Cougar Chronicles

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that one of our neighbors, Tim, had some sheep pasturing at his place. I didn't know what to make of it as he has had no animals until now. I mentioned it to Catherine as we went off to Eugene Tuesday, but I didn't see them. I figured the sheep make a good green lawn mower and provide fertilizer to boot.

Well Wednesday morning as we were having breakfast Tim knocks on the door and tells us that some animal had killed all three sheep and he thinks it's a cougar. He let us know that a friend may be coming by that day with his dogs to try to track the animal. One thing that was upsetting is that they weren't even his sheep, but belonged to a friend. I was skeptical that it was a cougar as they rarely kill more than one animal at a time.

No dogs came by, but the crows were activated.

I saw Tim the next day and he told me the dogs weren't able to get here and that the animal came back, ate more, and moved the carcasses. He was going to set up a camera and get photos when the animal came back.

We still don't know what animal did the killing. It has got me thinking about cougars and living with them.

As Tim said to me “we moved into their territory” and people around here are used to their being around and often talk about seeings signs of them, but rarely do see them. But sheep and cattle are a major part of the economy out here, although we are where it changes more to forest. Ranchers tend (at least as reported in the papers) not to tolerate losses of live stock. Interestingly farmers out here assume that there will be losses due to pests and weather. So the ranchers are more likely to want to kill wolves and cougars and this leads to deer over population and forest degradation.

There's a more immediate and visceral response to this sheep killing: danger lurks in these woods. As I have walked around these past days I am aware of a feeling of fear and also of a heightened awareness of what is around me. “Don't go day dreaming, you don't know what's there.” A quote from Aldo Leopold comes to mind “It must be a poor life that achieves freedom from fear.”

The workings of nature brought death to one of our chickens recently, now to a sheep. Am I immune? Being aware I think I'm pretty safe, but immune? No.

A Forest Hike

On Friday I went for a hike with people from the Eugene Zendo along a trail near the headwaters of the McKenzie River, about two hours from Eugene. The forest there is old growth. There were still patches of snow, the temperature around forty, and patches of sun. The dominant trees were fir, cedar, and hemlock and along the river many alder and maples. We lunched about 75 feet above a lake formed where the river comes out of the ground after a volcanic eruption buried it. The river runs free above the lake, but we didn't go that far. We were totally alone in an environment free (save the trail) of human intervention. The richness of life was everywhere and that richness included old snags, trees uprooted, and new saplings. Maples and alders grew out of the rocks and the only sound was the river, roaring down on its way, oblivious to us. The trees live and die as do the birds, insects, and animals of the forest.

So what is life all about? On Friday it was indifferent to me and my likes and dislikes and to my notions of how things should be.

When I got home in the late afternoon Catherine showed me a mass of chicken feathers on our patio, some with blood on them. One chicken was missing. I was very upset. Later we checked all around our place and found the partially eaten carcass of the hen and we took it to the garden and buried it. Two months ago we had a hen die of illness. She too is buried there in the garden. Right now we have six chicks rapidly growing into laying hens. This is what life is about and there is a majesty to it and in that majesty is sadness for the passings and joy for what is coming. And it is all there happening now, moment by moment, beyond my comprehension.

Skunk Cabbage

I was out for a walk at dusk yesterday evening and got to thinking about the difference between living in the country and living in the city. The human scale out here is small and as I enjoyed the sounds and sights at dusk the human made element was almost non-existent. The only sounds in the chilled air were the birds calling out to each other from the tall trees around me, trees that were becoming silhouettes in the darkening sky. I get a sense of “so this is the world outside me head.”

Earlier I went exploring one of my favorite places out in the woods, maybe a quarter of a mile away. This place is where a spring comes out of the hill and becomes a creek that runs down the hill where it eventually flows into the Long Tom river. Most of the trees around here are Douglas fir, but at the spring there are wonderful old maples and alders. From a distance you can tell you are near the spring because you can here the water. Right now water is coming out of the hills all over, the ground is totally saturated from our recent snow and rains. When I got to the spring I saw one of the most wonderful display of skunk cabbage in bloom. And all around was a lot of bleeding heart and trillium waiting for their turn to bloom. As I looked out the thought “so this is what life is all about” arose and a feeling of gratitude arose. Feeling completely satiated I walked home through the woods.

Being in the natural world does so much to put things in perspective and the quiet opens me to seeing and hearing what is all around me and this gives rise to feelings of gratitude.

Today we had hail, the temperature hasn't gone much over 40, I showed Catherine the skunk cabbage, and we got some new chicks. Later we'll have our Wednesday evening sitting group with dinner, sitting, and dharma discussion. It sure seems that this is what life is all about.

Spring

It's been quite a while since I've posted to this blog. I've been thinking of posting for a while and have begun a few posts, finishing none.  his week has got me into gear.

We're past the equinox now and we have seen the early hints of Spring already. Our daffodils are beginning to show yellow, buds are swelling on some trees, and we are hearing the birds gearing up. The itch to get to work outside has been needing a scratch, but it's been rainy for a week or so. Until Wednesday, that is.

That morning we woke up to over six inches of snow, with lots more falling. Soon after starting our morning coffee the power went out. We had a cold breakfast and enjoyed the show.

We hoped to be able to have another cup of coffee after breakfast, but as we had no power we had no way of boiling water. I thought "let's see what things are like out there." The temperature was just at freezing and I figured that while the main road would be pretty snowy (there's little chance that any plows would get out this way for a long time) it would be soft and we could follow the tracks of other cars. So we cleared the snow off my car and headed out to Chrystal's Cafe in Low Pass about three or four miles west of us. The road was drivable and we'd have to go around fallen branches from time to time, but we got to the cafe with no idea whether it would be open or have power. It was open (Chrystal and her family lived out back) and they had no power. But cafes have to wash and rinse with especially hot water (184 degrees) so Chrystal was making coffee with it and a half dozen locals were hanging around, including her two young children.

A few of the men (it was all men, save Chrystal) got some old cooking oil and newspapers and went out back to start up a fire (I later explained to Catherine that building fires was a guy thing) while we hung out with some of the other and our good fresh coffee.

One thing that came up in the conversation was herbicide spraying, something that Catherine dealt with out here in the 80's. A number of people about twenty miles west of us have been found with residues of herbicides in their systems and Chrystal said that there is evidence that the speech delay her daughter has is connected to the spraying. An example of painful underbelly of resource extraction dependence and its indifference to the lives and well being of others.

I also got into a good chat with a fellow (who also milled the center beam in our expanded shop) about apple trees and grafting. We had a great talk, but also one that had others drift off. He told me about the annual Propagation Fair in Eugene last weekend. Off I went, got two rootstocks and had two apple cultivars grafted on. Dreams of more fresh fruit and pies than I can imagine eating.

We did get our power back before noon and by the end of the day we had about eight inches of wet and heavy snow. We heard the sound of tree limbs cracking throughout the day and into the next day. When we went off to get our paper the next day we left with a saw and had to cut up and move a tree that fell across our lane.

By today, Tuesday, most of the snow is gone and we've been able to see what clean-up we have to do: a lot.  

So it is Spring. Spring always seems to have been like this: no fixed reality, everything in constant flux.

Trees are budding and our daffodils are finally blooming, the newts in the pond are mating, and the woods are filling out with bird song. I heard Spring peepers last night. The snow was tough on the birds and yesterday I found a dead Varied Thrush that looks like it was killed in the snow.  The deer are beginning to go at the new growth in the garden so I have to keep my bucket of stones full to throw at them and chase them off.

I think I'll finish off with news on the hens. One of them died when we came down to Berkeley in February (she had not been doing too well for a month or so) and another was injured when attacked a couple of weeks ago. She finally seems back to normal.

Right now a flock of Varied Thrushes flew in. They generally leave the area in April, so maybe they're fueling up for their trip north and saying good bye to us today.





 

Autumn

It's been in the air for about a month now: crisp evening air, sometimes dropping into the high thirties, sharper shadows and the light through the trees looking different, increased breezes blowing around the leaves that are falling. It is definitely autumn. The birds and animals all know it and are going at berries and stashing stores. The yellow jackets are dying off. The moles seem much more active as they fill up on worms and grubs. Ms Kitty is taking advantage of some of our wild friends who are becoming more reckless in their search for winter provisions. She shows up more often with her leftovers: mice, moles, and chipmunks. Burrows are opening all over. We are now hearing ducks and geese fly overhead. Last weekend we had a visit from seven turkeys. Tree frogs serenade us every evening. Deer also seem to be more present.

We're enjoying blackberries and raspberries now. What was driving us nuts earlier in the Summer is now a bonanza of berries. When we remember we bring boxes with us when we go get our newspaper and mail in the morning and load them up with berries. Most go into the freezer, but lots are eaten before they hit the boxes or go into our breakfasts.

The pace of things is slowing down and we can feel the itch to be done with all the outdoor work and turn more inward. Soon we'll be getting freezes so there is work to be done to protect our late season crops (broccoli, chard, kale, spinach, and salad greens are what we're doing this year) and we also need to get our garlic and shallots in. We had a bit of rain last Sunday and we have to get ready for when the rains really come. We've had a couple of days of decent rain and the pond is starting to fill up again. The last of summer warmth seems to be fading fast, from now on it will probably be warm spells in the midst of the progression towards cold.

We are now into our first full cycle of seasons. As I think about it I am aware how much our activities have been a function of the season. I guess country living is like this, especially if you are going to grow as much of your food as you can and have a large woodland flower garden to tend. Then there's just having all the land to take care of. I am happily awaiting Winter and the in-dwelling that comes with it.

Bats

Yesterday bats made it to our "what do we do about this?" list.

I was working in the attic with my son Jacob finishing an old job of putting up insulation. This was after finally getting around to putting screens on the attic windows. As we were stapling the insulation onto the rafters we seemed to have disturbed some bats that had taken up residence. Off went the screens and luckily the bats flew out. What we didn't know was whether there were more there or whether there were dependent young there. If we put the screens back up any bats inside would die.  I read that the young, who are born in June, are usually fully functional by August. We decided to leave the screens off until evening, when they ought to have gone out. It was the best I could think to do.

Later that evening we found another flying around our zendo. It probably got downstairs sometime when the attic door was open. We got the screens off the windows and got all the windows open. It wasn't so easy, but the bat finally figured out how to get out.

Still I kept thinking about whether there were others up there stuck. Today, almost a week later, there was a pretty weakened bat on the attic floor. Catherine and I were able to coax it into a box and get it outside. We put the box atop a bird bath, hoping it could get to some water. It then curled up in the back of the box. I was a bit pessimistic about it's chances.

Life and death is one of the constants out here. Our cat brought us a special catch the other day: a rabbit. While Peter Rabbit's father ended up in Mr. McGregor's stew pot this one, nameless (as if rabbits in the wild need names), got a simple burial and the Dai Shin Dharani. Every time we go into town we pass road kill, usually raccoons or possums, but once a deer. Tuesday night I almost ran over an opossum. I'm beginning to get life and death, which is to say that while it's not easy to accept in its raw form, I'm learning how to see that it is a natural state of affairs. As Catherine says in one of our meal verses "turned in the wheel of living and dying"; well I'm seeing that wheel turn again and again and am increasingly seeing that there is no separation between life and death.

Morning end note: the bat left the box in the night and hopefully got its fill of 500-1000 mosquitoes.

Drums

A couple of weeks ago there was a talk given at Empty Field Zendo (the zendo is at an organic farm eight miles from us). The talk was given by a Native American named Mala Spotted Eagle, who is half Shoshone and half Cherokee and who has a community(Nanish Shontie)  near the farm that focuses on maintaining Native American traditional culture and spirituality and works to be what we nowadays call a sustainable and ecologically sound community, but for them is simply living with a Native American respect for Mother Earth.

His talk stressed the importance of being aware that everything we do affects everything else in this world and that everything we have comes from the bounty of life on this fragile planet. He spoke of the traditional ways as not coming from a "religion," but rather from a spiritual way of life: a way of life that holds that each little act should be done with the awareness of its connection to everything and that nothing should be treated simply as an object. A wonderful statement he made about experiencing things: just experience them from start to finish without thinking about them, there will be plenty of time later to think about the experience. I don't do justice to the simple and elegant way he expressed this. A fine Buddhist talk.

After he talked he led us in some "inter-tribal" songs with his drumming. The important thing about the drumming and singing is to keep subject of the song in your heart and sing from there: if it was a deer song you sang to the deer from your heart. Just honoring everything, it sounds so simple but my monkey mind often gets in the way.

A few days later at his community there was an afternoon of drumming and songs. Catherine and I went. There were about a dozen of us around two drums and we all drummed together and sang the songs. Whole hearted practice, singing and drumming with the ears, letting the voice and hands follow.

We had another drumming experience the next week. Early in the week Catherine and I heard some odd noises that sounded like drums, but may also have been some odd machines. I walked around our lane to try to get some idea of where the sounds came from, to no avail. But the sounds kept going, all day and into the night. We thought about it, forgot about it, thought about it, eventually thinking less and forgetting more. Jake and Leslie came and visited later in the week and they heard it and wondered. By Friday evening we were really wondering what it could be. We were sitting outside around dusk when Catherine gets her car keys and says she's going to find out what was going on. She had a hunch. We piled into the car and drove off, headed towards Camp Serene, a Lutheran camp about a mile from us. We'd stop the car and listen carefully for the sounds. They led us to Camp Serene. A bit down the road from the main entrance there were the drums and a big camp fire. But what was it? A Lutheran rave? We headed home and Leslie did some web searching and found out that there was a week long drumming camp going on, the twenty third annual drum camp. No frenzied Lutherans, they were just renting their space out. So next year when the drums begin we'll know that it's just the twenty fourth annual drum camp.

In telling the story over at Horton Organic Farm, where Empty Field Zendo is, we found out that in the valley over from them folks let there place be used a couple of times a year for raves. All day and all night and damned loud. It's amazing how sound travels out these ways.

Country living isn't always peaceful and quiet.