Yarrow, in flower. Image via youcanlearnseries.com

For this post I would like to share an amazing  plant that I have recently had cause to use; Yarrow- Achillea millefolium. The quality it is probably most well known for is its ability to stop bleeding. It gets the name of its genus- Achillea- from its legendary usage by Achilles to stop the bleeding of his soldiers on the battlefield. According to Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern/ Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs by Steven Foster and James A. Duke, it has been used similarly by native cultures throughout the Northern Hemisphere as tea made from dried flowering yarrow plants for colds, fevers, anorexia, indigestion, gastric inflammations, and internal bleeding. The book cites yarrow’s expectorant, analgesic and sweat inducing properties may contribute to its effectiveness in treating cold and flu symptoms.

Yarrow is also often used for treating the female reproductive system. In James A. Duke, Ph. D.’s book The Green Pharmacy yarrow is cited as an herbal treatment for amenorrhea, a lack of normal menstrual periods; and menstrual cramps.

Beautiful yarrow leaves. Image via stillblog.net

I would also like to share what Tom Brown, Jr., wilderness survival instructor and author of numerous Field Guides has written about yarrow in his book Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants:

“Food: The dried leaves of yarrow brewed in hot water for ten to fifteen minutes make an excellent and healthful tea. It was so sacred to Grandfather that he rarely drank it as a tea and only after he felt that he was in need of a tonic to preserve good health. Caution should be used, however, because yarrow tea does induce sweating.

Medicinal: When Grandfather gave us yarrow tea to drink in the sweat lodge, he had a dual purpose in mind. First he was using the tea as a health drink since we were in the heart of the flu season. Secondly, he wanted to produce a profuse sweating during the time we were in the lodge, and the tea would induce such a sweat. Grandfather would use the tea also in alleviating fever but it was best mixed with an aspirin-bearing plant such as wintergreen. The wintergreen and yarrow tea mixture was one of the better cold tonics and one of the best for bringing down a fever. The dosage of tea should fit the patient. Use a palmful of dried herb to one cup of water. Use one cup a day for only two days, then discontinue use. This is the average dosage for patients but sometimes a stronger tea is needed.

A good use of yarrow tea is as a skin wash for all types of infections and irritations. The only drawback is that the repeated use causes sensitivity to sunlight so it must be used infrequently. I use yarrow tea as a skin wash for bad infections or irritations when all else fails. For tenacious boils and pimples, I use the fresh, crushed yarrow leaves applied directly to the affected area. Keep bandaged in sunlight. It also seems to help draw out the inflammation. Yarrow can also be used to effectively stop or slow internal bleeding, but the procedure and medication mixtures are too extensive and a bit dangerous to be covered in this book.

Yarrow varies in taste, and I know that it varies in potency depending on where it grows and what stage of growth it is in. The strongest time for collecting yarrow is just before the flowers are produced, using only the new succulent leaves. It is also good to collect the yarrow just before a rain and from areas where the soil is rich. Pick yarrow plants that are not exposed to the sun all day long, but not ones that are extensively shaded. Dry yarrow leaves slowly in a cool dark place and store in a glass or earthenware container. It is best not to keep the container tightly sealed. Store the container in a cool and dry place out of direct sunlight.”

His entry about yarrow also contains a warning about the strength of the yarrow: “Generally, yarrow should be considered as one of the most powerful herbs and is best left alone.”

Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern/ Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs also contains a warning: “May cause dermatitis. Large or frequent doses taken over a long period may be potentially harmful. Contains thujone, a toxic compound.”

Now for the fun part, I get to tell you about my cat! This is my kitty.

My kitty, Poof!

I love my cat and he loves me. He is very sweet to people, but not so good with other cats. In fact his greatest joy in life seems to be picking fights with other cats. Consequently he suffers a lot of bites and scratches, most of which are not serious. The first time he had a problem from a fight injury there were four holes in the skin of his armpit and through the holes I could see empty space. I took him to a vet who explained that he had gotten an infection from a wound that had caused an abcess, when the infection causes pus to swell into a lump. He said the important thing was that it drains, and Poof’s had done this already on its own. Poof was on antibiotics for a little while and he got better. Years later, I noticed he had abcesses on both one ear and a front foot. I called all the vets I could find but I didn’t have any money at the time, and none would see him if I couldn’t pay at the time. So I took matters in to my own hands and started treating him with herbs. I started with plantain (see my previous post about plantain here http://insidetaekwondo.com/2012/06/03/plantain-plantago-sp-first-aid-etc/). I made a plantain tea and used it as a wash on Poof’s infections. To also fight infections from the inside I poured a little plantain tea in Poof’s water every day. Since yarrow is very powerful, I add it for a few days if I feel like the infection needs a more powerful treatment. I stopped treating him when it seemed like he was getting better, but his infections worsened until I resumed treatment. Then he did heal completely. Recently I have been using plantain again on an abcess on Poof’s ear, with good results; and immediately again on a new abcess on his head, with the addition of yarrow. He is healing well.

Please note that I am writing only from personal experience and not recommending any treatment to anyone.

Wintergreen, in its natural habitat. Image via vitalsignsme.org

Here is a nice seasonally appropriate plant. It gets its name from its ability to stay healthy and dark green all winter, often enduring underneath the snow. This will be my second in a series of two posts about low growing ground creeping plants with oval- ish dark green thick waxy leaves and bright red berries that can be found throughout the winter, which are edible and medicinal. Last week I wrote about the Partridgeberry, Mitchella repens. The easiest way to tell these two plants apart is by the distinctive minty smell of the Wintergreen plant (note: it is not in the mint family) when a leaf is rubbed between the fingers. The fruit has a similar wintergreen taste when eaten. As mentioned last week, the fruit of the Partridgeberry has two small spots, resulting from where there were two paired flowers that became one berry; the Wintergreen berry has only one spot as each flower grows into one berry. The flowers of the wintergreen are small, white and bell-shaped. Another noticable difference between the two plants is that Partridgeberry leaves grow opposite each other along the stem, while Wintergreen leaves grow a short distance above the main stem and are slightly toothed.

Wintergreen flowers. Image via ontariowildflower.com

Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants by Lee Allen Peterson says “The leaves can be gathered throughout the year and used to make an excellent tea. Both the tender new leaves and berries can be used as trailside nibbles or added to salads.” Wintergreen is also featured in Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Edible and Medicinal Plants by Tom Brown, Jr. He has this to say about Wintergreen as a trailside nibble and tea leaf: “It was delicious, but he [Grandfather, his survival instructor- Ms. Doll] warned us that the plant was also a powerful medicine and that we should not eat too much. One or two leaves as a trailside nibble was all we should ingest. We came back the next day to savor the berries in the same way, and throughout the rest of the summer and into the fall, we began to know the little plant quite well… We used to collect wintergreen leaves for tea anytime of the year. We knew this plant brother had powerful medicinal properties, so we used it sparingly. Using only a few leaves to a cup of boiling water, we would brew a delicious tea that was both refreshing in the summer and warming in the winter… The berries are also quite refreshing and a good trailside nibble when you are on the go… They also make a great addition to fry bread, ash cakes, and even pancakes.”

Nice pattern on the Wintergreen fruit. Image via upload.wikimedia.org

This brings us to the medicinal uses of Wintergreen. Here is an account from Tom Brown, Jr.’s above mentioned plant field guide, about the use of Wintergreen for an intense headache; “Despite the pain, we were curious as to how the wintergreen leaves that we used as tea could have any effect on our pain. After all, we had noticed no difference during the times we drank the wintergreen as tea. Grandfather explained that we only used a few leaves for our teas, which we boiled. He was going to use larger leaves and more of them, which he would steep. He took a large palmful of leaves and steeped them in a cup of hot water for over half an hour. We drank a little at a time until we finished the cup. Within an hour, our headaches were gone and we went on to complete the campout. Many years later, I learned that the oils found in the wintergreen leaf contain the chemical, methyl salicylate, which is a close relative to aspirin.

A strong tea of wintergreen also makes a good mouthwash for sore throats, cold sores, and gum ailments. A stronger tea can be brewed as a skin wash for skin problems and irritations. The leaves can also be used in poultice form, but repeated use of the poultice may cause skin irritation. I make a balm from the crushed leaves steeped in hot tallow, [leaves could also be infused into olive or other vegetable oil, used topically as oil or as an ingredient to salve- Ms. Doll] then cooled. I find it great for mild burns one may suffer around a campfire. Some old- timers also use wintergreen tea as a pain medication in another form. They breathe in the steam vapors produced by boiling the leaves vigorously.”

This methyl salicylate is a very interesting phenomenon. In the Peterson Field Guide Eastern/ Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke, it is noted that methyl salicylate, the “chemical behind the aroma” of Wintergreen, “has recently been shown to enable plants to communicate with one another.” It is similar to aspirin, and is often used in over the counter external pain remedies. Originally found in the Wintergreen and Black Birch plants, methyl salicylate is now manufactured synthetically. As the above mentioned medicinal plant guide warns, “Essential oil [of Wintergreen- methyl salicylate] is highly toxic; absorbed through skin, harms liver and kidneys.” Apparently over use of even commonly used topical sore muscle remedies has caused fatalities. I am glad to have come across this information, as I have recently purchased a Chinese medicinal remedy called Red Flower Oil which lists methyl salicylate as its active ingredient. I didn’t know much about it for a while; I guessed that it must be similar to aspirin, based on the name. However I was not aware of the dangers of its use. Now that I am, I use Red Flower Oil on only one area of sore muscles at a time. I do find it is effective at relieving pain for a while. Note that it is the refined essential oil, methyl salicylate, that has caused fatalites, not the unprocessed Wintergreen plant itself; however as Tom Brown, Jr. stresses in his writings, the strong medicinal qualities of the plant should be respected and it should not be overused.

Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants. Image via survival-spot.com

Master James McLain

In years of karate training, nothing feels quite as good as praise. I don’t seek the praise and approval of my teacher, but it sure makes you feel incredibly good when that praise comes. And it comes sparingly. My Sensei is a man of few words and simple statements. He tells you when he is proud of you as a student. He tells you when he thinks you are training hard. He tells you when he thinks  your technique is looking good.

These comments are not the reason I train. Praise is not my motivation. But these praises can put me on top of the world. I feel my self esteem and confidence grow following these interactions. The felling is from childhood. It is the same praise that made my cheeks flush as a small boy. Pride, acceptance, and encouragement are powerful.

Sensei is very sick. His health is not good. And I find that our days of training might be coming to a conclusion. I do not want anything to do with this praise any longer. I don’t want to find this feeling anywhere anymore.

My mother passed from life many months ago. I have learned to live as a grown man without his mother in life. The possibility of losing Sensei feels like a similar vacancy  Is is a felling of lonely  independence, of self reliance of  on-your-own-ness. This feeling is sad but strengthening.  It saddens because this phase in life has come upon me. A phase when I am the grown up, by myself only, and looking for no confirmation.  But it feels strong for the same reason. Because I have become fully a man, grown and independent.

I may have more teachers in karate. Teacher is what “sensei” means. And I will surely keep learning for the rest of my life but, no longer will I accept that kind of praise and encouragement. I want to live life free of the need to receive it. Not from my Sensei, or my mother, or my boss. It will not effect me again.

I went back to Anchorage AK in the beginning of July and stayed till the 27^th, dog-sitting and house-sitting. I also did a little bit of training and fit in some hiking. I spent time with the Gardner’s dogs and Mr. H’s Border Collie, Pete. River of course flew up with me and quite enjoyed pack time with her furry friends. I was able to catch up with a few friends, my awesome bodyworker and some co-workers. Sighted a few more moose, eagles and other northern wildlife. While Reuben didn’t quite enjoy the time apart as much, I didn’t feel too lonely even though most of my days were spent with a bunch of dogs in a nice big house outside of town. But then… that’s my idea of relaxing. Don’t get me wrong, I did miss Reuben, but seeing as how Alaska is one of my favorite places and dogs make great companions I was enjoying my time too.

River and I flew back to Seattle, unpacked and repacked, loaded the car  and less than 24 hours later Reuben and I snagged River (who was a little traveled out) to begin the drive east. We made it to Yellowstone in the late night hours; found a free place to stop the car outside of the Park till morning to grab a little shut eye (yes we slept in the car). Drove about half of the park, even got to see Old Faithful blow and some of the wildlife (that wasn’t very wild) before getting back on route due east again that afternoon. We took tons of pictures! I will upload them as a picture post soon.

The drive through Wyoming was fantastic with the sights and landscape. We stopped for a few hours in Nebraska before the early morning heat made it impossible to sleep anymore (yes we slept in the car again) and hit the highway. Reuben and I mostly ate out of our cooler and River of course had her dog food. We grabbed a cheap hotel on the border of Illinois and Kentucky after overshooting on one of the roads. The Black Dragon pulled into the Farm in Tennessee on Tues the 31^st of July. Reuben met the ‘family’ and things went fair to smooth. Spent some quality time with the younger kids and a little bit with the boys. Lorien was attached to my hip, as she should be when I am in town *smile*. I put Reuben up on a horse, sadly the camera he grabbed to document this feat didn’t have a SIM card in it so I have no photos to share.. Reuben said he enjoyed it so much that a second time is ensured (and this time we’ll make sure the SIM card is in!).

I took Reuben to Citico Creek and Bald River Falls since those are old time hangouts from long ago in Joannie history. On the 4^th of Aug we got the car packed once again after picking up some more gear to head north towards New Jersey; we overnighted in Maryland with Reuben’s super sweet sister and her family. Sadly, River had to stay behind at the Farm in Tennessee. On Sunday the 5^th we rolled into Camp at The Tracker School which is set up in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Reuben’s class, Standard is where it all starts; survival skills, primitive skills, and how to never not be at home in the woods. I took my Standard a few years ago and still haven’t begun to master what I learned. Tom Brown Jr. is the founder and main instructor. (I’ve mentioned Tom before, and how I got into his programs is explained in the ‘Author’ page on my blog). I hung out and helped out (some light volunteering) while Reuben had his eyes opened anew. Was a hot and rather damp week (bit of rain) but nice to take a breather for me before my class started the following week. Reuben’s class ended that Saturday, we went with my friends Matt & Carmen whom work at Tracker to the beach – Reuben’s first experience of the Atlantic! (Editor’s note: He’d actually visited the Atlantic ocean once before.) *Joannie’s note: He’d never set foot in the Atlantic and it was the Chesapeake Bay…

Sunday I drove Reuben to the Philly airport (so much fun navigating traffic on the East Coast..) as his time was up, and work in Seattle was calling him back. I started my class at Tracker that afternoon (the 12^th of Aug), and for the next week was immersed in Philosophy that didn’t really seem like Philosophy (very little sitting and no debating – intense learning). A whole post will have to be dedicated to my Philosophy class, but for now, it blows any book or college class I’ve ever had contact with out of this world. Upon the end of class I stayed on unplanned for the next program, a 100-person Vision Quest, which was not a Tracker class but a branch program called Earth-Heart run at the Tracker camp. Tom used to run Vision Quests along with his many other classes and then passed the tools and responsibility to then-student Malcolm Ringwalt, who founded Earth-Heart and has been running Quests and other similar courses ever since. Malcolm is the cool calm water to Tom’s intense inferno fire in the realm of teaching.  Malcolm is also Tom’s right hand man in all the Philosophy courses, which is how I found out about and then came to the decision to stay on for the 100-person quest! A 10-day class that opened my eyes and brought my entire life into context; an entire post will soon be written just about my quest – but for now, you’ll just have believe me when I say that it is one of the most powerful things anyone could ever do for themselves.

I met 3 wonderful ladies during the quest that I have become intensely close friends with. For now I’ll refer to them as my ‘element sisters’ and will expand on the events that brought us together in (you guessed it..) another post. Upon the last day, one of my element sisters who lives in Quebec, had a ride all lined up to meet her husband at the border but it fell through. So many other people were needing rides to the north that I offered her the use of my car (and I) so that she wouldn’t have to suffer a bus ride. So we packed up and headed north on Tuesday the 28^th of Aug. I had a wonderful dinner with she and her husband, after which they put me up in a hotel for the night (because my passport is expired I couldn’t go to their place in Canada (sigh)). The next morning bright and early I headed back south to visit the family on the eastern shore of Maryland before going even further south back to the Farm to pick up River and have some more time with my family. I was also able to see amazing friend Amy in NJ as I drove through, which was a nice surprise as she had been out of town. I stayed two nights in Ocean City, Maryland; saw some family and the Phillips; slept a few hours in Arlington with another of my aunt & her family; and then finally pulled back into Madisonville, TN, on September 1^st.

Originally I planned to stay for 4 or 5 days, then head west with a stop through Colorado to visit some friends. With everyone being back in school it was hard to get quality time with my siblings and friends so the time was being stretched. I also was invited to Alabama to visit a very interesting lady’s farm. One of my elemental sisters told me to contact Mrs. Colin and when I did I was invited down to meet her horses. Saturday afternoon while I was in Knoxville with Jeremy (brother #3) and Lorien I got the call that my Grammy Gail (Grandmother Roissier – Mom’s mom and my last living grandparent) had died suddenly. I had just seen Grammy Gail over the Holidays along with her Dachshund Rosie (originally Mom’s dog) when they flew – as in just the two of them – to Alaska to visit River and I and my Aunt Suzi in Bethel. A little shocked and very saddened, I decided to keep my appointment with Mrs. Colin for Sunday morning and then work out the route west. My visit to Alabama was quite nice and I was invited back to meet Mr. Colin on Tuesday morning (yup, another post). I cancelled all my plans with the friends in Colorado, River and I headed west to Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday the 11^th  in the afternoon after my Alabama stop.

The service for my Grandmother was on Friday and I had a late start on my roughly 1900 mile drive west, so I knuckled down and watched the state lines pass us by. More sleeping in the car, more eating out of the cooler (I actually never ate anything but what I had with me for the those two and half days). I arrived in Sun City, Arizona (outside of Phoenix) late Thursday, and was able to be there for my aunts and attend my late Grandmother’s service.

* I’ll post some more related info to my Grandmother on my Mom’s page on the blog.

Sunday the 16^th, River and I, along with Rosie and Aunt Suzi, headed north. Reuben and I decided to take Rosie in (because he is cool like that), and my Aunt Suzi didn’t have a flight set so I mentioned that she could always ride with me to Seattle and then catch a plan there to Bethel, AK if she would like. And that, folks, is how I scored a super nice hotel in Las Vegas! Was a really nice break and got to see some of Sin City. From there it was straight north through the high Nevada desert until Idaho. I drove through the night and we arrived in smoky Seattle (there are wildfires in the East and the smoke tends to accumulate in the greater Seattle area) Tuesday morning, the 18^th of September. Suzi’s flight left on Wednesday afternoon, giving her a chance to rest and for us to hang out a little bit.

Damn, just giving a quick overview with no pictures is freaking long! The pictures for the various adventures will be forth coming along with the ‘other’ posts. I just wanted to give a overview of ‘my summer insanity’.

Note, that my poor Black Dragon has driven this summer excursion alone.. 9497 miles (or if you include the not so little side routes over 10,000 miles!!!) We had the breaks done and fluids changed before we left Seattle, it got a little work done in TN and some fluid type tune ups along the way. Otherwise minus some puffing it drove amazing J

Rosie is settling in well, River is glad to be bug free and Reuben is to put in a friend’s term ‘over the moon’ to have me back.

I’m tired, and basically just being lazy for the next little bit. Something my bills don’t agree with but I seem to really need.

~J

As far as animal tracking goes, I’m not a hunter, but I’m always on the lookout for animal prints. I like to know what’s wandering around in my neck of the woods. A few years ago, I was stunned to wake up at a campsite and find mountain lion tracks that had appeared sometime during the night. But when I see the tracks photographed at the top right, I just have to smile. Think you know what animal those tracks are from?

I’ll give you a hint…you’ve probably already guessed that the tracks are from some sort of bird, and that the bird lives in a cold climate. I’ll tell you that the bird lives in Antarctica, but it’s NOT a Skua, an Antarctic bird known for its scavenging ways:

Look at these tracks again. Notice that the tracks seem to be from a bird that’s walking–not hopping along. The tracks look like they’re dragging along a bit, and they’re not too far apart, so the bird probably has short legs, and it might be on the heavy side.

Did you guess penguin? If so, you’re CORRECT. I took a photograph of these penguin tracks one day when I was out Nordic skiing on the Ross Ice Shelf, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. I worked in communications with a contractor for the National Science Foundation and got to see penguins in their natural surroundings, but I also saw them here, at what’s was called the penguin ranch–a place where scientists corralled them together for further study:

If penguins also make you smile, here’s a final photograph that my friend and co-worker Zondra Skertich took of a beautiful Emperor Penguin with Mount Erebus in the background:

Want to know more about The Tracker, Tom Brown Jr., and his books?
“Essential Survival Skills Books by Tom Brown Jr.”
Add these books by Tom Brown Jr. to your survival skills reference library…click here to continue reading…

Photos © Traci J. Macnamara and Zondra Skertich.

I sat on a log seat. My back was straight. My feet touched the ground. I tried to let my arms fall natuarlly to my sides with my hands uncrossed in my lap. I began the exercise. The first breath he called the Command Breath. I inhaled slowly and deeply, filling my lungs to capacity. I concentrated on putting all my stress, all my anxiety, all my fear, all my doubt…everything I needed to get out of my way into, that breath. I imagined the emotions and distractions becoming suspended in the air in my lungs. Then, I exhaled sharply  pushing out all the air, now saturated with wase, out of my body. I tried to see the air rising up, dispersing all my crap into the pale cloudy sky.

Next, I began to concentrate on my feet. I took a breath in calm and relaxed, then tensed the muscles in my feet to quarter strength, just enough to feel the grip in the soles of my shoes and notice my feet were little cold and a little wet in the stiff leather. I let the breath out easily, relaxing my feet feel at the same time. The stress and tension flow our of them. I could feel the difference in my feet compared to the rest of my body. It was like slowly walking into warm pool. I breathed in again and tensed my ankles and calves, again to quarter strength, relaxing the muscles as I exhaled. Next, my knees and thighs all the way up my body even to my head, face and ears. This is the Body Segment Relaxation part of this exercise. The second step.

Then I imagined a star shinning in the blue-grey sky. It’s light shone down on me blue, a little warm and glistening in the thick fresh air. The blue light shone on my feet first and slowly spread up my body until my whole form glowed with this blue light. This is called the Blue Light Sequence.

I tried to avoid distracting thoughts. At this time in my life I was pretty young and ignorant to these kind of things. Song lyrics were a constant demon of distraction to me. As was thoughts of travel and distance. While these distractions never really go away, we can learn to turn down the volume to near inaudible levels.

Next in the exercise was called the Pain Sequence. This is taking a pain in your body and removing it. This is also body control. While it is optional and not always necessary, I went though it this morning because my muscle were sore. I don’t remember doing this part very well.

After the optional part, came the Body Position Sequence. I tried to notice and be very aware of my position, how my arms fell, how my legs sat, I noticed my posture. I took another deep breath in and tried to feel the weight of my body in gravity. I tried to feel how heavy my form sat against the log underneath me. I noticed the additional weight of my feet on the ground. This is called the Gravity. The next step is to reverse the feeling and feel weigh-LESS. Allow the sensation of floating in space the come upon you. I remember imagining our place in space, how the atmosphere starts where the ground stops. I imagined floating in the ether. This is the Weightlessness.

Finally I relaxed and took another deep breath in, again filling my lungs to capacity but with a bit more calmness that the beginning breath. This time I pushed everything that still held me back. I put all final doubt of questioning and stress into the air in my lungs. Once built up as much as I could, I exhaled sparply but calmly. He called this the Breath to Surrender. We give up and give over to the universe, to Spirit, to whatever our intention is from there.

I would later learn that the end of this “Long Form Meditiation” is only a starting point. There is no finish.

Image via dogtagart.com

You may be familiar with catnip as an herb that cats can’t seem to stay away from. It is also an herb in the mint family that can often be found commonly growing throughout the United States as a naturalized alien plant.

Image via mountainvalleygrowers.com

Catnip, or Nepeta cataria by its scientific name, is delicious to nibble on. It is known medicinally for its relaxing properties. It is one of the first plants we learned about at a Black Belt Winter Retreat for this purpose; as the catnip tea was brewing and the kitchen filled with the smell of the herb, all who breathed it in could feel its relaxing qualities. It can be taken as a tea to remedy insomnia, especially that which is induced by anxiety. Master Pearson has cautioned me not to take it regularly for more than a few days as it can cause dependence.

My most recent experiment with catnip was for a different purpose. Catnip is also known for its ability to aid digestion. I was not aware of the strong potential of the herb in this area until I experienced stomach cramps that lasted for more than a few days, long enough for me to think I should probably try some kind of remedy to help me heal. I came to use catnip because it was one of the things I already had in my cupboard, and because it is a relatively mild herb. I like to start with mild herbs, as they are less likely to lead to any kind of negative side effects. In this case, I did experience a side effect of enjoying a good night’s rest. After only a few doses my stomach quickly returned to normal. The preparation of catnip for its different uses is recommended as follows, according to Tom Brown Jr., in his book Tom Brown’s Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants;

“My first medicinal introduction to catnip came during a sweat-lodge ceremony. I was quite dirty, from a hot, dusty hike, to a point where the dirt was caked on my skin. I was also having trouble with an infected hair follicle on my shoulder, due to the rubbing of a strap from a heavy bundle. Grandfather said that a sweat lodge would help clean my pores and get the duct of the hair follicle working again so it could drain. After drinking plenty of water, Grandfather gave me a big mug of very strong catnip tea. He explained that the tea would promote profuse sweating very much like the yarrow, and sweat I did. It felt as if my body had become a waterfall, and I could feel my pores blown wide open. As I exited the sweat lodge, I felt cleaner than I ever had before. The next day, any traces of the abscess and pus buildup were gone. I did, however, find it necessary to drink almost two gallons of water in the next twenty-four hours.

To make a good tea, use the fresh herb made from the new green leaves for a strong tea, the dried herb from the new green leaves for a regular tea [you can often buy dried herbs in bulk at a natural food store- Ms. Doll]. Use one small palmful of broken leaves to about one cup of boiling water. Let the tea steep for ten to twenty minutes depending on the strength of the tea needed. Dosage is one to three cups a day, not to exceed four days. Tea is also good for pain, cramps, and intestinal problems, and has a soothing quality that has a calming effect on most people.

The best leaves to collect are from plants growing in a partially suny area, preferably with a southeast exposure. Collect leaves before the flowerheads develop. For milder teas, collect the leaves as the flowerhead is developing, or until the seeds are produced. I find that one of the most potent stages of the plant is when it is collected either in early spring or the second blooming of late fall. As an herbalist, I collect the plant beginning in the spring, and ending in fall when it turns brown. I place the collection in separate containers and label them accordingly so they can fit the needs of the people that come to me.

The general tea dosages are as follows: to induce sweating, one cup of strong tea made by steeping the dried leaves for twenty minutes in hot water. To relieve pain, steep the dried or green leaves in hot water from seven to twelve minutes. To relieve stomach cramps and intestinal disorders, double the dosage of herb to one cup of water and simmer for fifteen minutes; this can be taken hot or cold, depending on the season. For a soothing tea that promotes relaxation, use the tiny leaves which are found below the developing flowerheads and that have been dried in a cool, dry place; allow these leaves to steep for twenty minutes.”

Catnip is also used for toothaches, as reported in Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs & Spices by John Heinerman:

“Rural residents of the Ozark and Appalachian Mountains employ either mashed fresh catnip leaves or the dried herb powder as a crude poultice application directly to sore gums or aching teeth, to relieve the intense pain and suffering. If the powder is to be used, a piece of cotton is moistened with water and then some of the powder applied on the surfaces, after which the cotton is put into the mouth and held firmly against the aching tooth or jut rubbed on the gums for quick relief. The fresh leaves seem to bring nearly instant relief, while the dried powder takes a little longer to work.”

Another use of catnip, also from Heinerman’s Encyclopedia, is as an eyewash:

“A strong catnip tea can be used as an effective eyewash to relieve inflammation and swelling due to certain airborne allergies, cold and flu, and excess alcoholic intake (“bloodshot eye” syndrome). Bring 3 cups of water to a boil and add 5 tsp. of cut fresh leaves. Reduce to low heat and let simmer for only 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep an additional 50 minutes. Strain and refrigerate in a clean fruit jar. Use as an eyewash with an eye cup several times each day. Or soak a clean terry-cloth towel in a warm solution of the tea and apply over the eyes for half an hour. Used catnip tea bags, while still warm and rung out, can also be put on the eyes for some relief.”

Note that catnip can also be taken as a smoked herb, rolled in rolling papers and smoked like a cigarette, for its relaxing qualities; however its ability to be habit forming should be remembered, so as with any internal use of this herb, it should be reserved for occasional usage only.

Image via jennyflowers.com

Call it environmentalism. A bold opportunity to reduce my carbon footprint, to thumb the finger at consumerism. A voluntary downshifting of my technological vogue.

Call me a rat race dropout. Call me tight-fisted, or dance around it. He’s working within a budget. There’s truth there, too. But I have another explanation, a logic behind my madness. I’m not prepping for the apocalypse. I’m trying to live as if it already happened.

This isn’t as outlandish or dramatic as it sounds at first glance. I still shop at grocery stores and use grid power. I’m tied into society’s matrix. But I’m also aware this lawnmower may be the last one I ever own.

The price of Thai-made computer chips skyrocketed after the tsunami. Panasonic hasn’t been able to meet America’s demand for bathroom fans due to Japan’s struggles. Ikea is having problems with their butcher block fabricators.

Ladies and gentlemen, this might be a golden age, but it’s already peaked. We are in a decline. One day humanity is going to wake up to a very different world. I’m not going to list further evidence to prove my point; if you can’t see the signs you’re choosing not to. What I am going to do is urge you to spend every day, and every dollar, as if it were your last.

It’s hard to temper that thought with the long-term planning necessary to thrive in a Capitalist society. I’ve struggled with the dichotomy since my early twenties, when I read Tom Brown Jr.’s book The Vision and first saw the unsustainable nature of our world. How could I invest myself in something I didn’t believe in? How could I live a fulfilling life without doing so? For years I hovered along the fence, never fully investing myself but never completely breaking away, maintaining my ‘freedom’ at the cost of instability. Whenever the hypocrisy became too much I’d quit my job, or move, or sever a relationship… only to start the cycle over.

And then I became a parent, and everything changed. I had to invest myself in the accepted paradigm. Sure, I fought it. I’ve moved 8 times in as many years. I’ve struggled with relationships. I’ve wanted to quit my job any number of times. But there’s more at stake now. Not only do I have to invest myself in society, but I have to do it in a way I believe in. The example I set is going to affect my daughter’s thoughts and outlook for the rest of her life, as well as the lessons she may one day pass on to her own children.

I don’t want to be the problem; I want to be the solution. And if that means the neighbors give me strange looks as I drag the lawnmower around, so be it. As long as my daughter understands.

So here’s my first quandary:  Do I make the list just for me or do I include my wife.  She is a big part of my life and we many things together, but there are something’s that I want to do that she wants no part of and vise-versa.

Quandary number two:  Do I put a twist on the bucket list and make it, ”Things my wife will kill me for doing.”  I don’t mean something as tawdry as having an affair, or anything similar.  I mean like learning how to ride a motorcycle and riding cross country, or learning to fly a Sport-light Aircraft (Bigger than an ultra-light).

Either way it could be fun and entertaining.  (Of course I’d blog about it as long as my wife hasn’t killed me in the meantime.)

I see also that Leslie would like the list to have local items on it.  That makes sense.  Air fare and hotels are pricey.  Choosing something local also helps the local economy via advertisements.

After thinking about it, I’ve decided to mix in a little bit of everything.  Some items will be for me; some will be for me and the wife; some will be dangerous as in my-wife-will-kill me dangerous; one or two will be long distance, and all will be fun.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, my first official Bucket List!

*Not in any semblance of order

Take the fast boat to Key West

Visit Universal Studio’s Wizarding World of  Harry Potter

Take the standard course at Tom Brown Jr’s tracking school.  (Great for my hikes in the woods.)

2 Day driving school at Skip Barber in Sebring

Learn to ride a horse at Riding Star Ranches  (Western Style)

Take and ECHO Global Farm tour

Fly in a Piper Cherokee

Go Ghost hunting in St. Augustine

Rent a Porsche Carrera for a day and tool around Sarasota

I’m sure I could think of more if given enough time, but that’s a good start.  What’s on your list?

Witre one up and send it in to Lesley at Bucket List Publications.  Who knows?  You might cross one off sooner than you think.

Submit your bucket lists to: info@bucketlistpublications.com Put “Bucket List” in the subject line. Include your name, blog address, current city/town & country See http://www.bucketlistpublications.com/2012/02/09/2012-bucket-list-adventure-awaits/ for an example bucket list. 

Packing out--full minds, full hearts

The course is intense. We started the day with breakfast and chores at 7 am and kept a full day until 10:30 or ll every night. Most of that was in lecture–other courses aren’t so lecture-heavy. I took over a 100 pages of notes and drawings (on full-sized paper) plus supplementary pictures. We covered four categories: Survival, Tracking, Awareness, and Spirit.

In Survival we focused on the basics of Shelter, Water, Fire, and Food–so the first day we worked on Bowdrill–which has become a teacher to me. We built a debris shelter as a group. We learned two different ways to purify water–and also different ways to find it. We came to understand fire and what our relationship to it in new ways. We learned the basics of finding plant and animal food. I learned to how to eat thistles raw. There were a thousand “aha!” moments.

For example, I’ve watched my father clean and filet dozens and dozens of fish as a kid–but I’d never done it. ’til the standard, when we worked in pairs to clean a fresh-caught rock fish and cook it over coals. Delicious!

With Tracking, we worked on clear print identification, gait patterns, and the more subtle signs of tracking. I started to feel a connection to tracking before I left. I love it, really. Seeing the sign of how other beings are using places–knowing the story of a place is fascinating to me. Then there’s the tracking itself–following the story of how an animal moves through the land responding to its environment, its needs, and the other animals around it. I studied my own tracks in the tracking box–walking, running, barefoot. Wondering what secrets were there–that even I didn’t know about.

Awareness was a lot of fun, too. Volunteers in the course often camouflaged themselves and surprised us during a demonstration or workshop.

Find the volunteer

Tom Brown, Jr.’s stories stirred our Spirit and he shared with us some of the foundational teachings of Grandfather (Stalking Wolf). These are special moments in the course where students could see the birthright of humans and how taking a purely physical approach to survival and tracking skills is not sufficient. There is much more to living a full life.

We finished the course on my birthday. It felt like a true birth day, an opportunity to mark my own new opportunities.

Since coming back, I’ve been practicing some of the skills every day: bowdrill is every day. Yesterday, I made four coals with my daughter and we built a small fire with the last one. It was the first time she’d gotten a coal with anyone other than her teacher, Kevin Glenn.

I make cordage almost every day. We’ve practiced caretaking on the land–visiting neglected places and helping them to grow into more health.

On Sunday the entire family went tracking with Kevin for a couple of hours and found mink tracks among others–in a very unexpected place.

Tom Brown shared that the skills are a gateway to the Earth. This is so.

1.  To know that the trail you are following is really fresh and that you actually have a chance of finding the animal.

2.  To be able to decipher your trail from the tracks of other trails that are older.  This is really important for animals like deer because it is easy to confuse trails.

One of the best ways to practice aging is an exercise coined by Tom Brown Jr. as “Wisdom of the Marks”.  Basically you take a round stick and press it into the ground, then wait an hour and press another into the ground right next to the first one.  You can do this every hour for days or do it once every day or every 10 minutes or however you want.  There are so many factors that affect how a track ages that this is really a life-long exercise.  The main things that you look for are the dryness of a track and the crispness of its edges.  The rate at which tracks dry out and degrade depends entirely on the weather.  So its no wonder that great trackers are always paying attention to the weather and have a detailed memory of the past week’s weather.

Instead of using a round stick for the Wisdom of the Marks, I chose to use an actual deer foot!  I can’t think of anything else that will work better to teach me how deer tracks age.

These crisp edges are what you look for in a fresh track but depending on the weather and soil, a track can keep fresh edges for many days.

Wisdom of the deer foot. Being able to estimate how much sunlight has been hitting a track is essential to aging.

These two tracks were made a day apart. Can you tell which one is fresher?

Another huge part of trailing is stealth – the ability to get close to animals without them knowing.  To practice this I’ve been getting up before dawn and sitting by deer trails with the goal of touching one as it walks by.  But that is a story for a later post.

I find that I do the Awareness Expansion with our thinking about it. This expansion has become a large part of my thought process. Which, as I look back, as the Canada air chills my cheeks, I realize was the whole point to the original lesson. I’d like to share the exercise here if you have a minute. It has been a long time since I thought about it step by step. I want to write it out.

–Choose a sense. I like to start with a dominate one at first. Lets choose Hearing. Imagine your hearing to be a bubble. You can hear everything in that bubble. You can take in every sound/ Now push the bubble out further and further. Pay close and mindful attention to every sound coming into your ears. Pull the sounds out of the air with you attention. Hear everything.

–Next, Vision. Take in everything your eyes can see. Grab everything with your attention. Look like as an a artist. Notice shape, texture, shade, temperature, line, color, shadow…..everything. I find the edges of my vision expand to become a wide-angel vision side, to side, up and down. Focus on nothing specific but notice everything.

–Smell. This one always challenged me. Again, notice everything part of the air. Feel molecules bursting on your olfactory nerve and release the trace of their source. Pull the air with your attention to smell.

–Taste. So closely related to smell. Touch the air with your tongue. While sitting meditation I used to touch my tongue to a piece of leaf or bark. I like to do this part while enjoying tea or bourbon.

–Touch the air, feel the cloth of your clothes against your skin, the feel or you socks around your feet, the tightness, looseness, heaviness of your clothes. I like to extend my fingers imagining I can feel a few centimeters before my fingers touch a surface. I feel a piece of bark or the soft ground or a piece of moss when sitting outside. Anything can give your sense of touch a surface. Feel the air around your face, the wind in your hair. The air touching bare skin can inform all kinds or sensory information. I love the warm sun.

–Fusion when you bring all these at once. Fusion, when we find they all combine to another sense when you can feel all at once.

When I crossed the wet street to enter the ambulance doors, I remembered the times I’ve spent in the woods and more recently in my backyard or the park and felt this fusion. A sudden flood of awareness like lifting the veil or taking off your sunglasses. The world is different a truer, unfiltered one.

In studying Zen perspectives, I have tried to keep this awareness without judgement or preference or opinion. To just notice, “only don’t know’. However, in the past year, I feel really pulled toward Hanh’s lessons of instilling his awareness with compassion. I like feeling that we “just notice” in order to remove our prejudice. But once that is accomplished we must learn to live and love with pure compassion. Unmitigated love and mercy fully released from any fearful grip.

Here is one such group: The Children of the Earth Foundation.

Their mission statement is:

“Ensuring the survival of future generations by guiding youth and community to a pure connection with the Earth.”

And their programs are based on the long-term work of Tom Brown Jr. and his Tracker School in New Jersey.

Check out the websites to learn more… I would like to be a child and be sent to one of these camp programs. In a heartbeat, I’d go.

Image via Wikipedia

Tom Brown Jr. will be in Austerlitz, Holland this Summer to teach a Philosophy 1 class on June 27th-July 3rd, 2011.

Tom Brown Jr., America’s most renowned tracker and wilderness survival expert, has devoted his life to educating people in the skills of Tracking, Wilderness Awareness and Survival.

This course covers the philosophy by which Stalking Wolf lived his life, and that he taught to Tom during their 10 years together. While it is based in Native American philosophy, Stalking Wolf found many truths common to all mankind throughout his years of extensive wandering. It is the combination and distillation of these common truths that are covered in this, and subsequent, Philosophy classes.

The class will be held outside Amsterdam and this site will maybe become the home for Tracker classes in Europe. If successful the tracker school will expand the classes they teach in Europe in 2011/2012.

Class Details

• Dates: June 27th-July 3rd, 2011 (this class runs Monday-Sunday)
• Prerequisites: NONE  (Student must be age 18 or older)
• Location:  Austerlitz, Holland at Stichting Jeugdbuitenverblijven
• Price: Є1000 EUR (Є300 deposit due at registration, the balance of Є700 is due June 13th)
• All of your food will be provided for you during your class.
• There is no tenting at this site.  You will be sleeping inside in bunks; each room will be either male or female occupancy.  You can either bring your own linens or rent them from the camp for around Є15-Є20.  There are no private rooms/beds.
• Transportation is not provided; directions will be supplied once you register.
• This class will be taught in English only.

Registration

Due to limitations on the Tracker School website, registration for the Philosophy 1 class in Holland will not be going through the website. But you can use Pay Pal. This will allow us to be billed in Euros AND be able to pay using a bank account (certain countries only) or a credit card (in most cases, a Pay Pal account isn’t even necessary). Contact Sara at at registration@trackerschool.com for more details. *Please note that the Tracker Office will be closed from December 24th-January 3rd.

Related Articles

• Neuroscience and free will: religion and science do not always disagree – Telegraph.co.uk (news.google.com)
• Your Vision Is Your Home (hopeseguin2010.wordpress.com)
• Experiments in Field Philosophy (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)

Thanks for your continuous support of The Linn County Fair, 4-H and FFA!

People often ask me how many mouths urban foraging can support. “Not enough,” I always say. Let’s change that. Guerrilla seed “bombs,” also known as “green grenades,” are little clay balls mixed with compost and packed with seeds. Tossing them along bike paths, abandoned lots and other public spaces helps plants take root, creating food for us as well as habitat for the nonhuman neighbors with whom we share our cities. You can find a recipe here.

Wondering who slinks about under cover of night? Check out Tom Brown Jr.’s “Field Guide to the Forgotten Wilderness,” a book filled with inspiring stories about the raccoons, opossums, weasels, rats, mice, snakes, birds, bats, insects and other friends who forage in the wee hours.

“Turning abandoned lots and alleys into little pockets of wilderness could bring mankind closer to a harmony with the natural world, and what better place to start than in the barren and sterile jungles of our cities,” Tom Brown Jr. writes. Here, here!

And thanks to Urban Scout for the tip.

Look closely at this picture. More closely. Anyone see It?

Late this morning I was driving down Main Street in L’Anse, suddenly desiring two scrambled eggs and homemade whole wheat toast from the Nite Owl.  With a cup of steaming hot tea.  However, to my dismay, not a single parking spot presented itself.  The car was forced to turn right and steer down by the Keweenaw Bay.

When suddenly, directly ahead, There It Was!  A rainbow of beautiful colors arching across our Lake Superior.  The wild and dark rain-laden clouds filled the sky, but there was a slice of sun shining through.  I lurched out of the car at full speed and sprinted toward the shore.  It looked like the rainbow was about to fade.  I fumbled to turn the camera on and snapped and snapped and snapped, attempting to will the bright colors into the camera lens. 

But no.  Only a faded arch showed up against our tumultuous sky.  My camera sighed and turned to look for other possibilities. 

Red bench, lake and sky

At first, I only noticed the lake and clouds and benches.  Breathed in the fresh October air and thought, “Ahhh, it’s good to be here in downtown L’Anse along the lakefront.  I should stop here more often.”  (How often do we think that?  Once we’ve actually veered off our usual route and stopped some place where we don’t interrupt our routine often enough.)

How close can we get?

Then I noticed Them.  A beach-full of seagulls.  They looked so intriguing.  And then my tracking instincts from Tom Brown Jr.’s Wilderness Survival School came back.  I would track those seagulls.  See how close it was possible to sneak before they burst into flight. 

Seagull Track in sand

Perhaps a “real” tracker could sneak close enough to stroke a feather.  Maybe a tracker with some experience could approach within a foot or two.  You move very slowly when tracking, very slowly.  I moved way too quickly in this attempt, although paused repeatedly to look nonchalantly out to the bay as if to reassure the gulls.  She’s not really getting that close, they certainly thought.   She’s just admiring the waves. 

Seagull feather and stones

Feathers littered everywhere on the sand.  And other seagull remains, of which we shall not discuss in a polite blog.  The birds shifted.  Began to look a little perturbed.  The stalker was getting much too close.  A few creatures waddled away, squawking.  I really should have stared longer and more nonchalantly at the clouds and waves, but suddenly the thought of scrambled eggs and homemade toast re-surfaced.  The Nite Owl has really good homemade toast.  What am I doing stalking seagulls anyway?  Surely there are available parking spaces now.

Fly away!

Off they flew, a flurry of white wings rising in the sky, gulls flapping and squawking toward the disappeared rainbow.  I turned back toward the car, headed for strawberry jam on homemade toast.

Melt, River, Melt

This afternoon the phone rang.  It was my co-worker.  She wanted to meet me down by the Silver River to exchange the goods.  I slipped on boots and winter jacket, hats and gloves and drove to our meeting place.

We parked our vehicles as close together as possible, reaching out to slip the small silver package from hand to hand.  With a laugh and a wave and barely three sentences, we revved the motors and sped off.

Our exchange?  A computer zip drive.  USB Flash Drive.  Whatever you call those slender pin drives which contain valuable software.  We do these drive-bys a couple times each month to exchange our work-related material.

Today I decided to wander back by the river and view the melting.  How exciting to discover the river mostly free and flowing!  I locked the car (you never know who might want to steal the $20 in my purse) and wandered back through the brush and cedar swamp areas.

First discovery.  A dead raven.  I will not burden you with the entire obituary photo with bedraggled wet and wild feathers askew in all directions.  Instead, you may view its claw.  (The nitty-gritty nature enthusiasts among you may want to lean closer to examine it; the more squeamish reader may scroll rapidly on to other photos.) 

Raven's claw

I walked on to the left, attempting to get as close to the river as possible, without falling in.  The snowy/icy terrain proved a bit slippery.  Surprisingly so, as we’d recently gained a half inch of light snow since morning.  Over there, hanging in a tree, a strange-looking piece of fur caught my eye.  What the heck…?  Any theories why this small piece of deerskin hangs by a wire in the middle of the woods?

Deer hide with fur hanging from tree (on small wire)

This brought back memories of my attempt to brain-tan a deer hide back in the early 90′s.  I had just attended the Tom Brown Jr. Wilderness Survival School and learned the basics about tanning a deer hide by hand.  You utilize the brains rather than chemicals, although my memory is fuzzy about the process after all these years.  I do remember spending hours and hours and hours and hours attempting to scrape and soften that hide.

Oh my goodness!  I do believe we have an ancient photo of that very event.  (You will also be disappointed to know that I did not succeed in tanning the hide properly.  It never really softened into a supple piece of leather.  No.  Instead it turned into a hard four-foot potato chip.  I eventually painted designs upon it and gave it back to the Earth as a gift.)  You will also be interested to know that our basement did not smell like perfume for that week.  The children even mostly stayed in far corners of our small house, attempting to stay clear of the smell.

Deer hide meets Kathy

Back to today.  I shall leave you with a non-animal photo to appease anyone more interested in the mineral world.  How about some stones peeking through the snow?  Beach stones gathered last summer up in the Keweenaw, planted beneath flowers close to the house.  (We’re bound to have one blog devoted entirely to beach stones next summer.  Like shells, they’re tremendously appealing, aren’t they?)

Melting snow reveals beach stones in garden

Don’t get me wrong.  Carla and I weren’t stalking the wild vole together.  She lives way over yonder in Maine, and we’re in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

However, if you click on the above youtube video and watch Carla’s movie about stalking wild vole tracks and tunnels in the woods around her house, you just might happen to hear the name of this blog!  She posted this video on gaia.com this morning and provided fair warning that Opening the door, walking outside was featured.

Honestly, she re-inspired me.  I approached today’s outdoor assignment with renewed vigor and confidence.  One didn’t need to look for hugely interesting subjects in the great outdoors.  One could search for small tracks, deep tunnels, miniscule droppings.  The Universe surely provides!

I started by looking for vole tracks.  C’mon, Carla and I needed to do this together!  However….no vole tracks.  No mice, chipmunk or squirrel tracks.  Little chickadee and nuthatch tracks scattered beneath the feeder, and deer tracks meandered everywhere.  A suspicious-looking path of tracks meandered from the driveway down by the house, but they proved impossible to identify in the deep fluffy snow.  Could they be coyote?  Only the full moon knows for sure….

I thought of an interesting shrew story.  It might have been a vole story.  Close enough!  Here goes:  a couple winters ago my husband shared his garage with a blind little shrew.  He caught glimpses of the fellow scurrying hither and yon.  They co-existed peacefully for several weeks when suddenly, one evening, my husband decided to take off his jacket and throw it on the garage floor.  Unbeknown to him, the shrew ran up the sleeve of his jacket and perhaps settled for a nap.  Later, as Barry put on his jacket, the shrew dove up under his shirt, attempting to escape.  Imagine that scenario!  Barry was leaping around, trying not to injure the poor creature, tearing off his jacket, trying to shake the shrew out to safety.  Fortunately, both survived.

Remembering that story brought a chuckle, but I continued my search for tracks.  Up a steep slope, through calf-deep snow, peering around, trying to figure out where a vole might live in these woods.  No vole.  Suddenly an interesting animal “track” appeared.  See for yourself:

Mysterious animal track in snow

I’m sorry you can’t see this to proper scale; you would probably be able to identify immediately.  Give up?

It’s the “track” of where a deer rested.  He or she cuddled in a round ball in the snow and snoozed or slept or simply paused for some time.  He rested long enough to melt the snow all the way down to the undercover of leaves and debris.

When I went to the Tom Brown Jr. Wilderness Survival School back in the ’90′s, we learned quite a bit about identifying animal tracks.  We learned that expert trackers can fathom amazing details about the person or animal just by examining the tracks.  In Tom’s words from his book “The Science and Art of Tracking”: 

 “When we track, we pick up a string. At the far end of that string a being is moving, existing, still connected to the track that we gaze upon. The animal’s movement is still contained in that track, along with the smallest of external and internal details. As we follow these tracks, we begin to become the very animal we track. Our awareness expands from the animal we have become to the landscape it reacted to and is played by. We feel the influence of all things that surround us and our awareness expands from our consciousness to the mind of the animal and finally to the very cosmos. In tracking and awareness, then, there can never be a separation. One without the other is but half a story, and incomplete picture, thus an incomplete understanding. It is the track that connects us to that grand consciousness and expands us to limitless horizons.”

Tom also knows something about the wild vole.  It has a voracious appetite, having to eat at least its own weight every day.  A good acre of grassland can support about 400 voles, but excellent acres can support populations of over 10,000 per acre. They do have a storage instinct, and their caches can be located along the trails of their feeding areas. 

Carla, did you see any vole caches?

While other people were claiming cabins and bunks – Fearless Leader, three other Interns and I were claiming ground. (Fearless Leader has taken survival classes at Tom Brown Jr’s Tracking School and was quite knowledgeable in all things outdoors, I hope to learn as much as possible from him.)

Despite the fact that it is still August, nights are becoming increasingly more chilly here in Massachusetts. After an exciting evening marathon of fire and s’mores, it was time to turn in… to the grass. The first night was an attempt to sleep outside without blankets or pillows. One of our fellow Interns gave up and went to a cabin. 3:00am rolled around and I woke up (after a surprisingly decent two hour nap) and put my blanket over me (too cold for me!) Another Intern appreciated my blanket and joined me under it. Fearless Leader and the third intern were left outside without warmth.

The four of us made it to dawn, but we all agreed it had been incredibly cold.

Wednesday night we planned ahead. Fearless Leader showed me and one other intern how to make a Debris Hut. It took us three hours mostly in the dark to set up our three new homes. The construction is simple and satisfying to do, I really enjoyed making my hut. Unfortunately, by 1:00am we had lost our construction steam and we skimped a bit on the debris part of the hut. After another round of fire and s’mores, we turned into our new spider filled homes. (The other two Interns of the previous night joined us on the ground in sleeping bags. The three of us debris-hut folks used no blankets or pillows.)

Lesson: Do not skimp on the debris part of a debris hut. I was freezing. By 5:30am after trying to cover the entrance to my hut in an attempt to make it more tolerable – I decided I needed at least an hour of sleep undisturbed by the tumultuous shivering of my cold little body. I crawled under my blanket.

Debris hut attempt #2 should happen soon – I will let you know if I can finally find a way to sleep comfortably outside without a blanket.

Spiders crawling all over your face is really adorable.