A Great Big Post About Babies, Dogs, Owls and Trails

It's been quite a weekend, and it's only Saturday night (though you'd never know it by my plans, which include eating, blogging then...yum...sleeping). Temperatures here in southeast Ohio hit 65 on Friday and 58 Saturday, which constitutes a great big cattle prod to me to get out and do something productive.

Cutting a trail down to the orchid site (which is deep in the stream valley in the middle of this shot)

ignited a fire in me to revive the Loop Trail, which my old pals may remember kept me sane throughout my kids' infancies. I would put Phoebe down for a nap, grab the baby monitor handset, and absolutely gallop around this self-made loop, laboriously cleared with hand clippers, watching birds on the fly and drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of the woods, which are so very different from those of the nursery. 

When she was old enough to carry in a backpack, I'd do that, and we had some fun struggling up and down the slopes together. I fashioned a little rear-view mirror so I could see her sweet face. Usually a line of drool ran down and pooled on the shoulder strap. Oh, for those days, and how it felt when she'd fall asleep and turn into pudding in the pack. 

Later, Liam loved to ride in the backpack, until he got so fat his thighs got pinched! Ha ha! I remember how sad I was when I had to retire the baby pack.

I wanna know what happened to my spherical child. He's all stretched out now.

When I began running with Chet in 2009 or so, I forsook the forest with its upsy down struggle and took to the roads. I had a dog who was absolutely reliable, to the point where he didn't even wear a collar, because Job One for Chet Baker was sticking with Mether. I could tell him what side of the road to run on and he'd click right over. Bless his sweet little pied soul. 

Curtis Loew has other priorities. Oh, he loves to check in on me, finding me wherever I might wind up in the forest, but clicking along at my side is not his jam. I have run with him on a leash, and he's very good, but I just don't like keeping this dog, or any, on a string. 

So running has given way to hiking, and that's just fine with both of us. I can stop and examine whatever I want; clamber, slip, and slide, and Curtis can memorize every hill and holler for a couple miles around us.

I don't know exactly what makes me pop out of bed and say, "I'm going to clear trails today!" but sunshine is one of them. I don't eat or drink--I just suit up and head out into the morning with my old buttonless Carhartt jacket on, and my Foxgloves gauntlets. I love these gloves--they protect my hands and arms from thorns and Lord knows there are plenty of those. I feel absolutely naked without them when I'm gardening! As close to an evening glove as I'm ever gonna get.

Also pictured: the smaller of my two Fiskar's boltcutter style clippers. Using them to clear a mile and a half or so of trail is like doing a thousand flexes and squats. As I sit here writing, everything hurts. I only know how to go all in, so that's what I do, time after time. I go out before 8 and get home at lunchtime, and I'm done with a capital D.

While I toiled away on Friday, I heard Curtis give the deep, throaty roar that means COYOTE. He stood and challenged it (them?) for awhile, then ran back and glued himself to me. I'm so glad he's wary of coyotes and has such a keen nose. He was not going to leave me alone with those characters around.

Some crows flew over, cawing, and Curtis tracked them through the trees. 

One of the things I love about cutting trail is that Curtis can do his thing, coursing the woods all around, sniffing in brushpiles and digging holes, even treeing a fat opossum! while I do my thing. I can usually hear his bells ringing, but even if he's out of earshot, I know he's dropped a pin on my location. That dog can cover an amazing amount of ground, and unerringly find his way back to me, or home. For that, I am so grateful. 

To learn this about him, of course, I had to let him go. 

That has been one of the biggest leaps of faith I've taken, to let this dog go. 

Curtis has a lump on his lower neck, a cyst most likely formed when he was chained out in his former life. His veterinarian keeps an eye on it, but she says it's nothing to worry about--just a souvenir of when he was a dog, not a demigod. Just a dog, not my familiar, my best friend and co-adventurer. Just something to be chained up when he gets in trouble.

I look at this dog, this beautiful shooting star, and thinking of him staked out and chained almost brings me to tears. All that was locked up in him, and all the trouble he got into, because he had not yet found his place in the world. His place is with me, and my place is with him.

                                           

 The way he finds me in the woods just kills me. He'll go off on his gigantic circular rounds as I work, the happy jingle of his bells falling to silence as he leaves. I'll shake my head and think, "He'll be back." And sure enough, he finds me, wherever I happen to be. I'm sure he can smell me for a mile. I probably smell like a porkchop to him, since I cook so much. I pulled on yesterday's shirt and thought, "Porkchops! I must smell great to Curtis!"

Part of the goal in clearing this mile of trail was to hack my way to this beech-dominated part of the forest, always a favorite in any season. Barred owls have nested down here for years. I've found their pellets full of crayfish; I am still finding their droppings, and Phoebe has even caught them on a trailcam! 

Please, click on this magical shot to see a barred owl making its living in our little creek.

I can't believe it's ever this green and lovely down there, but it is, and it will be again. And still I love it in winter as well. It's all so beautiful. I can't believe it's ours.

I see marvelous things while clearing. This is a giant buck scrape that's still being used, kept clear and scored every few nights. For those who don't have occasion to see them, these scrapes are the calling cards of rutting whitetail bucks. They clear the duff, paw with hooves and score with antlers, pee in them, and thrash the vegetation all around with their antlers. There are almost always broken twigs right overhead; they push the twigs into the orbital glands below their eyes to leave scent there too. It's the buck's way of advertising his availability. 

I cleared a lot of brush and briars down through the woods so I could break out onto this old logging road. Then I cleared the logging road of multiflora and briars. 

Sometimes clearing is no big deal, and sometimes it's a real pain. 

Cutting a trail through our blackberry patch hurt!

This passage was hard-won, as it was full of Smilax (catbriar).  You can see the green haze that says "You ain't walking through here today" on either side of the new trail.  I can spend hours in a thick place like this, making it walkable. It reminds me of doing the painstaking step by step drawings for animation. It can take you hours to clear a trail that you then walk through in seconds without even thinking about it. 

But that's part of the beauty. That's what makes it so worth doing--that grin I get when I stride smoothly through what used to be a briar patch, on my way to the Lycopodium Rooms. 

Here's the portal to the Rooms. It's kind of a trackless place, so I flagged my trail with little pink ribbons. 

The thing is to have destinations--beautiful places that move my soul--and to be able to get to them easily. To see that Certain Slant of Light and think, "Oh, wouldn't that be gorgeous down in the Chute?" and then take off on a newly cleared trail and get there in good time and without falling down. 

I love to gaze on these huge beech trees near our southwest border. 

   

  

Shila takes it all in.

This passage of forest is especially nice on a winter afternoon, when there is a boy and a dog for scale and sweetness. How good of the boy to wear beech-trunk gray, and of the dog to wear leaf-litter camo!

Curtis looks grand against beeches, moss and leaf litter.

Even when he's got a snagglepuss.

I laughed for about ten minutes when I blew this shot up. Toof.

I absolutely love this clip. We heard a huge tree fall somewhere upslope, and he was all afire to figure out what was happening up there. This is going to sound weird, but the fact that Curtis is able to pant noiselessly (and does) is just one more wonderful thing about him. Chalk it up to my being a birder, and always listening--who needs to listen to loud panting? 

   

 

Solstice Celebration

I took a celebratory walk down the entire road, a total of 3 miles down and 3 miles back up, on June 21. I was celebrating the Summer Solstice, and it was going to be a scorcher, so I started well before sunrise in the cool of the night. I wanted to be in the arms of Dean's Fork when the sun came up on the longest day of the year. It had been so hard to come by, this feeling of peace. The boot was always hanging over my head, ready to drop. The thought that the next time I visited, the beavers might have been shot and their dam ripped out again made going on my favorite hike a proposition fraught with anxiety. I never took a whole breath until, peeking through the shrubs and trees, I saw water where it should be.

And now...now I could believe it would all still be there when I came to see it.

The reflections on the water, the sun coming through fresh leaves, the songs of thrushes and catbirds all around. The sweet warm breath of June, wafting across awakening meadows. The insect choir.

The first Rosa carolina smiling from the moist ditches, their scent pure attar of rose, the scent that sends me through the weeds and down to my knees to inhale it.

My boon companion by my side, or more properly pulling me along. Constantly reminding him not to pull, occasionally having to put the lead on the clip on his chest (It's the Walk Right front connect harness, and it's great). He hasn't learned not to pull because I praise him when he pulls me up the hills. The same thing that helps on hills annoys me on a straightaway. Any dog would be confused.

He's on a lead because there are just too many temptations for a ramblin' man on Dean's Fork. 

The chitter of chipmunks, the sudden thumps and windy cries of deer...all would take him down their trails.

The apports kept coming on this auspicious day. My third barred owl feather of the spring, not far from where I found the belly feather on our last trip. This is probably a primary covert--a very stout long shaft on a short strong feather. This feather is rooted in the fused finger bones of the owl. That one pale spot on the vane says barred owl, as does the cool umber-brown color. You can't feel it, but the whole thing is very soft and downy. That's how I knew it was an owl feather--that and the large size. Stoutness of shaft tells you a lot. It tells you how big the bird was, and where on the bird the feather came from.

I had already figured out through concerted Chimping and staring at it that this was a barred owl primary covert, but it was fun to get confirmation from this photo from the Rouge River Bird Observatory blog.

See the feathers the bander's thumb is on? Those are the primary coverts.  Thanks, Rouge River Bird Observatory! And thanks to whomever tossed that feather down in my path. Dean's Fork is rich in spirit. It's always leaving messages for me to find. And today, I was ringing like a struck bell, open to the joy, because I finally felt I'd been able to accomplish something here.

I walked on farther and found a clump of fur in the road. Now that was interesting. 

I feel I have a few choices here: fox, coyote or bobcat. The hair is wavy, but not crimped, which makes me lean away from canid and toward bobcat. There are no obvious guard hairs, which also makes me lean felid. The gentle tawny color sure works for bobcat too. I rubbed it between my fingers and was reminded of the one and only time I'd ever touched a bobcat--the kitten I took in for a brief time. Its fur had a dense, wooly hand--without the filmy silkiness of domestic cat fur-- that surprised me. 

I found this clump of hair in a stretch where, in favorable conditions, I almost always find bobcat tracks. I've tucked it in my little deerskin pouch with its bit of wool from Miracle, the white bison in Jamestown, ND. It has power I can feel, the kind of power I need. 

My Solstice beaverdam celebratory shirt: I BELIEVE. Empowered. Badass bunny hugger.

As it always does when I turn around on a sunny morning, Dean's knocked me flat. Oh what will I do when that black barn falls down? Photograph its ruins, I suppose. I hope it stands forever, or at least outlives me. Slate roof, swaybacked but still solid. Big brown bats within: poopin' up a pile. 

The yarrow is out today, and the yellow sweet clover. 

But the sweetest surprise of this solstice day was running into Brad and Becky and their three youngun's, who flew and drove great distances to be with their dad on Father's Day. Brad and Becky are well-known naturalists in Marietta. And here they were, come to see the beaver pond on Dean's Fork. This was a first for me. I've never run into another naturalist here unless it was pre-arranged, usually by me. 

I was so amazed I asked if I could take their photo. And it made a pretty nice family Father's Day portrait!

I had to ask how this wonderful family knew to come here. Well, they'd found out about it via my blog! That made me so happy. Dean's Fork needs love from people who care, who won't toss beer cans, dump their gutted deer carcasses (yeah, I see what you do), poach, or rip up the road "muddin'." Ugh. To that end, I talk to everyone I see here, if they'll talk to me. That's how you build community, how you let them know you're watching.

When I got home, I saw the first chicory opening by my mailbox.

Stop, June! It's all too beautiful.

Who Killed That Owl??

Chet Baker and I have been making up for lost autumnal walks lately. On October 12, we ran Pontius Road, then nipped over by car to see what was doin' down on Dean's Fork.

Found an awesome pile of coy-wolf scat, fresh and hairy with raccoon:

That's a big animal. And a whole lotta poo. I forget myself and call them coyotes, but they're closer to wolves out East.  I try to imagine eating raw raccoon with the fur pelt on, and fail. Ugh! But the hair they ingest serves to clean out the digestive tract, much as grass does. They need it.

If you're intrigued by coy-wolves and their prodigious droppings: A little more info, and some of my photos, of who laid that great turd here

We were about to the car when I noticed a stray feather in the grass, one that had belonged to a raptor. I climbed a little rise under a power pole and found a kill scene!

Feathers were strewn everywhere. I could see by their softly fringed edges they were from an owl, and from their color and pattern that they had belonged to a barred owl. Whoa. What would kill a barred owl? I had my immediate suspicions. Let me walk you through my thought process in deducing the killer.

Initially, I was thrown off by the large splash pattern of the feathers, which suggested a mammalian predator such as a bobcat. They were scattered for about 12' around in a big circle.
The feathers were also quite bedraggled and wet, and had been torn out in great clumps. All suggestive of a mammalian predator. But it has been very dewy, so maybe it wasn't saliva that made them so disheveled.

The Bacon didn't think so.

What a mess! A bit of wing. I'm still thinking mammal at this point.

I pick up some wing feathers and examine the quill ends.

The ends are shorn off more or less cleanly, almost as if they'd been cut with a scissors. Or the sharp edge of a hooked bill. 

Had they been chewed off by a mammalian predator, they'd be compressed, flattened, and there would be tooth marks in them. I've swung back to thinking about an avian predator now. But the big splash pattern confuses me. Raptors tend to be neater in plucking than that. I look up and study the power pole above.

Aha! Stuck to a little relay box on the pole are two vital clues: the barred owl's stomach contents (a partially digested katydid), and a clump of plucked barred owl feathers.

I can see that these have fallen from high above and stuck on the plastic box.  Which explains the large splash pattern of feathers--they've drifted down from high above, and spread out. At this point I know that whatever killed that owl bore it up to the top of the power pole to pluck and eat it. So it has to be a bird. There's only one bird that can do that to a barred owl.

With my binoculars, I scan the top of the pole high above. My iPhone can't zoom very well, but that pale thing making an interruption in the shadow near the top is a gauzy buff body feather from a great horned owl, caught on the rough wood. I've got my perp. Great horned owls are hell on all other owls. They're the apex predator wherever they occur, and the first thing they do when they move into an area is clean out the barred owls. Tough but true. It happened on our land.

Lest you feel too sorry for barred owls, out in the Pacific Northwest, they clean out endangered spotted owls. Here they do in screech owls and saw-whets. They'd probably kill a long-ear too. It's a hard world out there, especially at night.

 Dean's Fork is down one barred owl, and up one great horned.

Case solved and closed, and a few more things learned, Chet and I trot for home.

These blazing blue and orange days are few and numbered, and we know it all too well.

The Owl Angels

I get the unlucky ones, the ones that fly in front of cars.

This young Cooper's hawk had a badly broken elbow. I met the people who found him at a pet shop in Marietta, which is the only place people in my town can find to take injured wildlife. That's a sad state of affairs, but it's what we're left with in depressed areas where nobody can afford to set up a wildlife rehabilitation center. In Ohio, the rehab centers are in the big cities, and that ain't us. We've got more woods and more wildlife than practically any other county in the state, and nobody for two hours around to take care of them when they get hurt.  I washed the wound and disinfected it. I didn't think there was much hope for him, jumpy nervous accipiters being the worst patients at best, but who am I to make that call? I have to send them on to someone who can. 

You see, all the birds that come to me in winter are raptors, and all of them are broken. I try not to let it break my heart, but it does. I can't fix them. On the rare occasion I can support and feed them until they're stronger, but when there are broken bones I must get them to expert veterinary care. Which is 2 1/2 hours away. 

The calls keep coming in, and I keep trying to help. Josh called, using his aunt's cellphone, to tell me he'd found a barred owl in a cemetery. It couldn't fly. So he picked it up and brought it home and started making calls to try to find someone who might help. I was probably the sixth person he tried, and I was not going to re-route him.

It seemed tame, docile, willing to let him do anything. I told him that's how barred owls are, especially when they're hurt. Over the phone, I told him to be careful and secure its feet, and asked him to feel around its breastbone, to see if it was emaciated. He said it was nice and rounded out, like a chicken's. 

I told him, as I tell everyone, not to offer it any preserved meat. No hotdogs, no jerky, no bacon. You'd be shocked how many people give hotdogs, ham or lunch meat to raptors, and how very bad the salt and nitrates are for them. But too often, it's the only thing people have in their house that resembles meat.

"I have wild game in the freezer. Squirrel. Would that be OK?"

"That would be exactly what the owl needs. With fur, if possible."

So Josh gave it some squirrel, and it ate well that night. He said it was about 1 in the morning before it ate, but he called everyone he knew to tell them, he was so excited.

A few days passed, and there came the time for our rendezvous in town, when my Owl Angel, Lee Hermandorfer, would come to pick the bird up and take it to Columbus, to the Ohio Wildlife Center. 

Lee is an artist and a respiratory therapist (note scrubs). This Christmas Eve, she was on her way to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

"I don't have kids of my own, so I figure I'll take care of them so the people who do can be with their children." Let's just let that statement speak for itself. Said, I'd add, with a smile, and not a whiff of martyrdom.

Please also note license plate, and Lee's modification of her Mazda's emblem. She used reflective tape, so her  owl's eyes glow back at you. Oh my. Whooo thinks of doing that??

Lee also loves clouds as much as I do, as much as Bonnie, who gave me The Cloud Collector's Handbook, does. And she takes amazing photos of the skyscapes as she drives back and forth from our corner of southeast Ohio to Columbus. 

Back to the owl. While they were waiting for me to arrive, Josh and Lee talked about how he'd found it. He told her that his family was at the cemetery to inter his grandmother, and they saw the owl huddled next to a sign by the roadside. 

You could go anywhere with that. Owls and cemeteries and signs. And somehow, the right, gentle young man arrives to bury his grandmother, and then to wrap his coat around a hurt bird and take it to safety. And he has squirrels in his freezer, and is more than glad to care for it until he can meet Lee and me in Marietta.

My first look at the bird took my breath away. It radiated calm and trust and an ineffable dignity.

It sized me up. It was clear that Josh is the person it trusted. He asked it to step onto his glove so I could examine it.

And it did, this wild bird. No flapping, no panicking, just acquiescence. Trust.

It allowed me to stretch its left wing, where I found a break near the wrist joint. It gave me the slightest nibble with its golden bill when I found the bad spot, to tell me that it hurt. Oh poor creature. If I could wave a wand and fix you...

 I couldn't resist digging my fingers into the deep, incredibly silky soft feathers on its head and giving it a little rubdown. I have had a barred owl push back up against my caress just like a cat. It didn't do that, but it didn't seem to mind, either.

I was filled with admiration for this young man, whose car was badly battered and needed a muffler, who called me on a borrowed cellphone, who had cared for this sweet bird for four days, then brought it to Lee.

I purely hated to take it from him. 

Lee drove off with the two birds in her Owlmobile, and delivered them to Kristi, who stayed late to wait for them, at Ohio Wildlife Center on Christmas Eve. 

These people are my heroes.