Archive for the ‘Wild Nature’ Category
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
At Monkey Valley, we place a strong emphasis on keeping retreat participants safe. One of the ways to do that is helping people learn about the wild animals that live in the area. I've written extensively about cougars on this blog, to tell you the story of how I learned ...
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Friday, November 28th, 2008
I saw the first sign on top of the fridge: smaller than a grain of rice, and dark brown in colour: a mouse turd. But smaller than the average mouse turd. Which made me wonder if it might have been emitted from a shrew or vole... There was no question ...
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Monday, November 17th, 2008
The Western Canada Wilderness Committee, of which I am a member, has a campaign on to ban grizzly hunting in BC and protect grizzly habitat. They believe the grizzlies are in danger of extinction, and I find their evidence convincing.
If you are interested in finding out a little more, here ...
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Sunday, November 16th, 2008
When you are on a vision fast or medicine walk, you enter into a mystical realm where all events and encounters take on a significance that is bigger than what most of us experience in ordinary waking life. During this time, an encounter with an animal is not just a ...
Posted in Vision Fast, Wild Nature | 10 Comments »
Friday, November 14th, 2008
"Puma, cougar, catamount; Felis concolor, the shy, secret, shadowy lion of the New World, four or five feet long plus a yard of black-tipped tail, weighs about what a woman weighs, lives where the deer live from Canada to Chile, but always shyer, always fewer, the color of dry leaves, ...
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Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
When you are out in the wilderness, it is helpful to know the signs of the cougar, which might tell you that the cat has been by recently, and could still be in the area. This information can be helpful for self-protection, but it is also interesting for its own ...
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Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Just kidding! A little hubris was creeping in there...
Even if the chances of a cougar encounter are very remote, and the likelihood of an attack even slimmer, we must all be aware that the possibility exists, and prepare ourselves with a plan for what to do.
Children: Remember, most cougar attacks ...
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Sunday, November 9th, 2008
There is a saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." This is concerned with our mind's tendency to latch onto ideas and use them to fit our experience into preconceived shapes. Such as, for instance, the idea of how to become enlightened through emulating the life ...
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Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
As I mentioned earlier, when I first moved to Monkey Valley I did some research to find out about cougars, consulting my handy Mammals of British Columbia. But recently I came across a great pamphlet put out by the BC Ministry of Environment, Land and Parks and the BC Ministry ...
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Monday, October 27th, 2008
I'm not sure now where the idea of a cattle prod came from. It probably came to me when I was out on a run, dodging Douglas Lake cows and hoping the bull wouldn't charge me. I looked at how big the cattle are, and thought they are actually much ...
Posted in Running, Wild Nature | No Comments »