rolling a ball of horse dung along a dusty field road. All
these images and echoes, so vivid. Then I open my eyes and realize I have been in a
different time and place. What I imagined as so real are only figments of a long-suffering
misty-eyed brain.
But, one of my fanciful memories of those early days finally came true. There
are beaver up on Hodges Creek.