Nature is Not Always Nice

When you live in the woods, it grows easy to assume the wild animals are part of our extended family. Just take Al the pine marten for example. He (or she, for all I know) was nothing more than a nuisance who spent the winter days getting into the bird seed, garbage, and compost. Despite his mostly destructive nature, we gave him a name, imposed a personality on him, and acted like he was a friend. Although we never (intentionally) feed him, our relationship with him smacked of faux familiarity, pretending he was the wildest of pets.

When you live in a place where your path commonly crosses with that of bears, moose, foxes, and other critters it's easy to forget that we're the ones tangled in their webs of existence, not the other way around. We're the ones imposing on their world and we're meant to be casual observers.  

The first week of May, a nesting platform for loons was set up in the bay outside of work. A week ago Thursday, a loon climbed up on nest and stayed. Within the first two days, it became clear a loon couple had laid two eggs in the nest.  "Hot damn," we thought. "We're going to have a loon chick sometime during the last week of Jue." 

But on Sunday, as I sat at my desk, I heard a terrible scream. At first I thought the loon was bothered by the moose I'd just seen swimming in the bay, but there was something about the heart-wrenching nature of the scream that made me think the loon was in true trouble. When I made it out on to the porch to get a view of the nest, I saw an eagle sitting in a gnarly jack pine about twenty feet from the nest. In the distance, another eagle soared in the sky. The loon, probably driven off the nest by the pesky black flies, was swimming near the nest, calling out in distress.

The eagle in the tree swooped down towards the nest and the loon raised up on its back quarters to protest until the eagle returned to his perch. But the second time the eagle swooped down, he seemed to catch something in his talon which fell in a spray into the lake.

I hoped I hadn't seen what I suspected I had, but yesterday morning when I arrived at work and saw no loon on the nest I knew it was true; the eagle had destroyed both of the loons' eggs.

Although the loons no longer had eggs to incubate, they visited the nest a couple times yesterday. They swam around the nest, climbing on top of the floating platform and softly cooing in some sort of heartbreaking loon conversation. It's early in the season and loons will likely use the nest to lay another egg. But it's still no fun to watch and it's easy to feel angry at the eagle who didn't even get a tasty snack out of his raid.

It all goes to show that we can't assume wild animals live some Disney-fied cartoon existence. Every animal is fighting hard for its survival. It's not all wildflowers and butterflies and happy little fawns with Bambi eyes. The critters of the forest play by a whole different rulebook than us humans, one that can horrify us and that can be difficult to justify. But, whether we like it or not, it's a dog-eat-dog (or eagle-eat-loon egg) world out there and nature is not always nice and we're in no position to interfere with the laws of Mother Nature.

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It Always Ends This Way !

Since grouse season started a couple weeks back, our evenings have fallen into a bit of a schedule. As I close up shop at work, Andy stops at home to get a snack and fill up the water bottles. Then he heads over to work and we set out on evening ruffed grouse reconnaissance. Some nights we bump around in the pickup truck on gravel roads. Other nights we stretch our legs on nearby snowmobile or ski trails, enjoying the sweet musty smell of decaying leaves, the way the setting sun sinks into the horizon this time of year, and the last lingering wildflowers. The grouse have been plentiful this year and we’ve already had three grouse dinners.

I also spend a decent amount of our evenings out in the woods hoping we don’t run into a moose. The moose are in rut right now which makes them plenty cranky (Andy’s experiences a few years back are a perfect case in point) and the fact that it’s also moose hunting season gives me just one more reason why I don’t need our paths to cross with a moose. After last year's experience I’ve had enough fun moose experiences to last me a while.

Mama and Baby outside Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center: August 2010

People always think I’m being a jerk when I say “I only see moose when I don’t want to see them.” (Well, I might be being a bit of jerk, but I am sick of being asked “where’s the best place to see moose?” and then receiving incredulous looks when I explain that there is no rhyme or reason, people see moose all over at any time of day.) But it’s true: I rarely see moose in a situation where I have the luxury of observing the moose. More often than not, moose and I run into each other because one of us is in the wrong place.

On Sunday night, we’d almost back to the truck when Andy motioned for me to stop. “There’s a huge bull moose up there,” he whispered. I gulped. Once we were back in the truck, we tried to figure out what the moose were up to. There were definitely two moose moving about in the woods, but it was hard to tell what they were doing. They obviously weren’t too terribly concerned with us.

Then on Monday night, while Andy and I had paused in a wooded clearing, a wolf let out a long low howl. It sounded like to came from right behind me. “Here take my knife,” Andy whispered. We tiptoed back to the truck. Of course nothing happened.

But: dang it! These fabulous autumn hikes of ours always end like this!

Luckily, our evenings also often end with yummy grouse dinner (usually consumed around 9 p.m.) like homemade grouse noodle soup. You can make it with chicken too.

Homemade Grouse (Chicken) Noodle Soup
4-5 grouse breast or 1 whole chicken
12 cups water
2 teaspoons powdered chicken bouillon
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon thyme
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 ½ cup carrot slices
1 recipe homemade noodles

In a small saucepan, cover grouse with water and boil 20 minutes. Remove grouse from pot, cool and cut into bite sized pieces. Simmer in a large soup pot with all the remaining ingredients except the noodles for a ½ hour. Start noodles while soup is simmering.

Noodles:
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/3 cup water

Mix flour and salt together. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and water. Mix into flour. Turn dough out onto a floured countertop: knead for eight to ten minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Divide dough in half. Roll each dough piece until 1/16-1/8 inch thick. Cover with a cloth and let rest for 20 minute to relax gluten. Slice dough into strips 3/8 inch wide. Drop noodles, one at a time, into simmering soup. Cook until tender: about 20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to the soup to taste: Enjoy!

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Spring Times Two: Babies and Wildflowers

The old adage in northern Minnesota when it comes to seasons is that we don’t really have seasons. Rather, we get “winter, mud season, and a week of summer.” But really, it seems we have two sorts of springs up here in the Northwoods. The first spring comes with a trickle of water, a nub of pussywillow, when the snow begins to recede. With a chilly promise of green and growth, the first spring ushers in the dreaded mud season when the outside world become a mess of muck and dead grass.

Then, a month or two later, the second spring materializes. When things are actually green. When wildflowers start to peep out from the forest’s floor.

Gradually, we’ve been entering into that lovely second spring when it starts to seem like summer might really be coming after all. The strawberry and blueberry plants have been flowering for a couple weeks. I know people have been seeing violets up here for a while now, but I didn’t stumble across my first one of the year until Andy and I were out punting about for morel mushrooms on Sunday.

(No morel luck: not even false ones. Despite getting a bit of moisture last week, things remain pretty crispy out in the woods and on Sunday, I crunched my way through what was last year a very fruitful field of blueberries.)

If you spy a blooming violet, chances are your gaze will fall on a clump of wood anemones. These equally miniature spring wildflowers (violets and anemones are probably only about 4 inches above the ground) are out in full force. I love finding wildflowers and pointing them out to others, but goodness “anemone” is a hard word to say. I always feel like I’m trapped in Finding Nemo when I yell out to Andy that I found “an anemonemone. Amnemonemomne.”

As we drove home from the ill-fated morel hunt, we spotted a yearling moose beside the road. That must mean that Mama Moose has had this spring’s baby (or babies – they seem prone to twins.) When the new babies arrive, the yearling moose who have been hanging out with Mom all winter get the boot so Mom can devote her time to her infant(s). Oh, the joys of being an older sibling.

With this second spring promising summer, Andy’s been busy getting the gardens all set for the summer planting.

It’s looking really good.

Meanwhile, I’ve done a second seed planting inside to hopefully make up for all the seeds that didn’t sprout the first go-around. I’ve always had a soft spot for Four O’Clock flowers, so of course everything else I planted sprouted while the peat pots with the Four O’Clock seeds have just sat there and rudely sprouted a couple strands of grass and nothing else. We’ll just give that a second try, shall we.

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