Georgia Cattails

An interesting thing happened in Sugar Hill, GA once … Jessica found a few cattails next the main highway, she picked a single cattail and took it to the house of Josh and Anna. They opened it up in the back yard. One year later there was a cattail marsh growing up at the bottom of the bank behind the house. Our friends Josh and Anna made a cattail pillow with a bounty of cattails supplied from that marsh. Check out photos of their process and results on Josh’s blog: http://www.iamjoshbrown.com/blog/2007/11/19/our-cattail-pillow/

Busy Beaver

These views greeted me on Sunday afternoon – I knew something was going on with the master engineers, our beaver friends…..

..

So I hiked down to the other end and found this….

    and this……

So…these hard working guys are not taking the destruction of their marsh lying down!  

Compare a few photos over the last few months…

The winter marsh….    and in March, after the pond drained..

                  

Noah at pond in Feb……… and later in March…

                                   

By the way…..the cattails are growing EVERYWHERE!!!

Spring has sprung!

…out to the ponds last weekend to see what’s going on…signs of life everywhere, and a new beaver dam!! 

    

The landowner has been busy trying to bust up each new effort…but the beaver are  persistent!

Redwing blackbirds have returned to the marsh…and are watching to see how their beaver pals will manage this spring.  Cattails are up over a foot and a half!

      

 Back on soon…with more photos!!

ISSOPWSWCP Headquarters

A Visit to the Marsh – and a shocking discovery

A beautiful Sunday afternoon – and a perfect day to venture out to the cattails stands with the Club’s two charter members!  But instead of picture perfect beaver ponds we found 3 busted up dams and lots of mud!  The land’s owner must be preparing for developement, or has just gotten fed up with the beaver nuisance. 

All the ponds were drained except one, possibly overlooked by the machines….  still signs of the beaver family ‘tho, and freshly chewed bark and tree shoots.   If the work continues, I fear they (the beavers) will pack their suitcases and head off to points further out of town.  The cattail marsh this spring will be affected greatly by this disaster – and will not grow to the same extent as before.  But, we are excited about watching to see if the beaver stick around, and put up a fight.  Not to worry about the amount of cattails to harvest next year…it’s not like we’re supplying a pillow factory with cattail down.

Photos show the girls, and MAX – the intrepid and brave mascot of ISSOPWSWCP!

MOVIE RELEASE

In 2005 my dad, David Bagley, founded ISSOPWSWCP … or the, “International Secret Society Of People Who Sleep With Cattail Pillows”. What is a cattail you may ask? Well, it’s a type of plant. A plant that grows a large compact mass of fluffy seeds once a year. These fluffy seeds are so soft they rival waterfowl down and kapok for softness. My dad discovered a large cattail marsh by our house two years ago and made the secret society’s first member a pillow.

My dad wasn’t the first person to use cattails for pillows. The indians, early settlers and pioneers, the navy during World War ll have all found many practical uses for “cattail down”.

Last year in Nov. and Dec. I was able to tag along with my dad and film some of the fun as he and other members of the society harvested cattail heads for making pillows.

This is a 13 minute mini-documentary of what we discovered and learned along the way.

WIKIPEDIA

Visit WIKIPEDIA.ORG and search, “typha”. Scroll to the bottom and see a new addition to the article, ISSOPWSWCP! See it here!

New Updates

I have added to the cattail facts page and the links page.

Welcome To ISSOPWSWCP.

UPDATES TODAY:

wordpress blog created.

picture page updated.

about page updated.

contact page updated.

The release of this wordpress blog coincides with the much anticipated release of, “Cattails”. A mini-documentary journaling David Bagley’s obession with the abudant, yet often neglected, CATTAIL plant.

Check back soon for the online video debut of, “Cattails”.