Assistants 'volunteer' to help with tree clean-up

About half of the chore of cutting down trees in the yard is dealing with the branches. They all need to be picked up and hauled to burning piles. It's a tedious task. If only I had helpers to do it. Hey! The favourite food of beavers is quaking aspen, the same species of trees I am cutting. I just cut down the trees and give the big rodents time to haul away the branches. In fact, I give them a hand by cutting the branches loose from the trunk.
My trail camera shows beavers passing by every few minutes each night. There are obviously a number of them at work. Even the kits are getting in on the action. The camera showed a kit hauling off a few tiny branches at first and then progressively taking bigger ones.
The adult beavers can carry small logs that are several inches in diameter.
The trick is going to be to allow the beavers to take the branches but not the cut-up pieces of firewood. In the past we've had them steal wood right out of firewood stacks. This year I'm stacking the wood "in-the-round" which means it will be much heavier than split pieces. That, plus the fact it will be wedged by the weight of all the pieces above will, I hope, prevent all of next fall's firewood being dragged into the lake. Each round piece of these large green poplars probably weighs 20 pounds. I'll also stack it as far away from the lake as possible.
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