In the hubbub and craziness of life, we often encounter things that interrupt the smoothness of our day. When these situations arise, they can often make even the most level-headed person question why they even bothered to get out of bed that morning.

Recently the Landscape Department has been working on edging and mulching all of the legacy trees throughout the park district. These trees have been purchased by guests in order to memorialize or honor the loss of a loved one. This is a major undertaking, as there are nearly a thousand trees in 16 different parks all throughout the county. Since this is such a daunting task, you can imagine the frustration that occurs among staff when things don’t go as smoothly as planned. Recently a wrench was thrown into our day, and what started as a groan of frustration quickly turned into smiles and laughs.

Some legacy trees are located on The Mill Course in Winton Woods. A few trees in particular are located on the 10th hole of the course, and in order to get to those trees it requires taking the service drive that runs in the middle of the course. On a particular morning in September, I pulled onto the service drive and was met with a surprise: a tree had fallen across the service drive and was blocking our path. Immediately a collective groan went out among the staff members, but after parking the vehicles and surveying the situation, the mood suddenly lightened. Upon further inspection, we discovered that the fallen tree was caused by a beaver! After laughing at the situation, the tree was quickly cut up by hand saws and moved off the road.

This situation was a good reminder to all of us present that day how lucky we truly are. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff and dwell on the bad things that occur. It took a beaver to make me realize that the small setbacks that pop up every day don’t really matter, and they are not often as big of a deal as we make them out to be. This situation also made me chuckle, because I personally can’t think of another occupation where your job task can be interrupted by the actions of a beaver.

Chris Fath, Landscape Technician