Category: Black Hills

Categories
Black Hills coyotes nature nature therapy Uncategorized wildlife

Running with Sticks, a Big Dog & a Stone

Sticks I carried with me for “just in case”.

Please note: I wrote this article in the spirit of “respect your environment” & not as a story to justify getting rid of any/all potential hazards that you might encounter while adventuring in the wilds.

At 5:34 am in the morning, our 94-pound German Shepherd mix named Timmy woke me up. He rested his massive paws on a shelf situated below an open window and whined, staring intently at something outside. Seconds later, I heard a pffff sound and the pounding of hooves as an alarmed deer bounded past, white tail flashing.

The deer wasn’t alone.

One of the many whitetails that inhabit the Black Hills.

Seconds later, a coyote sauntered by, beelining for the deer. The canid was about 35 meters behind. Both disappeared down the hill. For a minute or two, I waited and watched at the window, but didn’t see or hear any more drama.

Little did I suspect that this event was a foreshadowing of things to come…

Timmy…best fitness trainer ever.

Fast forward four hours. It was seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit and nine-thirty, and the dog (Timmy) still needed his daily outing. Timmy is my trainer: he motivates me to get out and exercise nearly every single day.

No excuses.

I don’t usually run this late in the day in the summer, but had a morning event to attend to, so wasn’t able to leave as early as I’d liked.

Western wood peewees called a burry kee-eer! as we headed up the hill, and I admired the wildflowers as I followed a Forest Service road through the woods. It’s been a relatively normal year for rainfall, so the grass was still green and lush. Every now and then, I’d turn back and make sure Timmy was still following. At seven years old, he still has a lot of energy, but likes to stop and smell everything a bit more than he did as a pup.

Monarda in full bloom.

After about nine-tenths of a mile of dirt, we merged onto a gravel county road and travelled south. The sun was intense, the air white with smoke drifting in from western wildfires. After another half mile, Timmy and I turned west from the county road onto another Forest Service road. About five minutes later, our relaxing, routine run turned into anything but.

Timmy was running right beside me, when suddenly, he dashed ahead and disappeared over a slight hill. A moment later, I heard yips and yaps, thinking maybe he’d sighted a rabbit and was calling excitedly about that.

Wrong.

I ran to the top of the rise. By then, Timmy was sprinting back toward me, a coyote in hot pursuit. I hollered at it to go away, but it ignored me and just kept coming.

O-kay…(not okay)

Timmy turned back and started chasing the coyote. I don’t usually let him chase wildlife, but I wanted to encourage this critter to leave. The coyote stayed just far enough ahead that Timmy didn’t catch it (I had my finger on a vibrate setting of his training collar so that he wouldn’t actually get quite that close). When I thought he’d chased it off far enough, I called Timmy to come back. He came racing back toward me.

Immediately the coyote did too.

And that’s when it became clear that things were about to get complicated. I stopped and yelled in my meanest voice, but it didn’t matter: the coyote kept coming.

Timmy and I started jogging again. Again, the coyote followed. Timmy was behind me about 5 meters. When he thought the coyote was too close, he’d turn around and chase it for about 100 meters, then catch back up to me, sides heaving, breathing hard. We were progressing around the loop, but not fast enough; right then, the one thing I wanted most was to get the heck outta there.

This predator might weigh only thirty-forty pounds and only be as high as my knees, but thoughts of rabies kept resurfacing. The intensity of the creature’s doggedness in following us was (very) unnerving.

A mile to go before the county road: it seemed like ten.

Timmy’s tongue was hanging out, and he was wanting to slow down. His pants were coming loud and fast. But Coyote kept chasing and barking at us.

Sweat was drenching my shirt, and the heat was growing more intense. We turned the corner and merged onto another dirt track, one that lead east, toward the county road (where for once I was hoping there would be traffic). By now Timmy had dashed off to chase the coyote away over five times. His efforts were to no avail: each time Timmy stopped his chase, immediately, the coyote stopped retreating and became the pursuer. Whenever it changed roles, it would bark at us in a fierce high voice.

We’d only jogged about a hundred meters onto the new dirt road. A ridgeline of rock parallels this new change in direction, running east-west. And that’s when things got worse.

Not only did the coyote behind us start barking fiercely. Apparently, it’s barking was also a battle cry.

Immediately, that one coyote voice transformed into many voices.Yipping and barking reined like arrows from above, along the ridge.

Ambushed.

That’s when I really thought we were in trouble. In my mind, I saw a pack of coyotes materializing from the hills and descending on Timmy. It was a real possibility.

One aggressive coyote was already giving us plenty of hassle. Against an entire pack?

Timmy wouldn’t stand a chance. I don’t think I’d fare so well, either.

As we hurried along in the scratchy heat, I scrambled to pick up whatever sticks I could find. Anything. The first pieces of wood I picked up were rather decayed, so as I ran, I traded them out for stronger, longer, sturdier pieces of wood. Finally, I settled on two different sticks, both three-and-a-half feet long plus a white rock that weighed about five pounds. I didn’t care if they slowed me down. If any coyotes got close enough, I was going to use them.

The yipping and hollering on the ridge above us continued.

Poor Timmy—he was starting to lag, but Coyote was still chasing us, so he kept running.

Every few seconds, I turned around to survey the ridge and Coyote behind Timmy. The ridge-yippers still kept barking fiercely, but they hadn’t come down. Yet. Hopefully they would stay put, although I wasn’t very hopeful.

I passed a Forest Service road fork; on any normal day we’d usually veer left. This fork travelled north along another wooded ridgeline, keeping one inside the wilds for awhile longer. Instead, we kept going straight, beelining toward the more well-travelled county road (sorry, Mr. Robert Frost—sometimes it’s better to take the road most travelled).

Every now and then, I stopped to yell at Coyote, but of course when I did so there weren’t any small-ish rocks around me, else I would’ve thrown those at it (I didn’t want to waste my big rock unless it came really close).

At last: the county road!

We reached it and started north, toward home.

Surely, this wide roadway would dissuade Coyote. Surely a car would come and scare it off. Surely I could drop my stick and stone and get back to “normal” running.

Surely not.

You guessed it: the dang thing kept chasing us, yipping and yapping. Instead of a narrow two-track, we had a wide gravel road to run on. Nothing else had changed, except the ridge-runners had stopped yammering. I was hoping they had given up on following us and weren’t cutting corners and about to pop out somewhere close. Poor Timmy didn’t have the energy to try and run off the coyote that was harrassing him. I kept running and looking back periodically, just hoping the coyote didn’t rush him.

One more time I stopped and stood to holler at the coyote.

Yeah, right, it said, giving me the eye and still moving closer. You’re not the boss of me. (I knew it was saying that because it kept chasing us despite the arduous terrain).

Timmy was now about twenty meters behind me. I simultaneously called encouragingly to him and yelled at coyote. Turning around, I jogged slowly up the hill, still clutching my sticks and stone. Eying the rocky bluffs alongside the road, I wondered if it would be wise to try and make a dash to the top of one of those and then try to fend off Coyote from there.

I turned around again…

Coyoted had vanished. Timmy was still jogging behind me, tongue lolling, eyes on me, telling me he’d catch up when he could.

Thank God.

About ten minutes later, a camper passed us on the county road (not soon enough!) and I was still running with those sticks and that rock—I’m sure they thought I was crazy.

But that’s ok. We arrived home safe. Timmy had one small scratch on his leg (probably from dashing all over the hillsides), but other than that, we were unscathed.

Timmy slept the rest of the day.

Some explanations for the coyote’s bold behavior (only speculation of course): The dog’s presence probably provoked the coyote; if Timmy hadn’t been with me during my run, I’m guessing the coyote probably wouldn’t have followed…the pack my have had young ones they were trying to defend…or possibly a kill they were protecting. In any case, this wasn’t your typical coyote behavior (at least not in the Black Hills or any other place I’ve travelled); oftentimes, when coyotes see people, they’ll hightail it outta there.

Never approach a coyote…they are indeed wild.

Got a different coyote story? I’d love to hear it!

Categories
birds Black Hills nature nature therapy Uncategorized

Winter Scenes of Spring


A snowy day was forecast. A snowy day arrived, indeed. Over a foot of snow, blowing, blustering. Smothering thoughts of anything bright green.

After hours of shovelling

…what else was there to do but ski?

As usual, Timmy (above) was anxious to escape the house. But once outside, he did seem to question the wisdom of such an endeavor.

We weren’t the only ones venturing. Intrepid white-tailed deer crowded around the backyard compost bin; they’ve learned how to knock off its lid and mine it for goodies, like a pineapple crown (upper right), apple cores, and the insides of grapefruit rinds.

A dark-eyed junco braved the weather for a pick-me-up at the bird feeder.

Welcome to track season!

Categories
birds Black Hills hope nature nature therapy wildlife

Constellation of Hope

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

It may be early November, but something happened this past summer that I’d like to share with you. This July, as I jogged along the Forest Service road behind our house, my eyes scanned the colors blurring past my feet: brown, grays, and greens.

But every now and then, a new color flashed before my eyes. Pastel, yet neon in a clarion call for attention.

Blue.

Shards of color lay, fragmented and still, on the ground before me. Upon closer inspection, the irregular pieces revealed themselves: the broken pieces of a robin’s egg.

An intact robin’s nest

Even though I didn’t stop to pick up bits from that particular eggshell, knowing that if I did it would dissolve into smithereens in my pocket, I carried the image with me on my run and ever since. Later, I found more robin’s egg fragments and took their photo.

A robin’s eggshell fragments.

Looking at fragments of eggshells, a sense of loss upwells and spreads inside me: a tightness in the chest, an undefined sadness. The feeling that something’s shattered. Broken. Like the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme, there’s a sense of irreversibility. Nothing is going to put those pieces back together again.

It’s similar to the heartsick feeling I get when I think about this country and the rest of the world. How the losses are multiplying, every moment our daily lives and way of doing things broken. This virus has tested our humanity and mocked our struggles to stay connected in a time when being connected in conventional ways can be hazardous to your health.

Broken eggshell fragments can mean that the chick inside was lost, his/her potential disappeared. Never to be realized, winged flight just a dream.

As a wildlife technician in New Mexico, my job was to monitor nests around a birder’s paradise called Rattlesnake Springs. Sometimes, hatchlings in nests would make it to the age to fly (called the fledgling stage). Many times they wouldn’t.

There was something distinctive that stood out while observing nests: for the nests that failed, the predator (the main cause of failure) didn’t leave any trace of their dastardly deed behind (I know, I know…a snake or rat or coyote, etc., has to eat too). In other words, there weren’t any fragments as leftover evidence of the nest attack that had occurred. Just the opposite: for nests whose contents were observable (nests less than about twelve feet in the air that I could use a mirror mounted on a telescope to see what was inside), what I most commonly found was…

Emptiness.

Instead of devastation, shards of brokenness can mean that a nest has hope. In many bird nests, after a chick hatches, the parent will take the eggshell fragments and drop them somewhere away from the nest (like many songbirds do with their nestling’s poop) so as not to attract predators and to keep the nest clean.

This behavior is a kind of defense mechanism.

In this time of covid, within our own lives, by distancing, we have grown more physically apart, become little fragments scattered over the landscape so as not to implicate our “nest”. But fortunately, there is still hope for wholeness. All is not lost.

The eggshell fragments scattered on the path were blue-sky blue.

Blue…as in the color of UP.

The sky’s the limit.

And together, we can go there…

May you and yours…and a collective “all of ours” be blessed.

Categories
birds Black Hills hiking nature Uncategorized wildlife

The Angels of Hell Canyon

Greetings!

Today started out like one of those days when one may be a bit irritated with the challenges of living a mile high in a northern clime. The promises of spring are here, yes, but on any given day they may be snatched away by winter’s firm grip.

Thirty-nine degress Fahrenheit with snowflakes flitting down. As you might guess, their appearance beneath the looming clouds was most unwelcome:

Like a swarm of mosquitoes. Toilet-water raining down from an airplane.

…Or a stranger breaking the distance barrier at the grocery.

Since this quarantine-thing has started, our family has persisted in making sure we get out each and every weekend for some sort of hike. Today was my turn to pick, and so I chose my local favorite: Hell Canyon.

When he heard about my choice, knowing how many birds we’d see along the way, Panther—our two year old cat affectionately known as Fuzzy, or Nid—didn’t want us to leave him behind.

Panther wearing my backpack in anticipation of what surely would be the ultimate bird-stalking adventure.

Although it was 11:00 am, the high had already been reached, and there was nowhere for temps to go but down. After packing a simple lunch consisting of cheese-and-crackers or crackers-and-peanut butter, we loaded up in our car and set out for a short ride to the Hell Canyon trailhead, about ten miles from the house.

Seriously, you gotta take me.

We are fortunate to live near one of the gems of the Black Hills. Half of the trail is situated along the bottom of a canyon, where thickets of shrubbery grow in abundance: chokecherry, serviceberry, red osier dogwood. Trees of birch, aspen, and box elder are prolific, and a small intermittent stream weaves through part of the canyon.

Starting out on the Hell Canyon Trail traveling counter-clockwise.

Hell Canyon is a nirvana of shrubbery, a haven for birds such as spotted towhees, warblers, and chickadees. In much of the Black Hills, the deer populations have mauled the native shrubs (the whitetails and mule deer are browsers, which mean they enjoy getting their daily dose of fiber from twigs of shrubs and trees). Hell Canyon is a beautiful anamoly and is one of the all-too-few places in the southern hills where shrub habitat remains intact.

It didn’t disappoint.

Near the start of the trail, along the creek, an orange-crowned warbler was flitting erratically amongst the dogwood bushes. I was barely able to glass it before it flitted away, down the creek. These small birds are transients in the Black Hills, loading up on insects as they continue their flight further west or to Alaska or Canada.

Orange-crowned warbler
Credit: USFWS, D. Menke

Hiking with family is a catch-as-catch-can birding experience; one doesn’t have the luxury to stop and gape at the bushes for five minutes, in search of an LBJ (little brown jobbie)—or, in this case an LYJ (little yellow jobbie). There isn’t enough group-patience for that, so I try to limit my hey, come look at this!‘s to a few times a trip and a more cooperative subject.

Fortunately, birds each have a distinctive call: if you can recognize what it is you’re looking for, it is much easier to know where to find it. As we were hiking, three different wrens (feisty little LBJs) called from somewhere in the canyon: canyon wrens, rock wrens, and a house wren.

Canyon Wren
Credit: Public Domain/D. Faulkner
A subtle arch along the Hell Canyon Trail; if you blink, you might miss it!

Also along the way, a gallery of floral beauties presented themselves:

(Clockwise from upper left: star lilies, phlox, violets, and pasque flowers)

These are just a sample of the amazing flowers blooming along the trail, yet they don’t measure up to one thing that happened on the hike. On the way into the canyon, my husband turned around to say something to me, but then he looked up at the sky and pointed.

Rainbow-amped sky

Of course this photo doesn’t do it justice. Not even close. It looked like a rainbow had been doused with sugar, transforming it into celestial sherbet. I was tempted to Photoshop the image to coax out the colors as we experienced it, but I didn’t want to make it look artificial.

Seraphims were flitting and floating and singing, Gabriel trumpeting his horn, the air euphorically thrumming holy holy holy…(ok, not quite, but it wouldn’t have been totally unexpected). It was that kind of moment, when you’ve swallowed a lungful of Helium (don’t try this at home) and any moment now your feet are going to leave the earth.

Wishing you a day with that kind of experience. Filled with faith that God is indeed good. And His love endures forever.

No matter what.

Categories
Black Hills humorous nature wildlife

Free Toilet Paper: An Unexpected (yet shocking) Perk of Living in a Cold Climate:)

Hello,

I hope this finds you and yours healthy…or at least on the road to recovery.

So this is a rather silly post, but I was on a shopping mission at our hometown grocery store…had plotted to get there early to avoid other peeps. I was successful in that regard.

One of the store clerks saw me pausing in front of the empty toilet paper shelves, gaping at the cavernous space like it was one of the seven wonders of the world. He informed me, “there’s a shipment coming in at 10:30 am.” I thanked him and moved on.

Little did the grocery clerk know that he would be the inspiration for this post…

Yesterday, we received eleven inches of fresh, powdery snow, and last night the temps dipped down to -17 Fahrenheit (-27 Celsius). During the snowstorm, I took the kids to the local hill to sled for an hour or so (with us, there was a total of six people there, and we maintained our distance). It was a wonderful experience to be out amongst the community of falling flakes and the fresh air.

Today, I rescued my husband from his desk sentence, and together we took a short cross-country ski behind our house. Everything outside was fresh and new and spotless. The red crossbills were foraging in a group in the pine trees, their chattering voices drowning out the sounds of the chickadees, nuthatches, and juncos nearby.

Skiing on crystalline snow

Today and yesterday…

All around us snow.

  • Ponderosa pine trees flocked with spring snow.

Sparkling, glittering;

Falling from the trees, their flocking like

Manna from heaven.

Enchanting.

…And then enlightening.

I just had to make this poster:

Snow…the ultimate biodegradable environmentally friendly TP.

Yes, in desperate times, people have been compelled to use this, ahem, so-called frozen bidet. This au natural substance is an effective solution to those of us who live in climates filled with chill and desperation.

Hope this helps you out, with either a chuckle or…well I don’t need to say any more; you know what you gotta do.

Have a great one!

Categories
birds Black Hills Uncategorized wildlife Wind Cave National Park

Free Nature Therapy (aka The Christmas Bird Count)

Yesterday I participated in the Christmas Bird Count located at Wind Cave National Park, SD. It had just snowed about a half inch overnight, sprinkling a dose of magic to the already enchanting landscape. Following are a few pictures to document my adventure.

The Christmas Bird Count is a citizen-science annual event hosted by the National Audubon Society and takes place in the U.S., Canada, and many countries in the Western Hemisphere. This year marks Audubon’s 120th Christmas bird count, and—depending on your local count schedule— takes place sometime between Saturday, December 14, 2019, and Sunday, January 5, 2020. On one day within this date range, volunteer birdwatchers of all types and abilities come together to count all the birds seen/heard within designated 15-mile circlar areas. If you are interested in participating, you can find out more: https://www.audubon.org/conservation/join-christmas-bird-count

For questions about the value of this project, the Audubon Society has an answer: “The data collected by CBC participants over the past century and more have become one of only two large pools of information informing ornithologists and conservation biologists how the birds of the Americas are faring over time.”

In other words, through your participation, you are making a (positive) difference! It’s also a great excuse to spend a day in nature therapy.

An American robin was singing very quietly from atop a sunny perch.
Box elder seeds donning crystals of ice.
Snow icing on rocky orange cliffs.
A northern flicker “becomes one” with the snag he’s perched on.
By afternoon, most of the snow along all but the northern aspects had melted.

Even if you can’t be part of the Christmas Bird Count, it is always amazing to find a patch of nature and to listen and watch. She’s a good teacher.

What amazing things have you seen lately?

Have a great one!

Reference: https://www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count

Categories
Black Hills fall fiction humorous nature Uncategorized

Twas the Month Before Christmas

(or Hard Knocks from Not-Santa)

you can blame this little red squirrel (aka Not-Santa) who lives in the Black Hills for what follows— an inane taste of rhymey-ness. Apparently, he thinks it’s WAckY Wednesday…

Something’s clattering there, up on the roof shingle. November: no snowman, no Kristopher Kringle.

No child’s wishful gazing through frost on the pane. And jingles aren’t jangling to merry the game.

Boots of black or reindeer can’t account for this loud chatter. Curiosity beckons me to see what’s the matter.

Another loud noise as I open the door, step onto the deck. There’s no one around, only the sound peek! and the sound of a peck.

A pecker of wood hops up the side of a tree. Cocks its head sideways, stops and peers shyly at me.

I look to the sky. And, behold…what do I see? Industrious movement near the top of the tree.

A figure in red, not a shade fire engine-tinged; But the red of the rust on a pail or a hinge.

Instead of laughter behind a snowy white beard; There’s white on his face yes, but concealing a leer.

The creature’s tail is orange-red and jitters around. As he searches the treetops where treasure abounds.

Eyes gleam like the belt around Santa’s coat. Downy gray fur at the base of his throat.

The chuckling begins, not a bowl full of jelly. Revealing ill humor inside that round belly.

Tis not the season of giving or thanking, says he. No…it’s time for stashing and stowing frantically.

Human, get yourself gone, get out of the way.I needs enough cones to fill more than a sleigh.

Go rake some leaves, pull out thistles untidy. But leave me alone with this project…Alrighty?

One second more do I linger and wonder: When will he finish and stop this roof-thunder?

For two-thousand words I’m attempting to write. Today, not tomorrow I’ll finish this fight.

I linger and watch as he returns back to work. Scolding, tail twitching, to say “What a jerk!”

In contrast to him, my task isn’t survival. And honestly, Writing Muse needs a revival.

So I whistle to Timmy and up the hill we both trot; Uptightness untightening, mind no longer knotted in knots.

Mountain bluebirds flit, ringing sad-noted calls. Saying goodbye, goodbye, goodbye to you all.

And hello. Hello. Hello to mid-fall.

Thanks for reading. If you have a sec, I’d love to hear:

Are your squirrels (or other critters) acting squirrelly too?

Categories
Black Hills deer humorous nature summer wildlife

In the Blink of a Summer

Hello!

Looking back it’s been since April (gasp) that I’ve visited this site. Yes, before this summer started, I had suffered from delusions of using a few hours a day to finish editing my latest novel and I realized at the time that this feat would require dropping other writing projects if I wanted to get that done. No excuses, but since school’s out, time has been in hyper-speed mode and I’m just trying to hang on. If you’ve got school-aged kids, you probably know what I mean.

Don’t blink: July is almost over.

Summer vacation started out strangely…my kids had a snow day on the day before school let out (instead of using the day before, if my husband were writing this, he’d use the word “penultimate”—he loves that word). The day before! As I drove to the school to pick up my children on their last day of school, the neighborhood’s lawns were covered in snow.

The kids spent their first day of “summer break” building immense snowballs and watching as they rolled down the hill and smashed into smithereens.

Crazy.

Nature keeps a treasure chest whose delights appear in the most unexpected places and times.

I’ve lived in the Black Hills of South Dakota for eleven years now and I would tell you that, nope, we don’t have fireflies here. Maybe if you travel east, yes, but not here.

And then our family goes camping at a lake in Custer State Park.

This particular lake is located about eighteen miles from our house. A couple of years ago at this same campground, I’d thought I’d seen a yellow flash from a lightning bug as I took a stroll in the dark, but discounted it as my overactive imagination, as that particular insect only lit up once. No, on that particular long-ago night, I wasn’t able to satisfy my hunger and catch a second glimpse of the firefly smoldering like the emerging petals of a buttercup. By doing so would bring me back to summer days when we visited my grandparents’ house in Indiana,where we spent hours chasing after these small flying lanterns lighting up the humid dark sky.

And then, just last week, we visited that same campground.

Lo and behold—wouldn’t you know it?— the little buggers flashed us as we sat by the campfire roasting marshmallows. Their erratic, bright yellow beacons added even more cheer to an already glowing campfire and were a cogent reminder of how little I know about life, the universe, and everything (thank you, Douglas Adams). And my little part of the world.

Look at this: these birds aren’t native, but it was still quite astounding to see: I was preparing a cup of tea and noticed a pair of female peacocks as they wandered behind our house then continued up the hill as if they had important business to conduct.

The deer around our place may rival the number of people in China (a slight exaggeration), but, even with my cold, hard, gardener’s heart, seeing a fawn pant after his mother is still worth a few awwws.

I hope you are finding your own taste of nature to be incredible.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one.

(Blink blink!)