Living in the woods can have one of two effects: Either a
person yearns to return to the city because of boredom or fear or instead becomes
less and less inclined to know about or participate in the world beyond. Perhaps I’ve always been this way but I am
decidedly in the latter group. If it
weren’t for having access to the Internet I wouldn’t know about the bickering
and extreme partisanship in DC. I wouldn’t
know what’s going on in Syria or North Korea or any of the other places that
are, in fact, so very far away. Last
night, and the night before last, and every night before that I’ve laid on my
bed or sat in my shop listening to owls hooting and pauraques whistling, the
quiet and stillness intense. I know
there are places where traffic screeches, ambulances howl, strange people roam
the streets, anger rages. I also
understand that most people, despite occasional comments to the contrary, have
grown so used to that “normal” that they could not live the way I do nor would
they want to if given the chance. The grocery
store is over an hour away and so is any hospital. Yes, we have our own dangers out here. Just yesterday I spotted a fresh rattlesnake track
next to the porch. Everyone went on high
alert. We didn’t find the snake but it’s
around here and it’ll show sooner or later.
We’ve also seen a lot of coral snakes lately so it pays to be watchful. One learns to never reach into anything
without first checking to make sure there are no snakes hiding underneath or
perhaps black widow spiders or brown recluses or scorpions. Every now and then a venomous centipede will
squiggle into my shop. Those things
always appear manic to me. Of course,
this is the world where I’ve spent my life so I don’t find any of this disturbing. One simply learns to be careful.
People too can become a problem. Even if we called the police they’d likely
never get here—or by the time they arrived, assuming they could get passed the
three locked gates each a mile apart, it would all be over. Border Patrol, sheriff deputies, constables
have all warned us to be cautious and they have politely told us that it’s
unlikely anyone will get here in time to help.
For most people nature is just one more obstacle to
circumvent. A man bought some acres
about seven miles northeast of here and the first thing the guy did was clear
the land into an ironing board. Ironing
board seems the appropriate metaphor because now the sun beats down on his lone
house and when the winds blow the top soil whirls across in brown clouds. I keep wondering how anyone can be so
ignorant to do such a thing. I imagine
he’s bought into the propaganda about “returning the land to grassland” or
maybe about raising cows. Facts are that
this territory is a land in transition.
What you see today is not what you’ll find tomorrow. It is a young ecological system and like all
systems it’s moving towards increased synergy.
By that I mean that nature always wants to diversify and mature. Grassland is ephemeral no matter what anybody
tells you. It is essentially
mono-dimensional and over time the land will seek herbaceous shrubs then woody shrubs then small trees
then large tree, all of it mixed and complex and thus eminently efficient. Remember that energy flows through all
systems and in order to do so effectively the system must be allowed to become
complex. Pray tell, why do you think the
oldest ecological systems are so diverse with thousands of plant species? Unfortunately, we tend to look at natural
systems through the myopia of a human’s lifetime. We cannot understand evolution’s slow march
nor can we understand the intrinsic needs of nature. Too many people out there, like the man who
cleared every remnant of plant life on his acres, utilize plots of land they do
not know how to manage properly. Add to
that they have little to no respect for the land. To them the land is only something to be
exploited to profit from. We are thus
left with less and less, with growing desertification, habitat destruction,
polluted waters, and bleak skies.
As far as this country is going we’ll have to see what
happens in the next year or so. You may
be of the opinion that all things will work out or perhaps that things will even
get better. On the other hand, you might believe it’s just going to get worse.
Honestly, I don’t know anymore.
It seems as if we’ve stepped into a mess and for whatever reason are
refusing to at least step out of it.
What concerns me, as always, is the land. If you love the land; if you are a bushcrafter,
naturalist, woodsman or woods woman then you are at this very moment feeling a bit apprehensive. You are smart enough to
realize that there are people in power who know nothing about nature and don’t
even care. Call them “city slickers” if
you want; and perhaps that’s what they are.
The vast majority grew up in large cities and those who grew up in
smaller towns seem never to have connected with the woods. They might talk about going hunting and
fishing but it’s simply a pastime; it’s not in their blood. Speaking on that subject, someone told me the
other day, “A man who surrounds himself with gold is a city boy to the extreme. For people like that a patch of fine woods is
nothing more than a potential golf course.”
Evening before last I went walking; it’s a routine I’ve
established over the years. Carried a walking
stick made from a retama branch, a bottle of water, a knife, leather gloves,
and a flashlight with extra batteries.
Clouds were moving overhead and the weather report was saying a large
storm was drifting my way. I figured I
had enough time to do a three mile walk without encountering any rain. It wasn’t rain, however, that I walked underneath but
instead a lightning storm that sent hundreds of steaks of lightning across the
sky. It got spooky. I sought refuge under the porch of an old
trailer that sits along the road about three-quarters of mile from my
place. My dogs, as always, were with me
and they kept giving me anxious glances as the thunder merged into one
continuous roar as if jets were flying directly over me. Finally I figured it wasn’t going to get any
better so I decided to do a quick walk back to the cabin. Fortunately it didn’t rain until later but
that was one scary walk. Imagine a
million strobes bursting above you and the shock waves of piercing thunder
slamming into the ground. Every time I
crossed a gate I worried that a bolt of lightning was going to strike me down
on the spot. I managed a few photos from
my iPhone but they don’t do the storm justice.
When I got back to the cabin someone said, “Why do you always do these
things…go walking when it’s storming outside?”
The approaching storm
Dozens of lightning strikes merged as if one.
Lone strike in the woods
