February 11, 2024
Sundays are usually pretty quiet. This morning, however, the dogs were in a mood, nearly starting a riot over failed negotiations of an early breakfast. Eating breakfast early seemed to quiet them down. My wife and I spoke over FaceTime, sipping fresh coffee, and thinking about the start of a new week. This Friday, she would drive into town for the weekend before heading back for the last week of her surgery rotation. This was excellent news.
After we hung up, I gave the dogs some large chews I recently purchased. They all chewed furiously for a good half hour before falling sound asleep. The morning finally resembled a Sunday. It was quiet, and the steady rain and thick cloud cover darkened the morning sky.
I love walking through the woods when it rains. The ground softens and you can move quietly, remaining undetected. It was perfect weather for stalking prey. The trek to the trailhead was uneventful, except for seeing new areas of the grove’s floor disturbed by foraging animals. When I got deeper into the forest, I took a detour on a newly discovered animal trail, following it north down a slope. I enjoy exploring animal trails. They can lead to new discoveries, and also teach me how to track wildlife. I found several prints in the mud and caught a whiff of something musky, the way a dog smells when it gets wet.
I continued down the trail, looking for deer antlers. Male deer shed their antlers annually, but they cover so much distance that it is rare to find them. Small animals like rodents love to chew antlers, so you have to find them soon after they’re shed. Although I had found none, I continued to look for them on every walk, especially since one of the local bucks only has one large antler on his head, probably losing one while fighting during the rut.
On the north end of the property, the trail intersected with another path cut by water flowing down the slope. The rainwater carried off dried leaves and twigs, leaving the dark earth exposed. The erosion uncovered several small rocks, which I dug through, looking for anything special. When I was a child, my parents took my brothers and me to a riverbed in Texas named Sulfur Springs. There, we dug through the mud, collecting shark’s teeth and an occasional bead made by early Indigenous Americans. Apart from shed antlers, I’m always searching for stone arrowheads. When I was young, I remember my oldest brother had two arrowheads he found while camping in Colorado. While rummaging through the soil, a nearby loud sound startled me. I jerked my head up, expecting to see a deer, but I caught a glimpse of a pine top falling from a dead tree and crashing to the forest floor. That was close!
The rainwater cut a trail that lead all the way to the creek. There sat an old deflated basketball that had washed up during a downpour. I’m not sure where they come from, but since the last flood, we’ve found four large balls near the creek.
Most of the balls are a dirty muted orange color and blend in well with the foliage, but one ball near the creek is bright blue. I haven’t made the time to retrieve it, as it was in a precarious area of the creek, but that ball taught me a valuable lesson about blending in with the environment. In the winter, the woods look bare and with the leaves gone from all the deciduous trees, you can see surprisingly far. In the summer, you were lucky to see ten feet in front of you, but right now, in some places, you can see over a hundred yards.
As you walk through the forest, everything looks the same. There are hundreds of trees of all sizes and shapes. Branches jut out in every direction, and dried leaves and pine needles completely cover the forest floor. So, no matter where you are in the forest, you see the same hues and patterns in every direction. The colors are all muted in dull tones of green, brown, and orange. The only thing that is different in the landscape are the millions of pockets of light created against the backdrop of the forest.
By design, the feathers and fur of the local wildlife are comprised mostly of the same colors. So, the only way to notice wildlife is to see movement or breaks in the patterns of the open spaces. In the forest, you don’t really see animal shapes, only the shadows created by light blocked by their bodies as they move.
When I walk through the forest, I’m always amazed at how my eyes pick up the sight of the blue ball. It might be a hundred yards away, but it is so out of place that my brain immediately notices it. Wearing normal clothes in the woods does the same thing, exposing us to wildlife. Without camouflage, we are all just a bright target, calling out for everything to see us. Proper attire consists of muted colors and patterns that break up our shape.
When I arrived at the creek, I saw a large Red-Shouldered Hawk perched high in a dead tulip tree. I thought I saw something moving in the creek, but couldn’t identify what it was. I heard a loud splash nearby and wondered if it was a beaver. It had been raining all day, but it had slowed to a drizzle and the sky was brightening. I turned south toward home. It was time to go fishing.
As luck would have it, it started pouring down as soon as I got back to the house. I waited for an hour to see if it would slow, but the rain stayed, increasing in strength. Another fifteen minutes passed before I grabbed my raincoat and headed out the door. The fish didn’t care if it was raining, so why should I?
I fished in the rain and cold, catching possibly the smallest bass in my life. At one and a half inches, it was definitely a personal best. I don’t even know how the little thing got hooked. The fish was delighted to hit the water when I released it. I caught a few more largemouth bass and a channel catfish, all too small to keep. The catfish, however, put up a decent fight and made the time on the water worth it. While I was there, the weather teased me, looking like it was about to clear, only to turn dark again. After a few hours, I was completely soaked, cold, and hungry; things were perfect.
When I arrived home, I grabbed a bag of deer corn and took it to the forest. On my way back, I picked up a couple of dead branches and split the wet wood, exposing its dry core. Within ten minutes, I had a raging fire that I stood by until I was warm again. It was still raining, but I stayed out in front of the fire for the evening, cooking chicken wings on the Traeger grill. The dogs were not impressed with the weather, except for Koda, who loves the outdoors and is impervious to the cold.
I spent the rest of the night by the firelight, sitting on a small portable stool, eating hot, grilled wings, and sipping a Cloud Rise Hazy IPA. It was the only lifting of clouds I witnessed today. Still sitting in the dark and in the rain, I realized I had spent most of the day outdoors in the elements, and, suddenly, the thought of dust particles floating through the house and settling on my computer and keyboard made me smile.