Scat on the Nature Walk
Once there we participated in the usual camp hazing - the camp leaders told stories about a man that lived forever on the property and still lurks to this day in the gullies and behind trees. Then on our way back to our cabins for the night walking through the woods, everyone was scared. The counselors would jump out and grab screaming girls.
There was also the Little Red Suzy game. A clothespin painted red was attached to some unsuspecting kid at meal time. If you found it on you the game was to attach it to someone else without them knowing. At the end of every meal whoever had it attached to their clothes had to stand up and do some humiliating thing in front of everyone - sing the alphabet song backwards, do a cartwheel or something. It was all in good fun and made meal time especially tense so you didn't want to stay around for long. Maybe they didn't have enough food for all of us?
There were fun things like learning how to cross country ski and intertubing down iced hills. And there were the nature hikes where we learned how to identify scat from different animals. Yep you thought the scary guy was bad - imagine our biology teacher walking a bunch of 13 year olds through the woods looking for scat in the winter cold - then looking through it to see if there were seeds, or maybe fur - how big was the scat, was it pellets, soft or solid shaped, what color was it? Those biology teacher lead hikes did influence my ability to slow down and see things on my walks today.
The other night I was out on a jog with a friend and we heard a Barred Owl - here you can hear it too - cut and paste this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fppKGJD3Y6c We stopped jogging and started walking trying to find the owl. We located it high up in an old tree. There it was right in our neighborhood. It was too dark to take a picture not too dark to stop and listen and try to find the owl.
Living along the river has its wildlife benefits - we have seen coyote, raccoons, fox, wild turkeys and my personal favorite - huge bald eagles on their migrations in the spring and fall. They stop for a little fishing and rest over night. They are so big when I am close to them. I realize how big and strong are those talons.
With all this wildlife yo might think I am a regular scat lurking hiker. Ahem - regarding scat in our neighborhood - I would have to say that I am much more graceful about finding animal scat outside my house than I am about finding it in my house. Squirrels belong in trees and not in my garage - car storage is not a natural habitat for wildlife. And I would like to say that our bedroom and down comforter are keeping us warm.
At our last house we put in two sky lights when we renovated the attic into a master bedroom suite. One in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. I will never forget the two of us in that attic on the 4th of July. We stood drenched in sweat, Kristin hanging on to the sawzall looking at the ceiling which was the roof. She measured and marked once and then again and then we poked that sawzall through the roof and put a hole in the ceiling....hours later we had a sky light. A month later we still held our breath every time it rained - crossing our fingers that we would not get dripped on while we slept.
One fall night, it was rather warm and we had opened the sky light. It had a screen so bugs would no get in, but the cool air would drift down and create a little circulation in the room. At about midnight our dog Rowdy Ann started barking. I woke up to see her chasing a cat. This was not something she did without a little encouragement from the cat, but this was Newt and she was more interested in being invisible than being chased...and so I told Rowdy rather of matter of factly to stop and go back to sleep. Then I hit the pillow with my head. Again she was barking, this time she woke up Kirstin and we turned on the light... and I raised my voice, "Rowdy, come here" leave the cat alone. I could probably count on my hand the number of times I had to raise my voice with Rowdy to get her attention. I looked up and there under an end table was a raccoon peering back at us while Rowdy arced around him barking, barking. She turned to come to us and when she had our attention she ran back - "See you guys, see, this is not a member of our family..look, look" Finally we saw the raccoon. It had fallen through the sky light from the roof.
Once we heeded Rowdy's warning we contacted Animal Control and asked for a hand. At first they told us to wait until morning to call pest control and right before they hung up the asked us to tell them again where the animal was - when they realized it was in our living space they sent an officer to our house. I was pretty mad at Kristin because she made me get off the bed and go downstairs while we waited...I really thought it was very logical that the raccoon would leave us alone if we stayed on the bed - can you say Lucy Ricardo? The poor raccoon, I don't think he had any intention of dropping into our bedroom. To this day we wonder if the animal control guy walked outside and let the raccoon go in our front yard. Needless to say there was scat all over our house by the time he left us. I have a good idea of what fresh raccoon scat looks like and smells like, alas.
I have always been grateful that Rowdy did not go after that raccoon. I don't know why she didn't but maintaining the arc and keeping it cornered was all we needed - nothing more. She was did not have the same restraint with squirrels and we never tested her prey drive around rabbits. Once we realized her skill and efficiency with the squirrels we didn't chance things. She was a hunting dog - she may have had terrier, she surely had lab in here and most likely some shepherd. She was a canine. We could never deny her this.
Gromit considers all creatures with the exception of Great Danes, to be potential friends and in want of a good game of chase or be chased. Now that is not to say that the way he goes about this is all that appropriate. I will say that many dogs come running at him that are a 1/4 of his size and I don't understand it - because he will ALWAYS play. The miniature pinschers, the ridgebacks, the aussies, the shelties, the jack russels, the little lab mixes - what are they thinking? And then I watch Gromit bow at their feet and bark waiting for the little dog to accept the invitation. I watch for a couple of minutes and as soon as the running starts I call off Gromit - those little guys just don't understand what it takes to stop a locomotive and it is a lot more space than it takes to stop a litle sheltie! I love to watch him play, but mostly with his friends Emme and Chewie - they are about the right size. Hunting though, not Gromit's gig. He is more interested in the meet, socialize and see who can run the fastest.
Chewie, on the other hand, is afraid of all things unknown that are man made, but give that dog the woods with earthy smell of fox dens and goose nests and his nose will be to the ground and his tail twirling above the swampy reeds. He has a pension for laying in pond scum with a little bit of muck. He takes note of scurrying but is more focused on tracking the next tennis ball. For all I know he thinks some big Tennis Bird lays those balls because he looks for them wherever we go. He is our warning dog though. He does not bark with as many voices as Gromit, he barks with intent and because there is clearly something I need to hear.
They both notice things I cannot notice when we are out in the woods. Gromit with his incredible ability to see motion and Chewie with his focused black nose always on to a scent. They always find the scat before I do - maybe I didn't listen well enough in that 7th grade nature hike - it was too cold. LOL
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