My House Is a Construction Zone

Words and music by Lydia Adams Davis
©1989 Lydia Adams Davis

Lydia Davis is a singer/songwriter and puppeteer who performs for all ages. Her songs are often inspired by nature. “In the late ’80s I appeared annually at the Canadian Thousand Island State Park at the request of the naturalist rangers who maintained a vast collection of Indian artifacts and out-of-print books that I frequently studied by candlelight in my electricity-free cabin. As a songwriter-storyteller and amateur naturalist, my imagination was captivated by the tale of a determined beaver, nicknamed “The Engineer,” who challenged a commercial logging operation by rebuilding his dam every night after the logging engineers removed it the previous day. “The Engineer” ultimately won the battle as the commercial venture moved elsewhere! Thus, his dam built a Bridge to Environmental Peace…at least for a time.

“Around this time, I was the elementary music teacher at a Bronx country day school, and one of my students was enduring life in an apartment undergoing extensive renovation. One day she declared, ‘My house is a construction zone!’ in extreme pique. All it takes is a hook to birth a song. I adapted her situation to the beaver tale, and later, as a professional entertainer and puppeteer, ‘Beaver’ completed the verses in performance!”