Save the Squirrels! And other Random Wanderings

During my young years in the woods I had come to think of it as the place where I felt closest to God, the place where I felt more at home and at peace than anywheres I have ever known. I could see His hand and presence in every little thing that happened around me, and felt completely provided for and heard when I prayed. But as I started to grow older I began to struggle with how fake and contradictory most things in modern life seemed against everything I knew to be true. And it became an  endless fight to protect all that I saw being destroyed, which soon became overwhelming and kind of out of control. In all, I am extremely thankful for the time that God gave me, and can now look back and see how He worked to form me and teach me through these things that there needs to be a balance. Now as I finally feel that I have a firmer grip on this way of life I don't think I spend enough time in nature. In some ways I feel like I lost alot that I once had. Anyways, here is a few stories from those times, that you may find amusing.
 (with much thanks to Caitlin for her story request ;)  

When I was probably 13 or 14, David an old neighbor kid that my mothers family had helped raise showed up at my Grandparents house after nobody hearing from him for several years. He and his wife were homeless and had hitchhiked from New Jersey, and needed a place to stay for awhile. My Grandparents always have taken in anyone who needs help, so they came to live with them for that summer. David immediately took a liking to me, and started to follow me out into the woods to help on my projects and accompany me on my travels. I never totally trusted him, but sometimes enjoyed the company. I had a habit of picking the brain of anyone who could give me any knowledge of nature or survival, and he did teach me some things he had picked up in his wanderings. And often told me stories that were quite a stretch of the imagination, which he was already very well known for. ( When he was a teenager, he copied a chapter of "The Call of the Wild" and gave it to my mother saying he wrote it. lol) But the thing that I came to really dislike about him, was when he came to see my local squirrel and chipmunk friends as a food source. :( He went out alone with his BB gun one day, and came back with a collection of them. I was pretty mad, but didn't say anything about it to him. The next time that he decided to go hunting, he asked me to go with him. I had time to simmer by now, and a plan had started to arise, so I eagerly took him up on his offer and went to get my BB gun. We headed out into the woods, "stalking" squirrels, but in all honesty I was "accidently" stepping on every twig in sight. Obviously, most of the little critters were smart enough to hear my warnings and get out of there, but eventually it happened. We met a chipmunk who had too much bravery for his own good. He stood on his little rock pile, and ferosiously chipped away at us apparently hoping we would be intimidated by his little roar. ;) David now overjoyed, whispers "there he is! I'll give you the first shot!" My opportunity had finally come, I slowly raised my BB rifle, aimed a few inches to Chippy's left and fired. In a flurry of dry leaves and motion, he was gone as he received the merciful message and dived deep down into his burrow in the rock pile. :) IT WORKED! And so went the rest of our "hunt" that afternoon without a single casualty. Several fluffy little families are still alive today, thanks to my "good aim" and the ability to consistently not hit "his" target. LOL The funny part was that when we got back, he told his wife about how amazing of a shot I was. :) If he only knew that he was telling more of the truth than he realized! lol

Over time, I have come to dread deer hunting season probably more than any other time of year. My mother would make me wear an orange vest, which usually came off as soon as I entered the woods. (I'm sorry mom. :(  If there was anytime of year that I felt I needed to blend in and go unseen, this was it. So one year, I formed an idea of how to apply my squirrel tactic to save the deer too. Being that I was able to spend so much time out there, the deer had started to see me as a non-threat, maybe a normal part of the woods. I had started to recognize individual does, and there was a herd of 8 in particular that I seen often and I felt were really special to me. Several times and in varying situations, I had stalked within just a few feet of them. I couldn't stand the thought of any of them being killed by someone who had no idea just how much individual character they each had. So I reasoned that they needed a fair warning in advance of the upcoming season. The day before it began, I cut a couple of my old t-shirts up into long strips and soaked these in a concoction of perfume. Squirrels rely on their eyes, but if you need to get a message through to a deer, you speak to the nose or ears. So I went to all of the furthest points of what I considered my Territory, and hung up my stinky strips of cloth while beating on my tin kettle and yelling. :) LOL I can't say just how successful my mission was, but I never personally noticed my herd get any smaller. I wonder how many hunters walking through the woods suddenly caught a hint of "Stetson" on the wind. lol

Not long after my wars with the logging crews had finally came to an end, I was 17 or 18 by that point and my experiances with all of that had made me overly zealous and bold in my protection of nature. It was a VERY painful time, to see most of the things I knew and loved being destroyed. I to a certain point feel much the same care for things today, but God has definately given me a very much more balanced and peaceful view. But anyways... Once again it was hunting season. I had gotten over trying to warn the deer by this stage of my life, and went straight to the root of the problem tracking and warning the hunters. So one fall day I was out working on something in my parents yard, and I heard bird calls moving in the woods across the road that could only mean that someone was over there acting sneaky. Bluejay "Sneak" calls are even more obvious than just the regular human alarms. So I rushed to get my normal everyday "Iroquois woodsy clothing" on and my hatchet, and then stuck a big antler handled knife in the back of my belt(which I had never used otherwise) and fancy Gus-to-weh Iroquois headdress on my head just for more effect when I met this "trespasser." As I entered the woods I began to slowly move toward where I heard the calls. Through a crab apple - thorn apple grove, across a little grassy swamp, and as I was about to stalk up the wooded hill on the other side I caught a motion half way up a tree and saw a hunter in his movable treestand just a few hundred yards across from our house and facing it too. This part really made me upset. I was coming from his left side, so I backed back into the swamp and circled to the far back of his treestand, and from there I began my stalk of the "hunter" who was "watching for deer" lol.

I easily reached the back of tree that he sat in, and stood there for a moment waiting for the right moment to appear and hoping I wouldn't be shot. I finally just stepped around the front of the tree, and stood there pointing up at him with obvious displeasure at his presence. LOL He probably could have fell out of his stand he jumped so high with a moment of sheer terror on his face, which he never totally overcame in our short conversation. I am so lucky that he apparently never realized that he was holding a gun at that moment. "Ahh! Don't ever go sneaking up like that!" "You are not supposed to be here, LEAVE." "I have permission to be hunting on this land." "No one has permission to hunt here." Then followed a long session of staring at each other, he still looked like he thought he was having a dream.

lol, After a time of silence, I walked off to his right and into the field. As soon as I reached the far side and was out of his sight, I circled around again to watch him from a distance, as he climbed out of his tree, packed up his equipment and walked out into the field and across to his truck parked down by the river. And that is just about the way that many of my "evictions" played out, but that was the only one where I actually got to see my success. I hoped and prayed that he wouldn't ever come back. I at that time knew the deer's daily patterns almost literally right down to the minute, and he was way too close to being in the right place at the right time. I had watched a young buck and doe come to the crabapple trees and eat several times before, right at or a few minutes after 5pm. I would go over there, climb my tree, and have them without fail eating under me in less than 5 minutes.


 Now on to another story from just 2 years ago. Camp Cherokee, Outdoor School. It is fall, getting colder. I had been talked into taking 11 little school kids and their teacher on a 3 night survival campout.  Now if you want to know stress, this would be it. Here I am, feeling completely out of tune with the woods, having not practised my survival skills or stepped foot in the forest for a very long time, with a light rain falling and a big thunderstorm coming, basic food (a small bag of flour each and a couple other little things), a blanket each, 1 big kettle to purify all of our water in which also doubles for cooking and both activities rely on the iffy business of making a fire, and each kit is complete with a $1 Wal-Mart  pocket knife that falls to pieces about the moment you take them out of the package. To make matters worse, they didn't let us get going until mid afternoon. (I feel like I'm having a breakdown just thinking about it now! :) So I lead these 12 poor innocent victims into the Adirondack hills, perfectly convinced that none of us will ever be seen again. I had only had to live for myself up to this point, never with a whole helpless tribe to care for, lol. So we wander around looking for a shelter location that has all of the necessary requirements, and finally settle for less than perfect.

give a hurried speech on shelter building, and divide them into groups to get started. Didn't happen. The girls all braided each others hair, while the boys disappeared well out of the range that I had set for our camp. The rain falls harder, the kids all keep playing and or arguing, and I begin to give a heated lecture on hypothermia. lol. Finally, a couple of girls gather a 1/2 dozen sticks and I see hope! To make a long and tiring story short, I ran from site to site like a madman, and basically built 3 debris huts for the girls (with a little help when absolutely insisted on) and eventually found a huge uprooted helmock tree whose roots made a perfect cave for the boys and set them to work leveling the slanted floor up with layers of logs, and then leaves, and finally sheets of moss. They are all built! It is getting late and I am ready to collapse, but we still need to go to our cooking area and try to get a fire going in the rain. At this point I wasn't up to carving a bow drill set, so I pulled my flint and steel striker set from my bag, and spent at least an hour shooting sparks at my damp and crumbing charcloth as everyone huddled in a circle around me and fills the air with the sound of chattering teeth, lol. FINALLY! as I was on my last little 1inx1in square of char, I managed to catch a spark and blow it into flame! HURRAY! We had a prayer of thanks, and built it up as big as we possibly could get it. I cut a chunk of canvas from the inside back of my colonial waistcoat to make more char for next time, the water finally boiled after hours of trying, and everyone filled their bottles. A very, very long process for 13 people. And all retired to our shelters for the night. All night it stormed, but I was so very satisfied in the morning to hear that every shelter stayed completely dry, and the only complaints from all was that they were too warm! A 2 or 3 ft thick layer of leaves, can be mighty good insulation you know! :) And from there on, it was all really quite enjoyable and easy for everybody once we had shelters and fire. We collected food, spent endless hours boiling water, built bowdrills, hollowed out a log to rock boil, and made all manner of useful native tools. But the only other mishap was our birchbark torches, lol, it was so hilareous to see!

It was 2 am and we had JUST finished supper. :) Every one was tired but very happy and good natured. Our problem was that it was completely dark out and we had a long walk back up the hill to our campsites. No problem! So I go to a dead birch log, peel several handfuls of bark, and cut 13 stick handles that are split and fitted with the birch strips. TA DA! TORCHES! So I give them all their own with the warning to only light 2 or 3 at a time so that we will have enough to get back up the hill. I light mine and start walking, and soon I am followed by 12 other lit torches. :( all we would have needed was one person to follow my advice, but half way up the hill one by one POOF! POOF! POOF! They all go out almost on cue. lol So now that leaves all of us standing in the pitch blackness, and kids are screaming everywhere around me. So I managed to rally them to follow my voice until all was grouped together, calmed down and accounted for. In my mind the scariest part was that there was a little 10 ft rock drop off to our left, so not wanting any wanderers I had everyone stay with Ms. Johnson until I could find the camp and call for them. After walking through the dark, trying to gauge distance and picture the lay of the land by the steepness under my feet, I stepped into the leaves of one of the shelters and had the group follow my yell. Which was quite an ordeal as well. :) I'm sure they will never forget that experience! LOL  But the thing that really sticks in my mind, was a point in that torturous first day when I was franticly trying to finish those shelters, and there was a very distinct click in my mind and my old lost woods frame of mind was back. It sounds funny I'm sure, but all of a sudden I felt like I knew what I needed to do, and where to find what I needed, and it wasn't stressful anymore. Kinda strange, but its good to know that all that I've forgotten is still in there somewheres! :) Maybe someday I'll get this balancing act figured out?