It Can Stop Snowing Now...

I got out for a walk this morning for the first time in a couple of days...except for a short hike to the Post Office on Christmas Eve, I haven't left my apartment since Monday.
I've heard on the Seattle area newscasts that this is only the 10th white Christmas in this area since 1891...seems like we got ALL the snow that was allotted to us in the past 12 days or so. Looking out my window onto the roof line below, there's easily 12-14 inches of powdery white stuff piled up there.

At first I was excited, because the dog tracking project seemed to take off...but then the neighbors stopped walking their dogs down the street. I've been there...when it's too cold or the snow is just too deep to be fun, the dog walks stay pretty close to the front door. And I've found it to be unsafe to be crawling around in the snow at the edge of the road trying to measure tracks as cars slide by.

I've just called in to Ben Franklin at Monroe, and found that I'm not on the schedule for this weekend! I missed working Sunday because I can't find a safe way to get down to highway 203. As much as I hated to call in, I was afraid to try to make it down the hill to the highway. 25 years of working at a hospital where calling in was not an option makes you want to try no matter how stupid, but I'm glad I've learned this: It's not worth risking your life or your car for a few dollars more in the paycheck at the end of the week. I don't think I could have said that before my Residential Program year....funny how the most important lessons you learn are the ones you don't even realize you were enrolled in.

Yikes!

This is a short but sadly funny comment...As I will be turning 50 on January 3rd, I suppose it should not have been a surprise to get a letter from AARP. Somehow, it just seems wrong to wind up on this mailing list. I don't know if I should be mad or sad. I don't feel older than, say 47 or 48. And what makes them think I'll be able to retire, anyway? Probably the smartest thing I've ever done was to cash in my retirement fund and come to the Residential Program. Given the current ecomomic news, it seems smarter than ever...but I'm wondering, will anyone of my generation and ecomomic status ever really be able to retire? Right now it does not look likely. But I'm so thankful that I took the money and ran when I did...I wouldn't have the option now.

Almost Missouri Cold!

Wow! This is the first time since I got here in Sept. 2006 that we've had anything approaching Missouri cold...It's really beautiful, and I walked to work today in a foot of snow! It just snowed like crazy yesterday, and I took a snow day...I tracked dogs #2 and # 3 in my driveway. It was really funny to see the neighbors come along. At first they thought I'd fallen, and would start over to see if I was OK. But then, they realized that I'm down measuring things in the snow...that's when they would veer away and look around as if my keeper must have let me out of sight. Once I explained my project, everyone thougt it was kind of cool. I'm off tomorrow, too. I should have lots of tracks by the end of next week, as the office is closed and I can track every day but Sunday...if I'm able to get down to the highway and get into Monroe...now there's a high wind warning. In 06, it looked like Christmas had exploded! Trees were down and power out for a couple of weeks in some places...I have plenty of food, so no worries there, but it could be scary if it's as windy as they say it might be.

Holiday Greetings!

Those of you who know me well will be surprised to hear that I invited a friend over last night for stew and Christmas movies. You might not be so surprised to hear that the movies were "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon".
With luck, that will be the end of my holiday celebrations. With family half way across the country, I won't have to go "visit" and I won't be sad about that either.

I'm looking forward to a quiet holiday, hot tea, good book and contented cat by my side. Likely, I'll have to turn down a few invitations, and most people don't get that I'm happy to stay home on the holidays. I want to work on some crafty type projecst, and perhaps do some dog tracking at the park on Christmas morning.

With a bit more luck, I'll be able to pay my car off a couple of months early and then look at quiting the weekend job! That will give me time and energy to work on the dog tracking project for my Tracking Intensive class. I can't wait to get going on that...the Basset Hound really got me excited about what I might learn about dog tracks.

Dog #1

This is Beba, a lovely and exuberant Basset Hound. She's 2 years old, and weighs 44 pounds. You could say that she "volunteered" for my project. She saw me coming from about 200 yards, and began wagging her entire body, hoping I'd come and talk to her! Once I'd explained my project, her owner readily agreed to come to the sandy beach and lay down some tracks for me...I'll bet no one ever mistakes these for coyote tracks!

Dog Tracking Update to Come...and Another Coyote

I forgot to bring in my photos to share...will get them up tomorrow, along with a story about tracking a Basset Hound!

I've about lost track of the coyote count...is it # 9 I saw today? I had to run into Monroe for Ben Franklin's Christmas breakfast early today...We shared a nice breakfast at Ixtapa, and I won a prize! On the way back in the fog, I saw another coyote standing at the edge of the highway just north of Duvall. Pretty cool! I'm astounded by my good luck today.

The Domestic Dog Tracking Project

Today I'm going to McCormick Park to start my Tracking Intensive project. If you hear news reports of a crazy woman accosting dog walkers in Duvall, it will probably be me.

I've been busy creating a plan, a worksheet, and a letter explaining who I am and why I want to take photos of dogs and measure their tracks. Today, I'll find out if it works.

My goal is to record measurements on 100 dogs before the project is due in May. If I could do it without taking any measurements at all, I would. But, as my friend Jonathan pointed out, it would be impossible to re-create the project later, so I may as well take all the measurements anyone will ever want to know.

Jim Halfpenny has set the standard for tracking dogs, and so I'm going to be taking 15 measurements on each set of tracks...times 3, and then getting an average value for each of the 15 measurements. And I'll be using the metric system instead of the more comfortable inches...

That's assuming I can actually talk people into going to the sandy beach area along the river. I'm not sure I'd have fallen for the "school project" story when I was walking my dog. It should be interesting to see what happens.

Hunters after the Flood

I had an unexpected day off on Saturday, and so took a walk along the path at McCormick park. I couldn't go far, as water was still up to the 2nd highest strand of wire at the low spot where the farm road crosses just north of the Safeway lot.

I didn't have to go any further - there was a fair bit of wildlife out enjoying the sunshine and mellow fall temperatures. I saw this pair of hunting coyotes - numbers 7 and 8 - on the backside of the open field just about 6 city blocks below my apartment. They knew I was on the bridge, and moved out of sight, but not before I got a dozen pictures! What a cool sight...even though there were a number of people and dogs out on the path, no one else noticed them.

The coyotes (Canis latrans) looked fat and in good conditon, probably since the small mammal population had been disrupted by the flooding. The vole was just a few hundred yards down the path. I still have to look up the species...I'm not so confident of my vole ID.

I saw several of them along the path. They would come out of the piles of dry leaves after someone had passed by. But, as soon as I moved in to get a photo, back in the leaf piles they would go. My shadow spooked a couple of them, and I only got photos of the spot where one had been just seconds before. Then, I got smart. I waited in one spot with camera ready as a jogger passed by. As soon as she was gone, this little critter came out into the sunshine and I got several pics of it as well. I expect that jumpiness pays off with the coyotes so near.

As I was leaving the park, one of the coyotes had retuned to the place I'd first seen them. I took a few more photos, then, one hunter to another, I wished it well and moved on.

What a Place to Work!

Monday is an all-day Staff Dirt Time day. I'm required to leave the office, go up to our land, and spend the morning working on - whatever. Not a skill they think I need to learn - just whatever nature skill I feel called to practice. It can be one I'm good at - basket-making, perhaps, or one I struggle with. My choice. How cool is that?

It cracks me up to think of the hospital telling me that I have to take a day off to play, with pay. The entire staff will be there. No one left at the office to answer the phone. No one going to the bank or the post office. Since nature mentoring is such an important part of the job here, they build time into the schedule to practice the skills and to mentor each other. Even those of us with office jobs are expected and encouraged to learn and share the skills of the naturalist.

I will be pulling out my bow-drill kit and working on fire. I haven't tried to get a coal since the Residential Program. I might go over to our new parcel of land and explore for a while, or I might do a bit of flintknapping. I might take a walk in the Enchanted Forest and look for this guy. We saw him Sunday during Tracking Intensive. Perhaps I'll see another coyote.

Since a number of us are interested, we will be carpooling into Seattle in the afternoon to listen to a cougar predation presentation at the University of Washington. I love this job! And I realize how truly blessed I am to be able to say that.

Trailing Elk

We had a guest instructor at Tracking Intensive this past weekend. Brian McConnel joined Dave Moskowitz in leading us through a day of trailing elk in the mountains just east of Snoqaulmie Pass.

There had been some lowland flooding on Friday, and more rain on the way, so starting out in the dark was a little scary. The Carnation to Fall City area seems to flood quicker than Duvall, and the web site to check King County road conditons was down. Although the rivers were up, we didn't find any road closures and crossed the pass without incident.

The Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) forest lacked the dense ground cover of ferns that I've become acustomed to here in our Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophyll) forest of the western slopes of the Cascades. I thought finding elk (Cervus canadensis) would be easy. Of course with 8 students and 2 instructors, we were not going to sneak up on anything.

We were successful in finding fresh elk tracks, and each of us had a turn in the lead as we trailed them through the woods. Along the way we found many varieties of mushrooms and fungi, including a deadly Amanitas variety that Brian pointed out to us. Some of them were beautiful, others just slimy and weird-looking.

We got close enough to elk to spook a couple of them, which some of us heard crashing through the brush, then we found the muddy tracks and scattered leaves they left to entice us! Go to my WebShots page to see more photos.

An Early Morning Gift

I stopped at the intersection before stepping out onto the road and looked to the left for traffic, then to the ...wait a minute...what's that? My head swiveled back to the left and there it was! Coyote number 6 was trotting up the hill about a block from my apartment. Given the location, it's likely the same animal as Coyote number 4, and the one who leaves scat on the sidewalks around the wooded area where a dry stream bed wonders down the hill toward Highway 203.

I reached for my camera, but before I could get it out of the bag and turned on, the coyote had disappeared into the blackberry bramble. It stopped to look at me first, and without any apparent fear or distress, it vanished. Cool!

I crossed the street and started to trail it...and found a bit of fresh animal skin that looked a lot like what was left of someone's black cat. Then I realized I'd be late for work if I didn't turn around.

Now, Wilderness Awareness School is one of the few workplaces where you can get away with being late because you were trailing an animal. However, I knew I had payroll and taxes to deal with, so I went on to work. But now that I've seen it I'll be out early with camera ready, and I'll get a picture of it yet.

Our Tax Dollars at Work, or As Close to a Political Rant as You'll Get From Me

I had to laugh at a political advertisement I saw on TV the other day. The message was that I should vote for the candidate because her opponent had not managed to pass a bill during his time in office. That's the guy I want...it means that he didn't raise my taxes or make any new laws that will complicate my life. Let me explain...
Some years back I was late to work because the power went out for a while, and my alarm clock failed. I bought a new clock...a fancy one that re-sets it's self when the power goes out. It also corrects for Daylight Savings Time...or at least it did. Then Congress changed the dates of the changes, and my new clock now causes more problems than it solved. Instead of having to deal with the "Spring forward, Fall back" stuff twice a year, I now have to do it four times. Here's what happens...

My clock is still on the 'before Congress complicated things' time. I can't just change the time to make it right...I have to change my time zone. And then remeber to set it back - or is it forward?

I've never understood the whole Daylight Savings Time switcheroo anyway. I've never been able to explain it to a dog, either. It just doesn't make any sense to change the clocks twice a year - or 4 times if you have a fancy clock. The only reason we do it is because Congress tried to fix something that wasn't really broken in the first place. Why can't we all just re-learn to live with nature's time? We could throw away the clocks all together if we did that.

October Tracking Intensive Class

My stupid, contrary, dumb, un-cooperative, and annoying computer rebelled, and I could not open the disk that contained my Tracking Intensive photos...I kept getting the message that "the administrator has blocked access to the CD/ROM ". I'm the administrator for my computer! Stupid computer!

We had a wonderful, sunny, and productive weekend at the Potholes and along the Columbia River near Vantage. It's so strange to cross the Cascades and suddenly be in high desert with sagebrush and sand. I love the contrast to our side of the mountains. And being able to see for miles is fun! This picture is near the river just outside of Vantage, with the high basalt rock walls opposite. Truly, I took both pictures from the same spot, just turning my body to get the shots.

Dave's group found a terrific sandy beach along the river with raccoon, coyote, beaver, and Canada goose tracks in the damp sand! We made plaster casts, and I found it really tough to decide what to cast. The coyote tracks sometimes paralleled the raccoon or beaver tracks. It would have been possible to get both critters in a large cast. I chose a nice set of beaver tracks, as my Dad made his winter money by trapping when I was a kid.

I'll be putting more Tracking Intensive pics up on my WebShots page, so go check them out!

Tracking we will go...

It's 5:26 am, and I'm here at the office waiting for the rest of my Tracking Intensive classmates to arrive. We are off to the Potholes today!
The weather is supposed to be lovely, and there's no telling what we will find to track. Stories later...

Ellen's Coyote (#5)

"Look, there's a coyote!" I almost immediatly regretted my words because Ellen threw on the brakes...and started backing up on the narrow, curvy road.

We were on the way up to Cedar Lodge to meet the new class of Residential students. Ellen was driving because I really hate to, and it was likely that there would be lots of cars in the parking lot.

It was the 5th coyote I've seen in recent months, and it hung around long enough for me to get a few pictures...not that I can prove it. I put them on a disk last night, but evidently grabed a blank one on my way out the door.

Ellen Haas is one of my bosses at Wilderness Awareness School, and one of the aouthors of "Coyote's Guide" our book that is coming out any day now. Ellen says she's only ever seen one other wild coyote, so it seems especially significant that we saw this one last night.

With luck, I'll be able to show you the pics tomorrow.

The Big Reunion....

Wow, we had a great Labor Day weekend at the River Ranch Girl Scout Camp at Carnation, Washington. The weather was mostly lovely, the food incredible, and the company was outstanding.

(This is my boss at the staff meeting. Sorry Warren, I could not resist.)

It's so nice to meet the office legends and put a face to the people I've exchanged e-mails or phone conversations with!

Listening to Jon Young, Jake Swamp and Paul Raphael speak was inspiring. I've always known that what we do here is important, but now I understand that it's WAY bigger than I realized.

It's really cool to hear how the school got started from those who were there, and also really cool to see how far it's come.

"Coyote's Guide", our book that lays out the teaching method we use here is coming out in a few days! I expect that it's going to be a big thing. Look for more info shortly on that.

The Big Lie

I thought I'd lead off with a story, but my friend Margaret wants the confession, so I'm going to tell you about the biggest lie I ever told...and pretty near the only one of any consequence that's not some version of "It's fine, every thing's fine, I'M FINE!"

This story is about how a lie becomes a family legend, and how 4 people can be in the same place, see and hear the same things and come to 4 very different conclusions.

To set the stage, you have to read what follows with a hillbilly accent. I'll try to help...

I was born near Caplinger Mills, Missouri, which is more or less in the center of a triangle drawn from Stockton to ElDorado Springs to Humansville...OK, make that Kansas City, St. Louis and Little Rock, Arkansas. We lived on a farm pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

I'm 2 years older than my brother, and 8 years older than my sister, who was an infant at the time of the Big Lie. She was born on Thanksgiving day, and so I'm guessing that the incident took place in December or January. I don't recall a Christmas tree, so it was probably just after the first of the new year.

In the mid to late 60's there were quite a few stories of UFO's and cattle mutilations and the like going around. My Mom saw a UFO that winter. She thinks I saw one, too. Every now and then, she'll look up at me...she's 4'11" tall, and say, "I saw a flyin' saucer once...you were probably too young to remember, but you saw one, too." I've never told her the truth, but I do remember the night in question well...so here's the confession.

Mom always described what she saw out our back window and across the field as a big saucer -shaped object that moved up and down, right and left over the landscape with lights changing from yellow to red to green. Our neighbor a mile away claimed to see it, too. I don't think Dad ever did believe it.

On that night, probably a Saturday night, because my parents were watching wrestling (that's wrasslin in hillbilly) on the black and white TV. It was later than Jim and I were usually allowed to stay up. My sister was sleeping in her crib. Dad told us it was time to go to bed.

Now here's the part that got us into trouble. Do you remember the Green Giant commercials that were on back then? The one with the deep voice singing "Ho ho ho Green Giant!"? That's what was on TV as we went toward the room we shared. And we went stomping and singing along with the TV. I think we got to the 2nd "HO" when Mom yelled for us to be quite before we woke the baby up, and Dad came up out of his chair and started for us.

We were fixin to get a whuppin. One I didn't think we deserved. The window over my bed looked out over the same field where Mom had seen the UFO. In the time it took Dad to round the corner, I decided to lie. "There's a flying saucer," I said.

"Where? Did you see it, too?", Dad asked. My brother, who always was a quick study nodded his head and pointed out the window. Dad said, "Put your shoes on and get in the truck." He went and got the rifle as Mom wrapped my sister up in her blanket.

It was one of those clear, cold, dark nights when the grass gets crunchy with frost before midnight, and the stars are so bright they look like bits of broken glass on black velvet. We all piled into the cab of Dad's old red and white pickup and went to look for the UFO. I don't know what would have happened if we'd found one. I don't know how far we drove, or how long we were out. The inside of the windshield got frosty with our breaths.

To my Mom, I became "the girl who saw the flying saucer", someone who verified her own sighting some time earlier. For the rest of his life, my Dad looked at me with suspicion. I don't think he ever did believe...I think my brother was impressed by my quick thinking and my solution to our problem. I think he started to admire me a little that night. If he ever wondered what I did see out that window, he hasn't ever asked. My sister was too young to have an opinion, but I did promise 4 versions of what happened that night.

What I brought away was that sometimes a good story properly told will keep you out of trouble. I learned that I had the ability to make something up, and to profit from it. I learned that I was a writer. After all, that's what writing is - making stuff up and telling lies.

Yikes!

So as I'm getting ready to leave work, I realize it's been a while since I've checked in...Lots of cool stuff is happening right now, and I don't even have time to tell the best stories...

Not having a phone has really had a negative impact on my keeping up with friends, this blog, and my writing....Not having a phone is a blessing because I'm not spending hours in front of the computer at home. I am releaved not to be getting calls for other people (Jesse, whoever he is didn't let his friends and family know his new number for the entire 14 months I had my last number).

I love not having a phone in the house...and I hate that I end up not checking in with my friends.

Just so you know, I haven't forgotten you...I have some cool pics to share, great stories to tell, and at least one confession to make...and on that note, I'm running out the door!

The Promised Pics!

I'm so excited that it's working today because I really wanted to show off a couple of recent pics.

Here's the heron I told you about earlier...I love these big goofy birds. And I saw these beauties on my way to work one recent morning...I thought the spots would be gone by now, but this was late july, and the baby is really spotted...so pretty and delicate...Enjoy!

Big Fish

For those of you who thought I don't know that a Bullfrog is an amphibian and not a reptile, give yourselves 30 points for noticing...Writers need editors, and mine was asleep at the keyboard.

My vacation adventures continued and I feel really lucky to have seen a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodius) catch a fish that was almost too big for it to swallow! I often see the big bird at McCormick Park and have taken many, many pictures of it. Some of them have even been good. I've watched it hunting and have missed the chance to get a pic of it diving after fish.

On Thursday afternoon, I was there with the camera when I noticed the critter was stalking it's prey. As I shot pics, it sank deeper into the water and slowly stretched out it's neck...and I missed the shot of the dive.

It came up with a fish - a big fish - and moved to shore. From the far bank, I took picture after picture as it tried to figure out how to eat the fish...I could see the fish flopping and watched the bird try to maneuver it into position...The bird paced the shoreline, shook the fish, used it's feet to try to turn it...The fish continued to flop.

Many pics later, and after I started to fear that the bird would choke on it's meal, it finally managed to swallow the fish. What a lucky time to be passing by with a camera!

I am trying to upload some pics, but there are "errors" so I'll try again later.