The Frightening Evolution of Birds

As a cat sees it.

A girlfriend gave me a kitten some years ago when we lived in a little 10' by 12' cabin. It had two windows and a door, a tiny shelf for a kitchen and some shelves. The rest of the space, what we didn't need for turning around in, was filled with the wood stove. During the course of the winter, little tweety birds fluttered around outside our front window. It was cold, so I took to sprinkling a bit of corn flower on the outside windowsill. It served to bring the tiny birds a lot closer, and our kitten would sit on the table, which was under that window, and avidly watch those little birds, chattering away with excitement.

As spring wore on, the birds got a little bigger, and as it got warmer, the kitten, named Ishtar, got to play outside a little. She discovered camp-robbers, little gray birds maybe two or three times the size of the little tweety birds, which had moved on.

Some time later, we were visited by a flock of magpies, in fact, one of them drew little Ishtar way up into a tree, but she made it down.

In the continued evolution of things that go fluttering in Ishtar's world, a raven stopped by for a visit. Since he was still around a second day, I tied a chicken neck to a tree branch so it hung about two feet from the ground. Too far up for the bird to reach while standing. He was really rather funny to watch as he tried to get it. Ishtar wasn't brave enough to go after this one so she stayed on the table and chattered at it through the window.

A few days later, the god who makes all things grow bigger simply got way out of hand. Ishtar was sitting at the window, anxiously awaiting any fluttering creature the great outside had to offer, when suddenly an otter (bush plane) flew low over the house in preparation for landing somewhere behind us. That was just too much. I swear you never saw a cat move faster. She was off the table and across the floor, under the kitchen shelf as far behind whatever was there as she could get.

With a little encouragement, she came out of there, but things that go flutter outside the window weren't so interesting anymore.

Cold Shower

The very first year I worked out on the river, the lodge I worked at had two separate buildings for the camp bathrooms. One of them also housed the washer and dryer, giving me reason to be in the building. One day, a man came in, his arms full with his change of clothes and assorted toiletries, obviously intent on taking a shower.

I told the man, the propane was out and that he should just go to the other building. It wasn't as if they were clear across the camp from each other. If the buildings had been a couple feet closer, they would have shared a corner.

"Oh no," he says. "I don't mind a cold shower."

"The water's real cold here," I warned him. I did. The water in the river comes directly from a glacier and I doubt it ever gets warmer than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. And since the water for the shower houses comes from a well that's not really all that far from the river. I know a glass of cold water from the tap is every bit as cold as a glass of water from the frig, maybe even poured over ice-cubes - refreshingly cold, but too cold for a shower.

Needless to say, the guy didn't spend much time trying to take a cold shower. He came back out and said, "That water's cold!!!"

All I could say is, "I told you so."

Yard Work

Yep, most of the snow is gone and a healthy chunk of the yard is dry enough to rake, so guess what I did for a couple hours this afternoon. I went outside and did a little raking. This time of year is kinda risky for me, but the spruce trees aren't dusting the countryside yet and last year's dust didn't get to me either. Allergies are a real pain, but they only last for a little while, thank god. The last thing I need is to start sneezing and coughing cause that only aggravates my bronchitis, not that it's all that bad but it is annoying.

Working in the yard, though, reminded me that I haven't told you about the otter who camped out under out house a couple falls ago. I was out cleaning up the yard and burning trash, and occasionally throwing a stick for the dog when she went charging off into the tall grass off back by my ex-garden. I didn't see anything so whatever it was was smaller than a bear and definitely smaller than a moose. I didn't even see the tall grass waving except where the dog was so it was smaller than she was. I wasn't worried until she yelped. She's never yelped. She might growl. Once in a while she'll bark, but she's never yelped. I dropped what I was doing and called her back into the yard. She's always been good at coming when she was called, but she didn't want to this time. When she did come, she had blood on her nose.

I hustled her into the house before taking the time to look at the damage. She now has a scar across the top of her nose about an inch long and it healed up quickly.

The next day, I kept an eye peeled for our mysterious visitor. I also kept an eye on the dog. Just in case our visitor was still hanging around somewhere. No, I wasn't going to go beating through six-foot grass and weeds to look for something that might be hurt and pissed.

As it turns out, Gizmo wasn't interested in going off into the tall grass anymore. In fact she wasn't all that interested in chasing sticks either. She kept an eye under the house but I didn't really notice it at the time; she was just hanging around the house really close.

That night, Don kept hearing things like a far-away motor, but there was no boat traffic anymore, the season was over. If anyone was running around in a boat, it wouldn't be big enough for us to hear from here. Plus it was late in the evening. I went outside to listen, but didn't hear anything. This happened a couple more times.

The next day, I heard it, and I heard it from outside. Something was under the house. Of course, since I'd told Gizmo 'no' it became 'mine' and therefore off limits and okay to be in the yard. She was just keeping an eye on it. Mind you, I still didn't know what it was, but I now knew where it was. I, very carefully, went under the house to try to see what it was. Whatever it was, it was small cause it could hide among all the stuff under there.

I suppose I got to within a couple feet of it, but I never got a very good look at it - a tail here - a cheek there - and then it was hiding behind something else. Why was an otter camping out under our house? Maybe it was hurt from the fight with Gizmo, but the little pieces and parts that I could see didn't seem any worse for the wear. I could see it well enough to tell that it was a full grown otter. Maybe it would get a little bigger, maybe it was a female. I couldn't tell.

I was trying to burn some fish that was too mushy to can, so I decided to rescue it from the fire and give it to our guest, maybe he was just a little messed up from the fight and was too weak to hunt. Maybe I could entice him out far enough so I could tell. No luck there.

It snowed that night, three or four inches. When I went to see about our guest, he wasn't there, neither was the fish, so he went away full. I found his tracks in the new snow heading out the back of the house and off through the garden, on to wherever he'd been going in the first place.

That was the extent of the visit. I never saw it again. I haven't seen too many otters this far from the water. There used to be a family we'd see at least once a year down by the boats - no idea where they stay.

I saw one once years ago running through the edge of our yard during winter. It was really rather comical to watch as it gamboled along with the occasional slide mixed in.

April Showers Bring...

I stepped outside my door yesterday morning and realized that there was a sizable spot of bare ground out there, off to the side of the main trail to the steps. In front of the steps there's still an inch or two of ice - don't worry, it's not slippery, it's too pitted to be slippery.

Now that's not the first bare ground to show up; the first one was under the exhaust of the generator, which sits on top of the doghouse. Putting it there for the winter is tons easier than trying to keep a hole dug out for it on the ground, and the exhaust keeps the snow 'down wind' melted to a distance of roughly three or four feet and the top of the doghouse is easy to scrape off.

Back to the real melted spot. So far it is the only spot of bear ground that I know of. I'm sure there are more. Places like under the big spruce trees always have less snow and at the rate of melt I'm sure the bare ground around those trees is growing daily. I also saw that the four-wheeler no longer has snow on top of it, but the snow around it is still every bit as deep as the four-wheeler is tall - around waist deep there, give or take a few inches.

Other trails: the trail down to the fuel drums now looks like a trail in new snow, if you ignore the dirt darkening the snow in that trail. You see, the new snowfall we had a little while ago is still white, but where it was disturbed the dirt underneath was found by the sun that has been shining for weeks nice and warm every day. The darkness of the dirt absorbs the sun's heat and melts the snow faster than the white of new snow, so since the trail down to the fuel drums is pointed primarily in the same direction as rays of the at it's hottest, it had become a bit of a trench. The trail to the outhouse or the freezer are both sideways to that source of heat and so are melting sideways. The said dirt, visible in all trails, melts the snow to the side, each fleck of dirt moving to the north a tiny bit every day, thus creating a false trail, so to speak. Now, if I were to walk where the trail appears like it should be, I would quickly be wading in snow that is still more than knee deep. However, walking on the packed part of the trail isn't easy. It too has been 'burned' sideways by the angle of the sun's rays. Yeah, it's interesting walking around out there these days.

Last night, it started raining, and it is raining still, now the clock around. I know 'rain' means many different thing to different people. If you live in Texas, rain comes down in buckets and can cause flash floods, an interesting detail found only occasionally in western novels. Here such a goose-drowner happens only once in a great while. Our normal rain is sure to get a stroller wet, and driving an open boat in the rain is highly unpleasant but all in all, it's rather pleasant if you don't have to be out in it.

The rain, nice as it might be, does complicate my problem with walking around outside. Since it didn't freeze last night, and likely won't again tonight, getting to the fuel drums for my little can of gas might be interesting. I may have to plan on wet feet tomorrow morning. Then again, it may work out better than I think it will. I like little surprises like that.

Now that the rains are falling and the nights aren't freezing, one more step towards spring has been covered. That's not to say there won't be more freezing nights but they are numbered I'm sure. Any time now I'll be seeing small flecks of green and I'm not talking about the perma-green trees.

Nature's Opera

There was coyote song on the air this morning, and it was so echoing and so varied that opera was the first thing that came to mind. Like opera on stage, it is sung in a different language, and unless you can speak Italian, there's no understanding the words and one must depend on the actors, the scenes and the costumes in order to understand the story, and of course, knowing what the story is ahead of time helps immensely. Unlike opera, rather than lasting a couple hours, coyote song is over in moments, leaving the air echoing emptily, leaving my ears searching for another note.

With coyote song, there's no knowing what the story is. There's no script to follow or look up online. Some say they are calling their brethren to the hunt, and some say they are calling to the kill. I've even heard they'll call in frustration as the quarry gets away. Whatever the reason, in my opinion, it is pure heartstrings.

Ever since our foot of brand new snow, I've been out early to fill my buckets. My thought was to have most of my buckets full of nice clean water, and when I have all but two or three full, I'll circulate the last of them until I run out of snow to collect. Last night it froze (it's 25F right now). I was outside, packing this crunchy snow into my buckets when I heard this soprano note climb and fall, echoing through the trees. There must have been half a dozen of them sounding off, imitating each other as if they were singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat'.

I wish I had more operatic terminology so I could make it clearer. Take my word for it, it was so pure and stunning it took me a moment to identify what I was hearing.

There are other opera singers out here. Unfortunately they seldom occupy the same stage at the same time. The lonely wolf cry, something I seldom get to hear, is the soloist tenor. The woodpecker, which I did hear this morning, is the percussion. Sometime next month maybe there will be swan song and goose song and maybe even some duck song. Before too much longer there will be the whip-o-will song back in the swamps, at least that's what I think they're called. I hear they are calling a mate, and I hear they are really quite comical about it. Unfortunately, I've never seen it.

So tell me, what sounds do you hear on a quiet morning when most of humanity is sleeping?

Winter's Last Gasp

I woke up this morning to a fairly thick snowstorm outside my window, and when I let the dog out, I saw upwards of two inches of snow on the steps. Course it looked deeper so I went out and measured it.

It's well into April; last gasps are supposed to happen in March, or well most of the time they do. March was beautiful. Clear skies, cold nights, and warm days. All this week it has been clear skies most of the time, warmer nights - most of them barely getting below freezing, and very warm days reaching well up into the forties during the day. It did try to snow once a couple days ago, but it was scarcely enough to give a white dusting noticeable on various dark objects and gone by the end of the day.

This is the time of year when I dread going outside, even to go to the freezer. The path to the freezer is still three feet deep in snow. I know this because I broke through the other day and was suddenly sitting on said path, and I don't recall my foot touching ground.

This is the time of year when the packed part of any trail becomes narrower with each sun's crossing, when all the tree trash blown out of the trees over the winter has started eating at the snow, creating a choppy surface sure to twist the ankle of any unwary creature. And now that I think on it, this is why moose, and other assorted bovine-type creatures, have the leg structure they do. Mother Nature long since created them to be able to walk most anywhere without twisting an ankle.

Now that there is a brand new layer of snow over those trails, twisting my ankle is more of a certainty. Fortunately, my excuses for going outside are few and I'm very familiar with the hazards, so the worst that will happen to me is that I fill my shoes (again) with snow.

I wear my shoes most everywhere, most any time of the year. I put my winter boots on when I know I'm going to be wading around in snow for an extended period of time. Even if I'm wearing my snowshoes, I prefer to wear my shoes. Back in November, when I was packing the runway the hard way, I was wearing my shoes with my snowshoes. Though I might not have developed blisters if I'd worn my boots, neither would I have managed to get most of that runway packed in one day. The only other time I wear something other than my shoes is when I start walking to work and have to wade across a muddy spot along our trail. Spring runoff creates a small creek, and when the ground thaws out the mud seems bottomless. That's when I wear my husband's knee-high waders, at least until I get to the boat. These poor things, made by Timberland, have covered a lot of distance on my feet over the years, and if ever I see another like them, I'll get a new pair. They've spent their fair share either in the oven over night or hanging over the wood-stove drying out after I've filled them with snow once too often and they start feeling soggy.

It's hard to say how long this snow will last, not long I'm sure, but the white will slow the melt and cover the ugly for a little while anyway. Spring is the ugliest time of year. Things are no longer white, draped in winter's glory, nor are they green, bursting with summer's promise of bounty. Even fall's colorful glory is by far prettier than spring.

But such is the time of year. Now is the time when I start thinking about accumulating enough water to make it from gathering the last of the snow to collecting the first of the rain or going to work, whichever comes first. Now is the time of year when we should be gathering firewood, but with my husband's seemingly constant migraines, it looks like that may not happen this year. Weather change, be it good or bad, and even if it misses us directly, gives him a bad headache and running a snowmachine, not to mention the chainsaw, becomes a painful prospect for him. Aw well, we may still get out there - there's still plenty of time, and now maybe just a little more.

Back last October I posted a spring rant I'd written on my other blog, before this one existed. There I talked about the ugliness of spring in town, sad really. Out here I go out of my way to pick up my trash, any trash wherever I am, even going off out into the brush to pick up what a bear drug off. Last fall, on one of my last trips out with the boat, a friend tossed a soda can on the beach. Sure, it wouldn't have been there come spring, but out of sight does not mean gone. So what if it's somewhere else. So what if it ends up at the bottom of the river crushed to an unrecognizable lump of aluminum. So what if it will cause little damage in the grand scheme of things. It is trash and I won't litter up my world. I picked up that can and tossed it in my boat. I don't know if my friend even noticed, I didn't say anything to him. But another friend there saw and noticed the entire thing. He smiled. Even here at home I'll pick up after my family. A couple winters ago my son was out here. He and my husband both smoke (trying to stop), and at the time they had cigarettes with filters (store-bought cigarettes). Their habit was to stand outside and smoke (giving me a break), and then flick their butt somewhere in the snow. Roll-your-owns I don't worry about, heck, I don't even find them come spring, but cigarette butts are another thing. When I started picking them up by the handful (almost), I started hollering. I believe in taking care of my world the best I can. Too bad so few people feel the same.

Do you take care of your world? Make me feel better about spring; tell me how.

Getting Lost

Becoming lost really is relative. One day, several years ago, during moose hunting season, I decided to walk along a ridge above a small creek. There was a game trail along this ridge and there was a foot or so of snow on the ground so I was wearing my snowshoes. Since it was hunting season, I was also carrying my 30.06.

Cutting across the landscape are some size-lines. They are man-made lines cut arrow-straight through and over any and all terrain. Some of them go on for miles and miles, and some start and stop after covering much shorter distances. If any of them parallel another, it is purely by accident. I don't know what their purpose is, but I believe they were an aid in making topographical maps.

Near my home is one heading roughly east and west. About a half mile to the west is another that crosses the first at near ninety degrees. My goal on this day was to hike around this ridge until I encountered that first size-line and then head on home, going out of my way by maybe a mile from our normal trail.

Needless to say, I missed the size-line and continued walking on, ending up on the second size-line. Having never approached the size-line from this direction before, and being just a mite stubborn, I walked much, much further than I should have, and I did find a small herd of moose - perfect for shooting. No, I didn't shoot one. I had already been walking for maybe a couple hours (did I mention I was stubborn), but I wasn't stupid (not much), I had no desire to hike an entire moose out that far on foot. My shot would probably bring my husband and two sons as fast as they could get there, but it just might take all night to get the entire moose home.

Still not finding the landmarks I was looking for, I decided there was nothing for it but to turn around and follow my trail back to the beginning. Yeah, I was an idiot; I should have come to this decision long ago.

Needless to say, my rifle was getting heavier by the mile and my arms were starting to feel like they were going to fall off. I was SO so so glad to run into my men as they were trying to hack their way along my trail with a snowmachine, some miles before I made it entirely back to my starting point. And thanks to their trail, I could now take my original target trail back to the house.

I'm sure my husband acquired several gray hairs that day, just as I'm sure my boys did a little more growing up - fear of losing a wife and mom to the wilderness of Alaska would do that to a person, but I was too exhausted to notice much by then. I gave them all a hug and handed over the tonnage that was my rifle, and trudged on for home, leaving them to get the machine turned around and follow.

To this day, I have never lived it down. I wasn't quite lost; I did have my own trail to follow back, but my family didn't think of that. Needless to say, I try very hard not to be so stubborn.