Archive for the ‘Wild Nature’ Category

Cougars: pistol-packing mama!

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

Prior to moving to Monkey Valley I had little exposure to guns. My dad taught me and my sister Kim to shoot a rifle one summer at the family cabin on Knouff Lake. It was fun, shooting at cans on a log. Learning to watch for the kick. But since ...

Cougars: a man, a truck, a dog, and a gun

Monday, October 20th, 2008

When I told people I was moving to Monkey Valley, they inevitably thought I needed a man, a truck, a dog, and a gun. In fact, when I first bought the place, I had the man, Hugh McMillan, and we were getting along pretty good. I bought a pickup truck—a ...

Cougars: fears in the dusk

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

When I first moved to Monkey Valley, my biggest fears were attack by cougars, bears, and humans. I've already documented some of the encounters with humans. Pretty innocuous, and nothing like my late-night imaginings of a Charles Manson-like gang bent on my murder. So it is with cougars. Due to my ...

Holy cow, a visiting vole!

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

The other night I was wakened from a peaceful sleep by a crinkling sound. It's not the first time this has ever happened, but it's been a while. I replayed the sound in my head, and figured it wasn't a human intruder—the sound was too small. It could be a ...

Is that a spotted owl?

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

On Thanksgiving Day, which is also the US Columbus Day and Indigenous People's Day, I looked out the bathroom window and saw a large white blob on the top of a tree. Was it snow? But no, none of the other trees had white blobs on them. So I went across ...

Coming home to Monkey Valley – October

Monday, October 13th, 2008

I actually come home to Monkey Valley quite often. Usually, I make two trips a month to Vancouver, which means I get to come home to Monkey Valley twice a month. The previous post gives some background on why I was away so much before the September homecoming. Originally, I began ...

Wild women run in the dark!

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

The West is the place of darkness, black, the night. I wonder if night owls enjoy hanging out in the West part of the wheel, and early birds prefer the East. For just about as long as I've been running (since I quit smoking for the first successful time—lasting three years—in ...

Is that a wolf?

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Cowboys, dogs, and dirtbikers: visitors to Monkey Valley You might be noticing that all of these invaders of my privacy are men. Men who break the law and ignore the postings I have put up every 20 to 50 meters around the perimeter of the property. But one time there was ...

Soapberry Indian ice cream

Friday, September 12th, 2008

Indian ice cream—a gift from the land At the August vision fast at Monkey Valley, the spot where our council circle met had some translucent reddish-orange berries that looked very succulent. I licked one and found it to be very bitter. The faster asked what they were, but I didn't know, and ...

Clinging to summer

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Labour Day is over. It's September. There's no denying that summer is over, even though the sun is still bright. The wheel is turning around to the west, to the harvest, and the dying time of the fall. As a Scorpio born in late October, I always relish the coming ...