It has been a hard-hitting few weeks, full of moving, deconstructing old structures, and sorting through sentimental stashes. Pulling up deeply grown roots. But there were some more pleasant moments in the funk and junk, some much appreciated help from friends, and a few days of picking blueberries in the north of the state.

It is pretty mind boggling that these diminutive shrubs can produce the abundance of food that they do, especially in such an extreme environment. They are generally under a foot tall and thrive in the very sandy, often acidic, and well-drained environments of the north, the ‘barrens’ ecosystems. These areas not only have soils that restrict who can grow there, but because of their inherent open and dry nature they are prone to burning and were often burned intentionally by Native People to keep them open and enhance fruiting and masting. Yes, in addition to Lowbush Blueberries thriving in this challenging environment, they actually do better and fruit more heavily when burned regularly. These scenarios of trials and challenges and thriving and abundant giving against all odds are the sort of inspirational stories we can benefit from in these times of hardship, perhaps mostly psychologically, for our species. They are not uncommon in Nature.

Engaging in an earnest harvest effort is an ideal way to look more deeply into this unique environment and the unique array of characters found therein. Badgers are relatively common as evidenced by their numerous digs along the roads and their trotting trails left behind as they move from one colony of ground squirrels to the next, or a pocket of plump gophers. Their vague tracks in loose sand often give me pause as I sort through the possible makers before the in-turned toes or long-ass nails of their fronts show up and clarify the matter. Or until they go onto a freshly thrown open burrow entrance and don’t exit. I hear that you can disturb a badger in their burrow and then smell the acrid musk they release when distrubed but that seems a bit rude, and fool hearty. Especially the part involving sticking one’s nose in the burrow after the distruption part. I will probably try it eventually but for now it’s enough just to gingerly place a ruler at the entrance for scale in a photo knowing those long claws, sharp teeth, and a stout version of the feisty weasel disposition await within.

One makes so many fascinating discoveries when quietly harvesting blueberries for some days. I think this is true of many harvests in the wild when the busy world is left behind for the steady rhythm of gathering, interspersed with surveying and searching for the next satisfactory concentration of whatever wild prize is being sought. But there is something extra to blueberry harvesting it seems, likely related to the bent down or kneeling-type intimacy with the minutiae of the realm that one is being interacted with. There are so many insects around during the season, still some nesting and birdsong in the air, and the barrens are definitely home to a fine array of reptiles and amphibians as well. Being that it is such an open environment I feel that we get to perceive it in a way a 300 foot giant would experience the average wooded Wisconsin environment, which definitely compels me to keep a good eye and ear on the world around me. Some of my most treasured discoveries this time around were a junco nest (these barrens are literally the only place I see juncos in summer here), walking stick insects, a potter wasp mud nest, and various little signs of diverse wildlife.

These harvests and this kind of purposeful interaction with the wilds have been my greatest education in the Natural World. It gives a compelling view into the breadth, depth, and meaningfulness of the relationship, and knowledge base, our ancestors the world over had with the Natural, and definitely the profundity of the relationship of those who walked this land and tended her gifts before the colonial period. And also to what extent is possible now in this progressed and ongoing colonial period. What we learn with focus and intent is great, but what we see out of the corner of our eyes can often yield more insightful observations. When one is gathering a harvest and enacting a human tradition that our wild neighbors understand (most of our mammal neighbors know what berry picking is…) I have often seen that it puts the wild world at ease and many animals will resume a relatively normal activity level. All part of the fuller view of our amazing wild world that we don’t always get to witness when carrying the harried state of our modern human mentality. When we can settle into a more flowing and attuned awareness, and more politely discreet one, we then get to see how Nature conducts her affairs without our human disruptiveness. To experience this kind of interactive immersion while receiving our sustenance from a provider so deserving of our veneration as the blueberry is truly a gift.

There are so many harvests that call to me throughout the year; wild greens, fish, berries, rice, deer, bark, nuts, and sap that must be sought, worked for, appreciated, processed, and secured. But in the early summer warmth and from deep within the lush and humid forest, there is a harvest I find particularly wonderous and compelling. This season doesn’t demand nearly as much from me as some do and I rarely harvest more than a couple paper bags full, but when I find myself out gathering Reishi, our local variety is known as "Hemlock Varnish Shelf (Ganoderma tsugae) from the quiet, dark draws of the Driftless I often feel touched by how special these harvests are. Even a short simple one like this, with only moderate amounts of processing and preparation, touch something deep inside us and connect us to our landscapes in moving ways.

There are never guarantees in a harvest from the wilds. The years and seasons are always different and it is generally to the benefit of a species that an offering not be too consistently abundant lest your benefactors become too numerous, or too unappreciative. But if you have laid good foundations, and sought such treasures before, you are usually taken care of. This warm season began quite dry and it was looking like the reishi would be reluctant, but as things have progressed and the rains have come through, it has turned out as abundant as ever.

To drop down into a deep draw lit lacily by the morning sun filtering through hemlock and pine boughs is a transformative experience alone. These draws are a world unto themselves and in the Driftless they often hold tree species and associated flora that is representative of past epochs when our area was surrounded by mile high glaciers, communities that often aren’t agian present until you reach the northern parts of the state. To spend time in these draws is to truly see, breathe, and touch a replete forest of ancient times, due also to the fact that these places are often the hardest areas for humans to reach and affect. Towering White Pines and substantial Eastern Hemlocks and Yellow Birches are the predominant tree species here, with the occasional Sugar Maple, White Oak, or White Birch mixed in. For Wisconsin and neighboring states these hemlock groves are the most southernly stands, and quite isolated due to the above described scenario. I dearly hope this keeps them safe from the Wooly Adelgid, a devastating pest that has now reached the upper Great Lakes Region after heavily degrading hemlock stands in the Appalachians and Northeast.

It is here in these stands and upon the fallen bodies of these grand old Eastern Hemlocks that one finds this rare mushroom treasure. They, along with their East Asian conterparts, have been long been prized as mushrooms of immortality, but most of us seek this mushroom for more humble aspirations. The general consensus on the medicinal properties of this mushroom revolve around anti-inflammation, antioxidant, antitumor and skin healing properties, and improved functioning of the immune system (immunomodulation). I depend on this beautiful fruiting body for general wellness and immune system support especially in regards to the seasonal bombardment of Lyme Disease that any good naturalist in Deer Tick territory suffers. I do not claim to be a serious herbalist, but as a woodsperson I take seriously and lean into all that is offered as good medicine from my local landscapes.

And there is more which one receives from a mushroom like this. When we work to be mindful, slow, and deliberate in what we do and receive from the work of others in Nature we connect into interactions and exchanges that we only somewhat understand through our mental processes (who are we to think we can understand the ways of the mushroom of immortality?). When a giant tree falls in the forest, it’s life doesn’t end there. It is not now a non-entity of the forest. A tree gives so much in life and then they give a significant amount more after they have succumbed to death, and defining death with trees is fairly difficult anyway as they often die within a protracted process. Just spend an hour with a ‘dead’ tree in the summer some time. How many insects can you find, how many mosses, ferns, seedling trees, and amphibians lurk and and live about her body? And if you can unobtrusively look inside her trunk a little, what cornucopia of fungi, insects, annelids, arachnids, centipedes, plant roots, and vertebrate life is burrowing through and finding shelter, food, prey, and moisture for their life and well-being therein? Fallen hemlocks are actually where I have most often found the American Giant Millipede, which is an apt name for these unique, cyanide smelling creatures. Hemlock trees make particularly great nursery logs, a term used for a rotting log that makes an ideal germination place for various trees that require benefitting from such a medium. Hemlocks, White Pines, and especially Yellow Birches are known to benefit from this scenario, and the photo below shows both a tiny Eastern Hemlock and Yellow Birch seedlings popping up around this little shelf of reishi. Do we know what role the considerable mycelium network of reishi (judging by the fruiting there is no shortage in many logs) plays in freeing nutrients and otherwise assisting and facilitating the growth of these dear tree babies?

I should do more research on this part, but with lists always awaiting I often opt to just soak up compelling likelihood of it while sitting beside all of this amazing interworking collaboration, feeling it, in wonder of it, and filled with thankfulness for time spent in these places. Sometimes it is enough to know it is happening and has been for many, many thousands of years, and that I, as a fortunate participant in this system, can benefit from it all as I drink in the rich bitter tea of reishi. Those of us who do imbibe such things are truly intaking something of all this fungus does, living upon these decaying tree carcasses, absorbing and rearranging the nutrients that these trees accumulated in their glorious and unassuming lives, and in a distinct communion with these special place. It is inspiring that they, after years of laboring in the depths will, during the early part of summer have a little market stand, and show and offer their beautiful fruit. For fungus beetles, gnats, and slugs, and the wind who carries their spores to the next fallen tree, and for we unique primates to come and taste and celebrate with them their hard work, their magical transformation of death into life and back and forth across the veil. Who really knows what all is happening in that log anyway?

I am not a scientist, but I am a seeker and careful observer of Nature’s ways and happenings as she wishes to share them with me. And just as significantly, I am a participant in her wonderful world. I distracted and caught up in trying to share all I find amazing in our world through odd modern avenues here but none of that would be necessary if we hadn’t been duped, or forced, into losing track of what we have always had; membership to this interconnected realm of life, full of mystery, complexity, and discovery. Maybe our ‘specialness’ has always required some consistent reminding of what is, remembering who we have always inherently been here on this planet; humble pieces of an interconnected matrix of throbbing, pulsing life, an ongoing story of life and death swirling together in an endlessly intricate circuitry that offers us vitality, belonging, nutrients, intrigue, connectivity, water, health, and purpose, even when we too move out of our current form into whatever is next. When I get to harvest something precious and wild in a good way, keeping with respecting the gift and being mindful to the needs of others, it is like a breathing fresh air after holding my breath for a long period. So much of what we feel we must keep up with in this crazy world obscures this interconnectedness with Nature, and reinforces the narrative that we are the focus, the apex, the separate and somehow most important part. But balance really is there for us, the Natural Realm all around us has never stopped doing what it does, inspiring us and showing us how to live this life we have been granted, as a part of it. May tall trees and beautiful mushrooms impart their beautiful giving ways unto you this day. And may that kind of wonder distract you back to what really is for at least a portion of this summer’s day.

Wisconsin has had a significant amount of fluctuation in our canine populations in recent decades. When I was young my area of the Driftless was full of Red Foxes with some Gray Foxes but has now become almost strictly Eastern Coyote territory. In fact last winter I didn’t cut any trails of Red Fox, nor Gray Fox, in the preserve of land I live near in the entire snow tracking season. However in places where human habitations create a buffer from the competition, harassment, and killing of foxes by coyotes there are populations of reds and an occasional gray still. And in Wisconsin more broadly, especially the northern parts of the state, the reestablishment of Eastern Timber Wolves in recent decades has similarly upended canine balances with coyotes having to step down from top dog and often foxes being more numerous in this northern canine matrix. This is probably partly due to suppression of coyote numbers by wolves and partly due to wolves creating food surpluses in the form of kills that foxes scavenge from in the winter season especially.

A last little bit of interesting information on Gray Foxes; they are thought to be our most ancient modern branch of canines, having forked off from other canines over 9 million years ago. Perhaps they give us a glimpse into what canines were long ago as a more omnivorous and generalist mammal, though all of our modern canines are pretty adaptable. Grays definitely have a unique character about them, hence them being likened them to a more cat-like canine, especially with their unique abilities to climb trees for safety, shelter, and foraging. Did I mention their semi-protractible claws that allow for this climbing ability? So many cool attributes to these unique native foxes.

In my consistent attending to tracking hot spots in the Driftless area (the southwest) of the state I occasionally see fox tracks, but only rarely the tracks of Gray Foxes. Above is a full set of Wisconsin’s canine tracks all of which exhibit four toes, with two paired in front and two tucked in behind. And canine tracks generally tend to show a small heel pad as canines walk up on their toes more than many animals, and if you look at these prints there is a vague x made by the ridges that run between these toes and the pad. These are all diagnostic canine characteristics, albeit to be used with caution and additional confirmation from the trail, of our local wild canines. There are features trackers use to distinguish between these species but if you just look at the sizes based of the five inch ruler you will see that wolf is very large with coyote in the mid range and the foxes, especially the Gray prints on the right from the southwest of the US (NM), on the small end of the spectrum.

From left to right we have these species; wolf and coyote together with wolf traveling up the shot and coyote traveling down. Then Red Fox, a front, with pointy toes and a callous bar across the heel pad and measuring about two inches without the claws. And lastly Gray Fox with a front at bottom and a hind at the top. Grays can show a fuller heel pad but often don’t, they don’t show claws as often as other canines, and are our smallest wild canine in Wisconsin. These tracks look admittedly similar to red’s but are very small, show no claws, show a fuller heel pad with posterior lobes, and from New Mexico where grays are abundant.

On my whirlwind tour of the north for some visiting and scouting last week I felt very blessed to encounter multiple Gray Fox trails. All of them were up in the quality scouting grounds of the Bayfield Peninsula, jutting up and out into Lake Superior. This area has various substrates but as it was once all islands in an even larger ancient lake, there is an awful lot of sand and an awful lot of sand roads. They also get an awful lot of snow in the winter with the way the massive lake affects moisture levels and fronts that hit the area. This makes the more stable populations of Gray Foxes here slightly confusing as they are short legged and not well adapted to deep snow. In fact they are thought to hole up in brush or hollow trees when deep snows fall and wait for it to settle or melt down before they continue foraging and hunting. They are well adapted to climbing trees however, and eating a more omnivorous diet. The later couple parts here may better explain their populations in that area as this landscape of barrens and forests produces large crops of berries, hazelnuts, apples, and insect hatches and with the addition of wolves creating occasional windfalls of carrion and somewhat suppressing coyotes, things seem to be working out favorably for them.

This first trail was quite faint and had to be looked over a minute to sort out but had most of the right parameters for Gray. Many of us who track in the north here or in the Northeast feel strongly that our grays are on the large side and this qualifies as one of these animals in my assessment. My friend Cater and I tracked this fox a bit and found this older scat, all of which looked pretty good for these small canines. If this being had been a Red Fox I would have thought they would have exhibited less definition to the toes, less of a trace of posterior heel pad lobing, and the trail would have shown a longer trot length. That little side toe claw in the middle picture is bothersome though! The trotting gait showed a stride of about 11 inches which well qualifies for gray and is on the short side for red.

After a good couple days of scouting I was trying to leave the barrens but struggling to get in the car and depart. I greatly enjoy landscapes that reveal their inhabitants through receptive substrates and this is one of my favorite areas. As I walked back to the car, barefoot, refreshed, and with a touch of remorse, a set of faint matted spots popped out trotting down the road I was walking upon. They were almost indiscernible on the rain pocked and condensed sand surface but there was a different color and texture, the same as my incoming tracks showed. As I repeatedly attempted to get an adequate charge on my phone to capture a bit more of this trail I laughed at my ridiculous humanness, said a sincere goodbye to the spot and these creatures that live there and then tried to drive away down the sand road. About two hundred yards down a dark scat on a rock on the road caught my eye. Upon inspection it looked very fox like and was filled with insect parts, likely from my little acquaintance feasting upon cicadas that were abundantly hatching during that time. This fresh little scat was accompanied by a nice little print and felt like a sweet, or sour, goodbye, but put a smile on my face as I pushed myself to ignore the never ending messages in the sand and make the long ride home.

In reflection I realize that some of the seeming scarcity of Gray Foxes in the state may indeed be from my simply missing their trails (except in dustings of snow!) due to how light and dainty the animals are and how obscure their trails can be. I walked this sand road looking for tracks but completely missed these light little impressions just because the angle of the light was wrong. How many other times have I missed such light impressions? There is always good reason to look closer and examine the natural a bit more closely. There could definitely be more of these stealthy little cat-foxes around than I am picking up on!

And with prints this obscure there is definitely that chance that some of this activity was Red Fox but the stride of the trot was short and corresponds well to the short legs of a gray. I will long have more to learn from these foxy little creatures and look forward to having more time up in those barrens to follow and learn from their trails, sign, and hopefully some sightings!

I find it important to regularly make my way to wild places where it is still wild enough, quiet enough, and immense enough for me to tangibly feel the insignificance of our human busyness, including my own human business and noise. And immerse myself in a realm where the language and reality is one filled with fluttering trees, red-stained waters, flowering plants and butterflies, wind, large and small mammals, thunderstorms, frogs, birdsong, and snakes, and where humans are just another species in the mix, albeit an often loud and obtuse one. I camp, paddle, cook on the fire, fish, and walk but really what I do within all of this is watch and read all that I can of the world happening around me, and let my preoccupation and tension dissipate.

I am fully fascinated by all of what I get to see and be informed by in Nature, but I have a particular affinity for tracking and unravelling her more obscure happenings. I don’t restrict this verb to marks made by animals upon soft ground. It can be the top of a serviceberry broken by bears feeding upon her berries last season or surveying the blueberry crop to understand where and why pollination was successful a month earlier. This is a way of being that puts the universe in good order for me, takes my lists out of the driver seat and allows the weather, the sun, the movement of wildlife, the presence of plant communities and other aspects of the landscape direct my attention and movements.

By some standards the conditions during the couple of days I had for tracking in the barrens of the Chequamegon National Forest were tough. It stormed later in the first day I was out and I only got in a couple hours of scouting before the rain set in earnestly. It rained in the night so most of what was to be found in the morning was from the late night hours and early morning. The gift that these conditions offer is knowing how fresh your finds are, seeing some really nice prints, and being able to read more details in what is seen. The wolf trails above are from an area that had a fair bit of traffic back and forth around a confluence of sand roads. To me this says that there was a reason for this wolf (these wolves) to be anchored here, likely a den or kill was nearby, probably the former. Also I don’t often see wolves using side trots as much as direct register trots so all of the trails being of this sort caught my eye and will be something I look into further.

I love wolves and the presence of proper predatorhood they represent upon the landscape, but nothing catches my attention like bear tracks and sign (though I miss quite a lot from these hulking yet discreet beings!). I love seeing their tracks materialize on the sand roads out of the dust and tire tracks and seeing in my mind them ambling along smelling their way through a world of plant and animal and earth and water odors I can only slightly interpret. These tracks above are all from before the storms and are; 1. a medium bear and deer tracks, 2. a nice hind imposed upon and above a front (rights), 3. faint bear prints of a medium sized animal, 4. bear, coyote, and a skipping songbird coming to the camera, 5. a cub of the year (only three inches across), and 6. wolf trails with a subtle bear mixed in. I have so much to learn from these wild beings and it is a driver in my spending time in these places and working to bring folks together in these places to explore their world and ways. Having large and unapologetic carnivores upon the landscape, and seeing the traces of their presence in these ways imbues a depth and intrigue to these places that I find riveting.

Obviously these large and iconic mammals are but a couple parts of the life that abounds here. Sign and tracks of deer, birds, smaller mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates grace these sands also if you look closely.

The first picture top left shows a doe and fawn trotting (the fawn always must hustle hard to keep up!) and of course fawns are a major focus for bears and wolves raising their young. There seemed to be an abundance of both fawns and predators in this landscape so good balance seems to be being struck here. The disturbance inthe second picture took me minute to sort out but is from a medium songbird, likely robin (no full and clear tracks) and shows the use of their bill to open up the wet mud to seek some sort of invertebrate life within. I love the third shot, this was an aborted badger dig and not fresh but shows some really good claw swipes from badger’s substantial front claws, including that really nice left to right swipe right across the middle. Deer seem to really love Pin Cherry foliage as every leaf was stripped here. The fine line on left in the lower middle is from pine pollen and shows how a downpour flooded the road along that rut momentarily. And the last animal took the cake for me as I consider them pretty uncommon in Wisconsin, but I am going to dig into that in a follow up writing here as my time is up! ( I am really trying to reign these writings in in length and scope, but there is so much to show, share and ponder out there!

I am running a three day immersion in learning this living language of Nature, our rightful, connected ability to have knowledgeable and authentic relationship with our landscapes and wild communities and therein to feel and find a healthy sense of belonging within them. It will be in early August, the 6th, 7th, and 8th, and will be in the form of a camping style retreat with some meals provided, down time, swimming, education, and sharing all built in. The sliding scale contributions requested are more for the planning, scouting, coordinating and facilitating as the emphasis is upon experience as the best teacher rather than instruction. (That said there will be plenty of quality instruction where appropriate and in our evening sharings). I am doing this out of the enjoyment and to see others find their own way within this realm. I see myself doing my best work where and when I can step back and have folks doing what they were made to out upon the Living Landscape. Feel free to reach out with any questions and please share this with any one who may benefit from such offerings!

My midMay adventures once strongly revolved around quests for large trout, piles of morels, and turkey nests (we aren’t going to discuss that last one). Fishing and foraging filled our baskets and the quest made life meaningful, connected and adventurous. There was always a first fawn to happen upon, a new plant to learn, or a new fishing spot under a pile of logs from which to catch an even bigger brown. This energetic celebration of Nature’s bounty has changed in time with an increasingly heavy teaching schedule and other midlife realities, but the vitality, magic, and beauty of this holy time of year in the hills and valleys has not.

I have the first day in two weeks today without necessary preparations or a day of teaching to conduct. I had daydreamed about paddling on a tannin-stained little river and checking sandbars for bear tracks, but the car is still filled with chopping blocks, axes, rounds of birch, and teaching aids from the weekend’s spoon carving class. The lists began forming in my half awake brain at 6:30 and after some important conversations with roommates, I had only a little time to slip into the woods this fine morning. These little hour or two walks sometimes seem like they really aren’t enough, at least from my preoccupied human perspective of getting things done, noteworthy endeavoring, and recollections of full-day spring walks a decade ago. But from the inside, and given the veritable wonderland I am blessed to call home, they often overflow my cup. I am no longer ‘in it to win it’ as our modern world seems so bent on conditioning us; ‘if you aren’t doing it better than everyone else you aren’t really doing it’ the narrative seems to go. I am in it to feel it, to breathe it in, and to shed my preoccupied humanness for precious moment. A rich example of this little shift is that I have hardly seen a morel this spring (until today in fact), and as a known forager I am regularly asked ‘have you been finding many morels?’ only to get confused looks when I say, ‘No, I’ve hardly looked I’ve been so busy. When I get into the woods I often just want to sit or walk slowly and without purpose,’ to which I often get a pitying nod. Today was no different, but before you give me that nod, hear me out.

I wandered out of the yard and down a slope into some rich woods of maple, hickory and elm. I checked out some sedges, some newly blooming geraniums, and fresh deer prints before wandering down to a spring rivulet flowing with rainwater from yesterday’s rains. I somewhat rudely searched for a nervous mother Ovenbird’s nest in the leaves and greenery, to no avail. I moved up and over another point of land, pulled a patch of Garlic Mustard, and I started feeling it. That feeling like the human world is melting away and I’d fallen into a kaleidoscope of perfect spring flora patterning. Where I live is surrounded by about as vibrant an array of native plant communities as you can find in the Driftless, in my humble opinion. Skunk Cabbage, Jacob’s Ladder, Honewort, Virginia Waterleaf, Coneflower, myriad ferns, Aniseroot, Trilliums, Ramps, Cluster Sanicle, Dwarf Ginseng, sedges, Buttercups, the list doesn’t end. I even saw some morels, old and rusty brown, on the side of a deer trail. I laughed inside, a little joke between me and Mother Nature, one I wouldn’t have gotten when I was younger.

At the top of a rise I sat down. A spot I had sat a few days ago, amongst the plants, near a few Mayapples who had just had their petioles eaten by a deer, the leaves wilting on brown leaves amidst the vibrant greenery. A perfect spot for a deer to bed, but a spot for me to lounge and chew my cud today. I plucked a Dwarf Ginseng, admired the form and beauty, (photographed their beauty for you) and ate it, savoring the same distinct and pleasant spiciness of their larger cousin. I ate some young Honewort leaves, and Sanicle leaves for comparison, and some flower buds of Waterleaf, appreciating how mild and palatable the food of this land and season is compared to similar hand-to-mouth foraging in more northern districts. And as I gazed over the view and felt the comfort of some time spent just being, I reflected on how I used to wander these hills so much more energetically and broadly. Not with judgement, perhaps a little remorse or sentimentality, but mostly just remembering. And what I remembered distinctly, maybe because of the taste of ginseng in my mouth, or maybe another whisper, was roaming the hills a few miles north of my current location, looking for newly emerged ginseng on a ferny north slope like the one I sat upon, and finding the biggest Yellow Lady Slipper plants I had ever seen. It was a good memory, a big walk surveying and learning a new area, even if I didn’t find the ginseng I sought (I have pursued ginseng mostly out of the challenge and love, and for conservation purposes. Only rarely do I dig or consume them). I sat a while longer listening to the rich and full chorus of birds I had been concerned wasn’t coming this spring, soaking up the rich plant forms and fast filling canopy around me, and then slowly rose to my feet.

I turned to walk up slope and within five steps I found a touching treat. A couple clumps of Yellow Lady Slippers were sticking up out of the surrounding greenery, and my mind raced to piece together how these fine plants and my recollection of my walk of years ago had conspired. Had these beautiful plants whispered to me while I sat only yards away? Had I glimpsed them unconsciously as I crested the rise before sitting and had them sift into my conscious mind as I sat and reflected? Was it intuition or just coincidence? I do strongly feel that these correlative experiences have long been part of finding our way through the world and the way it actually works in any given instance is somewhat less important to me than that it is occurring and showing me another way to learn, relate, and move through life and the woods. Either way I excitedly examined them, their twisted sepals, bold blustery yellow blossoms, and evidence of someone seeming to have tasted some of the blossoms on one side. They were prefect and I earnestly hope to visit and wonder over them another time yet this week. They glow in my mind still, and a part of me sits beside them out there now as I write this, connected we are.

I wandered back slowly towards the house. Drank deeply from a cold spring that reminded me of my time in the Andes when I was freshly out into this expansive world. Passed under towering pines that are of lineages of the grand stands that once filled the beautiful valley I live in, in a time before white settlers somehow thought the land and her elder trees were theirs to take and do with as they pleased. Past a deer’s secret hideout in a patch of Prickly Ash adjacent a wet meadow and stream. Up a wooded slope where I spooked a deer (the deer?) in full summer coat of red, a brilliant sight to see in the now green woods, a real glimpse of summer. Up an open slope and past a blooming Bur Oak, a flower as beautiful in delicate nature as those Lady Slippers, and holding a world of importance to those of us who carefully watch the unfolding of our local ecological narratives. Then home to my humanness, my work, my roommates, and my continued lessons in being an imperfect modern human trying to do good work in multiple worlds.

I sit at this laptop and share these humble yet pertinent reflections not out of love for screens nor out of some shallow desire for recognition. I deeply love the wild and natural world that surrounds us and have never been able to delve into any endeavor not founded around that love. And I think, I know, our human world needs reminders of what has always been our way, our source, and our proper place in this world of ours. A place of reverence, connection, and deep knowing and engagement with our natural surroundings. That place is still here for us, I don’t think we will persist very long if it is ever not, but we have lost sight of the importance, richness, and guidance therein, and I wholeheartedly feel we need to keep it at the forefront. Especially as our connections become increasingly neglected and even our innate humanness becomes endangered. And though I may only be good naturalist and an amatuer ecologist, I do feel I give voice to the kind of knowing one can grow into simply out of investing time, effort, and deep respect into our relationship with the land. This voice needs to be getting shared more.

I am not impressed by the competitiveness of our world broadly, and even less so in the realms of human people sharing and speaking of the gifts of the land that are for all of us, and free to be understood and known and shared in as many ways as there are ones of our kind and ones of all kinds. I have enough time invested in living in relationship to wild landscapes now, literal decades, to be fully ready to lean into representing this old and valid way of knowing the land, the wild communities thereupon, and a responsible human place in relationship to them. Not the only one, just one way of rising to this relationship. I am slowly feeling out how and what I want to share here; slightly haphazardly and very organically as always. I am going to do some smaller posts on trees hereafter for paid subscribers to see how that goes. Not in an effort to leave anyone behind (I will continue to share for free here) but in an effort to cultivate an audience looking for more focused education and seasonal content, like naturalists and educators, and feel that out. Some of this tree content will be shared broadly also, fret not. If you feel moved by this content, please consider liking and sharing this account so that I may put more energy and voice into this pursuit of writing and sharing here. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Lady Fern fiddleheads, Wood Nettle, Basswood, and False Mermaid, and Ostrich Ferns unfurling.

Foraging our food from the wild and verdant world of spring is an experience not only novel and contrasted to our conventional food realities, but one that asks us, and even requires us, to reverse some significant relationship dynamics with our world. When I wander off into some damp and thriving forest gathering fiddleheads, ramps, wood nettle shoots, or even just dandelion greens in the backyard before lunch, the somatic feel and interaction is one that does not readily occur in the grocery store under fluorescent light, in stagnant air, and amidst cumbersome social distractedness. Time in wild spaces spent squatting among clusters of leaves and shoots bursting out of fragrant earth, filling baskets with beautiful, real, and vibrant food is about as boldly contrasted to shopping in our sterile and contrived modern facilities as you can get. And the resulting effects upon our state of mind, our perspectives on life, and our relationships to the land and her communities is about as opposed on the spectrum as one can image as well.

Beloved and delicious Sochan greens in typical streamside locale.

In our time spent foraging our food we are drawn to see some very unique possibilities and are compelled by some very real necessities to conduct ourselves differently. Instead of the convenience of food piled at a convenient height upon a well lit shelves, we must bend over, we must bow down, and meet our food where our food has been fostered to grow by forces beyond our human world. Sometimes these communities of beings, regardless of how small or humble, have been growing in their location for and hold lineages of thousands of years old. Sometimes they reflect landscape realities or memories older and deeper than any human has recollection or knowledge of, except perhaps those memories carefully folded into old indigenous oral histories. And harvesting from these beings, whether old ancestral communities or new ones popping up at the edge of a flower bed, requires a kind of care and astute observation that is not familiar to the masses any longer. Just as in reading the tracks of an animals, missing important cues or subtle details (especially when early in your learning) can mean that you find yourself picking the wrong plant, which can of course have real consequences and leave you with no one to blame or sue. This means that we step into a realm where we must drop our human presumptions of dominion and superiority (about f$#@ing time) and be really real with the wild world around us and the naked and accident-prone beings we are. Nature, when we see her for the all encompassing glorious realm she is, is so very good at reflecting this reality, I could go on and about my amazement, but this only can open up and enrich us if we let it, if we let the self-fixation drop and see how what all the Natural World holds that we never can, that we can only appreciate, be touched by, and carry only the affects of away. Foraging is not only seeing and touching this reality, it is then taking the big step into it by eating it. We are saying ‘I trust myself, my landscapes, and my relationship to how I perceive all of it, and I will now eat this food I have gathered’. And of course there are not that many plants that can kill us and you can safely learn and avoid them, but it is also true that we are embracing this world in a very different way from how a supermarket would have us to embrace it; with the conveniences, supposed security, distracted mindlessness, and near complete disconnect from the source, the inherent detriment to lands, people, or enslaved beings on other end of the supply chain. When we forage from wild or feral plant communities we are connecting to something bigger, more powerful, and far older than ourselves or even our kind. How good for us to bow down to plants, or reach up to trees. How good for us to feel the need to ask, to show up for the relationship, and to feel and hold some thankfulness.

Siberian Elm samaras

Sadly it seems we have been well convinced that food and procuring it is an inconvenient and archaic necessity of our busy modern life, one that must be fit in and moved through efficiently regardless of the waste, price, or suffering of others. There are remnants of a more robust relationship to food in our more gourmet traditions that many enjoy if they have the luxury of funds, sources, and energy but for the average person food seems strategically sidelined as an inconvenience, yielding profits for for the lowest bidder, subsidized by the servitude of whole worlds of beings. In foraging and other efforts to interact directly with and receive our nourishment directly from our world and fellow beings we discover that there is little that rivals the richness that is available in savoring and delighting in receiving our sustenance directly from the land. This is further enhanced when we lean into the upright relationship that can be fostered within these experiences by deeply learning of and respecting these communities and being nourished not only physically but also mentally and spiritually by these interactions. We are currently witnessing the complete degeneration of responsible relationship to each other, our landscapes and natural communities, and even ourselves in this bizarre age of instant gratification and self indulgence through mass manufactured and subversive realities. In the tense and electric air of uncertainty around current developments I can’t overstate the value and importance of touching the Earth and cultivating practices that transcend artificiality, reinstate proper relationship with long running and provenly sustainable human realities, and revive a sense of wellness, rightfulness, reciprocity, and abundance with our local environments.

This dialogue applies to an uncut yard just as appropriately as a deep lush forest.

I have so many things I wish to share here, informative, instructional, educational, philosophical. For now, I have been giving myself license to share freely and perhaps somewhat broadly about Nature, the intricacies and magic that captivates me therein, and a healthier relationship we really could be having with this world. But I also have a life to live upon the land, work to do with many different ages in teaching and sharing Earthly ways, and always a little too much modern human business to which I must attend. This green season I intend to experiment further with sharing here, in an educational, inspirational, and enriching way, more of what our landscapes offer us in relationship, sustenance, knowledge, and connection. I hear that many of you are moved by this and I will be curating some consistent content (especially as I understand better what is encouraging and helpful) that will be offered for paying subscribers. I will also endeavor to continue to offer educational and enriching content to all subscribers. This is a curious world to find myself wandering into but the possibility that I can do helpful work for the wider human world, inspire practices between people and their places that are mutually beneficial, and pay some of my not-insignificant expenses in life with sharing and writing here is too tempting. I live 100% by my work as a naturalist, tracker, handcraftsperson, and teacher. If these writings move you, you can support this effort by sharing this account, becoming a paid subscriber, or simply getting out and spending time in attention to your local plant, animal and other-than-human communities utilizing this knowledge and inspiration (and sharing it responsibly with others!). I am convinced we are here to honor, appreciate, learn from, and steward this amazing living world we find ourselves embedded in. It is always a good time to lean into giving our attention to and growing our wonder for the Natural World.

Our native Pearl Oyster who is so very fond of dead aspen, a hopeful burst of ash leaves, and basswood leaves at proper eating stage. So many rich offerings...

How we relate to trees seems highly comparable to how we relate to Nature. Many of us see both as background and scenery, or a mostly inanimate source of raw materials. Many of us know trees are so very vital to all that is happening around us in the Natural World, but perhaps find it challenging to get to know these quiet giants that stand, arms outstretched, all around us. Some of us may know the more conspicuous trees when their leaves are out and within grasp but may also find many trees ambiguous in summer and especially in winter. Far fewer know find these beings recognizable in their dormant state and fewer yet can walk the forest reading and understanding the composition of the forest, the offerings that will be made and when, the wildlife likely to reside there, and why, and in what season, and the health, history, and future of that forest based upon the trees found there and their condition.

The point of this is not to criticize people and their mediocre awareness of trees. What I would really like to speak to is the grand and central importance of these beings in any interactive outdoor pursuit and shake out our ingrained ambivalence towards them. Our modern scene of flashy and catchy outdoor activities (including even those with an observational bent) seems to have little patience for trees, yet if you want to successfully hunt mushrooms, forage edible plants, sight birds, make handcrafts from local materials, track, observe or hunt wildlife, or engage seriously in any other pursuit within Nature, trees are your solid allies. They stand solidly in place and literally support, structure, and define the ecosystem around them. The temperature, wind, flora and fauna, fungi, and more all orient around their presence and these trees in turn will be a reflection of the directional aspect of the hill they might stand upon, the soil and hydrology under them, and the intensity of the seasons of that place upon the Earth. If we really want to know the land and be a knowledgeable and responsible part of our ecosystem’s functioning, we really must lean into learning all we can of these prominent and graceful beings.

Spring flowering of hazelnut, elm, and witch hazel.

Fortunately, with a little effort, we quickly begin to see that there is an amazing and alluring world awaiting us herein. These beings are not nearly as static and sleepy as we may think. They are often growing at remarkable rates, they flower and fruit in myriad manners, often with some really splendid shows of color, subtlety, and detail for such immense beings. As we enter the season of flowering trees here in the north I am always moved by how the trees usher in the change with millions of delicate flowers sending virtual clouds of pollen into the air overnight (there’s the sap thing too of course, but that’s well covered!). This aspect is perhaps less impressive if you suffer from allergies, but it is one of the first strong pulses of biotic uptick as we round the bell curve from biomass decline to biomass increase. No wonder that the original inhabitants of this land have long celebrated this time of flowering trees and all that it heralds.

An iconic Shagbark Hickory at dusk, late winter. I am mesmerized by such open grown and wind-worked forms.

As excited as I may be for this time of flowering, and the magic of the nascent leaf time, and the early full canopy time, and the fruiting and nutting time, I deeply love the time when these monarchs are at rest, showing their quintessential form and how the land, the seasons, various storms, and even celestial bodies have molded them into the shapes they persistently carry through their lives. It is at this season that we get to see them in their most basic form, perhaps challenge ourselves to see them in their most bare and uncloaked form, and then move forward again through the season to layer another ring upon our learning. And perhaps this is where we hit upon the reason trees are so hard to learn for us, perhaps it is that they do change their forms so much through the seasons, or that they are so big and stately that we can hardly take them in in their entirety, but rather must approach them from several angles and even learn them in their diversity and complexity over many seasons and years.

However, I think there is more to the story of our disconnect with trees. I think if we image how beautifully and intrinsically we depended upon, revered, and even were defined by the trees we shared our homelands with in long ago times, we see more to this story. I feel that in its’ best form our relationship to trees is one of the closest an animal and plant can have; our homes have long been made of them, our fires fed by them (we hear so much about fire shaping our kind, what about those who provided the fuel?!), our bellies filled by them, our hunting shaped and defined by them, our tools, weapons, implements and decorations made from them. There is literally no material need that trees have not filled in some fashion, or many fashions, over millennia and around the world. But true to our modern human form, we turn away snobbishly from much that once was so rich in our ancestral lives, seeming to scorn all that so lavishly supported us for so long. The funny thing is that when you try to look down your nose at a tree that towers over your head, everything gets a little blurry and it doesn’t work out well. As we have lost track of our place in the world, trees have somehow become an obscure and unfamiliar yet somehow overarching and well loved part of almost all our lives. Perhaps also we can’t really live up to the model of living that trees represent by their endless giving against all odds, still offering all they have while so seldom appreciated and admired. The odd silver lining is that I think it is equally true that through reconnecting with trees and all their gifts in our daily lives we can also reconnect so much that has been lost in the disintegration of our kind’s relationship to all things natural. All it really takes is slowing down and being present, two things trees model copiously, to have things start to fall into place in our relationship to them. Trees truly can be a gateway back to the rich and deep connectivity with place for which we all seem to long.

I will write more during this spring on these wonderous beings and various other plants as we enter prime foraging time, and hope to inspire some reconnection and renewed enchantment with our magically forested world thusly. I do have a couple of classes relating to this topic in the coming months with the Driftless Folk School here in southwest Wisconsin, a couple of which are very tree specific on gaining familiarity in one and fiber processing from the Basswood in another, both on one weekend in June. In the spirit of offering this knowledge freely, just as the trees do, I will share one way I encourage people to begin learning trees;

We mostly all have familiar but often overlooked trees in our lives. There may be a large yard tree outside our door, or some trees at the park where we walk our dog, or a row of trees outside our favorite coffee shop. If we stop and check out and get to know these trees (or if we do already we can slow down and start watching more closely) right now we can examine their form in their mostly dormant time. And if we watch daily, or every couple days, as they awaken we get to see their character come to life. To watch this transition carefully with one or a few trees can open up major understandings of trees widely. To get a foundation with one tree for one half of a year can radically awaken your connectivity and awareness with all trees going forward. Start small, lean in, and you will come out with more than knowledge. You will come out with relationship and the genuine desire to learn and see more. If you feel you have already reached this place with some trees, dig into visiting some others regularly and get to know them as well as you can in these next months. This can all readily grow into substantial knowledgeability with our local tree communities, we are hardwired for this connectivity from deep within our past.

We may go to the forest for many reasons and seeking various things. The list is naturally endless as we humans originally sought out virtually all of our necessities from the surrounding wilds and ecosystems. Edible or medicinal mushrooms, newly fallen antlers, splendid ginseng, fat speckled trout, wary deer or other game, delicious wild plants, white sheets of birch bark, unusual tracks, a photo of a rare bird or mammal, so, so many treasures await our seeking. I was fortunate to begin my seeking before the age of a thousand distractions, and spent countless hours avidly seeking these and many more. For those of us who seek learning and knowledge within wild realms we may fall into the same treasure hunt mindset, which isn’t all bad. The seek-and-find compulsion is ingrained deeply in us and can be a healthy driver of discovery and engagement. I try to remember this when something like shed hunting becomes a craze and the woods are crisscrossed by boot tracks in the quest for forest gold and bragging rights.

If our desire is more in-depth learning of our plant and animal communities through direct experience and observation we may find it advantageous to adopt a broader perspective and availability in our quest. Being able to patiently await the answer to a mystery or keep an eye out for a possibility for months or even years becomes necessary. It may simply take that long for more substantial insight to come along, but the value of holding attention like this is exceedingly valuable in all that gets absorbed while we await fuller understanding. So many magical things can show up in these fertile, receptive periods, often even more surprising and more riveting than what was being anticipated!

Awareness and attention are terrific guides in our learning journey and the more we can embrace them, the more that can fill our cup in our forays of seeking and discovering. Patience, gratefulness, and awareness of the interconnectivity of all of life are just a couple gifts that may result from holding sustained attention. And ultimately what we will likely find has developed beneath our sustained attention to and presence with the living landscape is a real relationship with our surroundings. And as in any relationship it is really only limited by how much we show up and offer to it in addition to what we ask of it. If we lean into this enough we may even feel we get little nudges of encouragement, as though a presence within these places is offering us a little gesture of encouragement or recognition.

A few days ago I trekked off to an area of cliffs and caves near the local river, an area that unsurprisingly harbors substantial raccoon populations. They communally den in the caves and forage along the river during warm spells, but in the late winter there had been multiple raccoon mortalities and I was eager to see if I could link them to the bobcat trails that frequently wove through the zone. It was not in my cards to find any conclusive evidence this day however, only eagle and raccoon tracks moved through the fresh snow and picked at the carcasses. However on my way there something tiny and tantalizing popped out; some of the smallest and finest weasel tracks I have seen this year. Tracks of our smaller weasels show up infrequently here; these high-energy little beasts are lightly dispersed through our local environs and seeing any sign of them is always intriguing. And our smallest species, the Least Weasel, seems exceedingly difficult to pin down, partly due to a generous overlap in size range of tracks with Short-tailed Weasel. Least weasels are known to inhabit grasslands and marshy areas and hunt voles and other small mammals by pursuit through their prey’s small tunnels, and will take up residence in the nests of their prey. Supposedly they even line these nests additionally with the furry skins after they consume the prior residents, sounds pretty cozy, and macabre.

The snow here was ideal to offer a really clear presentation; a few inches of crusty snow with less than an inch of light snow on top of these harder layers. Weasel tracks are often quite unclear because their feet are heavily furred, thereby obscuring most features of the the tracks. We can say with confidence that these are weasel tracks because of their small size, the slightly diagonal placement of the paired prints (deer mice and other small mammals tend more to have more side-by-side/symmetrical pattern), and the long athletic bounds that this animal is making. In the clearer tracks you can see the small, canine-like appearance of the hinds (both of the paired prints are hinds; the fronts are underneath), but with a small toe one on the inside, all making this a good fit for weasel. If you look at the center picture you can see the rodent trails and traffic that were in this spot and very likely what drew the interest of this little predator. It seems I may have to continue waiting for a set that completely eliminates short-tailed possibilities, but these were a delightful little find and I was most pleased to trace their explorations and glean what I could of their miniature carnivorous world that morning.

A most novel and long-awaited discovery of late and one that brought about some real satisfaction for me came while tracking out some bobcat activity home. near home. This winter has been busy and I often use my limited woods time to quickly slip out and see what I can learn from trails of our local cats or other wildlife. This morning was one of these quick forays and I hastily headed to a spot where a raccoon had been killed and fed upon by a robust cat I consider to be a tom. The cache had been pilfered and the raccoon parts had mostly been hauled away by coyotes or drug under some uplifted roots by an opossum, so it was no surprise that there were no fresh cat prints to be found. I began following older sets off in different directions to see what they might show but most disappeared into well trodden deer trails. The last one I tried looped around the vicinity, seeming to just mill about before heading back into the cache. As the cat walked a log I saw the first deposition of fallen bark. Nothing too odd about this as woodpeckers often leave deposits of bark below their flecking (flecking is the term we use for woodpeckers explorations into bark layers for insect food). The concise and low zone from which the bark fell didn’t really say woodpecker however and the height looked about right for something else. I couldn’t confirm it here but not much farther ahead the same set of prints went along another fallen tree and at another adjacent trunk of elm there was another deposition of bark. However, this one had several discrete and fine but deeply-gouged scratches into the bark about three feet up the trunk. This was a first for me; a proper bobcat scratching post, something I have been on the lookout for during the last several years as bobcats have reestablished themselves locally. Perhaps this seems an odd prize but in a progressed game of seeking, and after years of attentive observation, these unique little finds can bring some real joy. To see, in my mind, this beautiful animal stretching up this trunk and feeling the compulsion to dig his or her claws into that soft bark (elms have corky and fairly soft bark compared to other trees perhaps making them a good fit for this activity), and raking those sharp claws down and into that bark is tantilizing and even a bit unnerving.

My last anecdote comes from being out with a small group after having hiked out to some bottomland forest of oak, maple and hickory near the Wisconsin River. We had observed some beautiful tracks and sign of coyote, beaver, opossum, and muskrat upon a light layer of fresh snow and watched as flock after flock of swans came over a-trumpeting. As we began to set up for some activities with tarp setting, fire-making, and other winter skills we paused to watch a Redheaded Woodpecker working their way through the treetops, repeatedly calling out their typical ‘kew…kew…kew’s. As we stood still and watched I saw it. Something falling. And with the way it whirled as it fell, and based upon the direction from which it was coming, it could only be one thing, a feather straight from the bird. I scrambled in the direction it was heading, half falling over a beaver-felled trunk, with my eyes fixed upon the feather. I made it to the landing site just as it touched down on the snow and could have caught had I been more ambitious (I was trying to remain somewhat composed and professional for my group!).

Feathers hold a certain magic regardless of how you find them, but to watch a special being who is watching you and have a bit of them come down to you is a fine experience. Somehow an exchange like this has more dimension or depth even if it isn’t something that others might fully understand. It is an exchange with a wild being and a wild place, and has some deep power to bring us into an invigorated and engaged state. This was somehow more moving than the beautiful tracks we had seen that morning, more than the shell from an otter-eaten turtle a participant thoughtfully asked to take, and maybe even more than the massive swans powering over, wings whistling as they pumped. We get to see feathers fall sometimes, but not often from a bird we are carefully watching. Earlier that day I had confessed my love for these birds here at this site, and how I was lamenting the logging that had just occurred, taking many of the Swamp White Oaks that beckoned these threatened woodpeckers here each winter with their abundant acorns. I had unsuccessfully attempted to point out to the manager of these state river lands the inappropriateness of a cut here due of the potential affect on these at-risk birds. They had also marked for cutting, and did cut, many of the best-producing Bitternut Hickories I knew of, ones who’s nuts often filled up my baskets at harvest time and who’s oil later enriched my meals at home. All of these relationships and connections made it feel like that little falling feather wasn’t just random, but rather a bit of acknowledgement for the heart and heaviness I was feeling for this place and the grand tall beings who had been cut unapologetically from this place. Call me an anthropomorphizer all you like, I am convinced that these places feel us as we do them, that they are aware of us and have unique personalities, and that they long for proper human presence and engagement within the unfolding of their events. And I feel that if we show up in these desired ways we likely find new and unexpected doors of experience and awareness opening for us.

I always come out of these ‘aha’ moments with new threads to follow and renewed energy and clarity for the seeking of real living knowledge of our local flora and fauna. Why, and to what extent, are these scratch posts being made in proximity to kill or cache sites, and how are cats expressing themselves through such behaviors? Was that a Least Weasel in an odd wooded site due to breeding as we see with mink roaming woods at this time of year? Or does this weasel spend time here all year round? Indeed, the seeking and discovering goes on forever, but the real treasure, the real reward is the intimate connectivity, reciprocal relationship, and realized sense of belonging to the landscapes we call home.

Participants in a Tracking and Winter Ecology program savoring wild castoreum.

Final note: In most cases collecting feathers of songbirds without a permit is illegal. The feather from the last story was graciously appreciated, studied and returned.

Greetings. I am excited to put forward these offerings in wilderness skills and Nature education. Many of you have attended my workshops and programs and know that I am passionate about what I do and share and that I work to make them rich, diverse, and engaging experiences. They are all dedicated to regaining our aptitude for learning from the land and reinforced by diligent scouting and patient, knowledgeable guidance. All of these programs are designed for participants at any experience level and facilitated so as to foster a supportive, transparent, and empowering learning environment. I endeavor to teach effectively and share knowledge and methodology where it is helpful, but then move aside as people begin to understand and grow their own processes and understandings with their surroundings.

Please feel free to share these opportunities with others. See the notes at the bottom about financial assistance, registration, and my policy on cancellations and refunds.

An owl body feather, interpreting an opossum, and otter and young mink tracks.

Spring Track and Sign in the Driftless April 11 & 12, 2026

La Farge and Blue River, WI

Early Spring is a great season for tracking in the Driftless. Soft and muddy ground is abundant but vegetation is minimal, the world is bright and our wildlife are highly active with having young and feeding. Come scour the sandbars, muddy banks, marshes, field edges, and forests for track and sign and rich in-person learning about the countless mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates that live here and leave us their traces. We will also tune into the rich plant world and ecological setting that shapes so much of these animals’ lives as we work to put these stories together. Our time is projected to be spent both in both the Kickapoo Valley near La Farge and on the Wisconsin River in this workshop.

9:00AM to 4:00PM Saturday and 9:00AM to 3:00PM Sunday

$180

Woodcock and songbird tracks, trackers examining a wolf trail, and fresh bear tracks.

Black River Wildlife Tracking Gathering June 26, 27 & 28, 2026

Black River State Forest, Millston, WI

This will be the third annual gathering in the beautiful Black River area. This event is dedicated to all things tracking; sharing stories and knowledge, learning in the field from a diverse array of wildlife, enjoying community and networking, and celebrating varied and wild landscapes. We have reliably encountered track and sign of wolf, elk, bear, bobcat, porcupine, raven, and so many more species, and in-depth interpretations and discussions have been sure to follow. These explorations being set within a group camping scenario and a gathering of knowledgeable folks and good-hearted tracking/naturalist culture has made for a truly enriching and enjoyable event. Participants can accommodate themselves as desired but camping at sites in a state forest campground will be included in the fee. Breakfasts and dinners are included also.

Commences Friday at 2:00PM and we will close by 4:00PM on Sunday.

$250, reduced rates available in exchange for volunteering.

Stinging Nettle and Sochan (Rudbeckia) greens, in wonder of Yellow Birch, and Gray’s Treefrog on Boneset.

Naturalist and Wilderness Skills Immersion Week July 6th to 10th, 2026

La Farge, WI area of the Driftless, site to be determined.

This five day program is dedicated to giving participants the skills and knowledge needed for well-rounded competency and literacy in the rich realm of the Eastern woodlands. Our days will be filled with foraging, tracking, observation and study, navigation/wayfinding, fire-making and tending, projects in wood, fiber, and other materials from our surroundings, knife and tool use, and gaining greater ecological literacy through interaction and relationship building with the living landscape. There will be time devoted to agility, stealth, wellness, developing our senses and solo time on some days for observation and absorption of the experience. Our small group will work to create a supportive and cooperative dynamic for the sake of our endeavors and learning, and this will be central to our enrichment by and enjoyment of this undertaking. The only harvesting of animal life in this program would be within fishing efforts, but there may be some learning of skinning and butchering with a collected animal. Each day will conclude with reflecting as a group while cooking on the fire and participants will be free to camp on site or accommodate themselves elsewhere if desired.

This program will enrich teaching or outdoor education repertoire, broaden your camping or backpacking skill set, and build dimension and connectivity into your tracking, botanizing, and other naturalist pursuits. A second instructor with additional expertise in many of these areas will be accompanying and helping guide our activities on multiple days.

Our shared dinners and lunches will be included in the tuition fee but participants are responsible for any gear they need to acquire for participation in this experience (a gear list will be sent out in the spring).

$1150

Delicious badger tracks, Poplar Admirals on scat, and a young bear’s trail.

Moquah Barrens Tracking Immersion August 5th to 8th, 2026

Many of us understand tracking to be the ability to read the stories written upon the landscape; a language with animals and plants as the characters with their activity and interactions within our ecosystems being a narrative filled with complexity and discovery. This four day experience will be an immersion in studying this science and art in an immersive and contextual experience and working cooperatively to understand and unravel these stories. Our small group will encamp in this splendid Northwoods environment of forests, barrens, sand roads, and lakes. In the early parts of our days we will track wolves and bears, foxes and bobcats, and myriad smaller wildlife, and trail deer, bear and whomever else we get good opportunities to follow and learn from. In the later day we can learn about foot morphology, gait, and behavior as it pertains to our explorations in the early parts of our day, and enjoy cooling off in the lake, relaxing and connecting, and eating good food. We will also learn how to move carefully, limit our disturbance, and and use all our senses to absorb from our time in the wilds. With fuller sign up I will endeavor to bring on a second advanced tracker/instructor. Dinners will be included in the experience. Come prepared for a rustic car camping experience.

Moquah Barrens, Chequamegon National Forest (the barrens are a sandy soiled ecotype located throughout the central area of the Bayfield Peninsula; south of Cornucopia, west of Bayfield and north of Ino).

$850

Reduced rates are available for these programs if you find them financially challenging. I fully desire for these programs to be available to those for whom they are useful and supportive. Please reach out and we can discuss and explore options for reduced rates or work trades. Reduced rates will be dependent upon these programs achieving a sufficient number of paying participants as I do not currently have a scholarship fund.

To register for these programs I ask participants to pay half of the tuition, fill out the registration form, and sign and submit the waiver. Please email me with your interest and I will respond and attach the waiver. Payments can be received as check sent by mail or through Venmo (check to Nicholas WazeeGale, E13050 E Kettle Rd, La Farge, WI, 54639 or venmo @naturalnuances, last digits 9377).

Registration form is available here: https://forms.gle/iAU9F7yaYPCiCFpy6

Participants cancelling more than 30 days prior to the program date will get a 80% refund on their deposit (20% retained for processing). Cancellations more than 10 days before the program date will get a 50% refund on their deposit. Cancellations 10 days or less will not receive any refund.

These programs are all dedicated to our human kind’s old and reverent relationships to place and the Natural, and are conducted with respectful attitudes, and reasonable acceptance and tolerance of our myraid human differences. There is, however, a zero tolerance policy for disrespectful conduct, hateful or discriminating speech, and intolerance towards other humans or beings of the greater than human world. Some minor exceptions for ticks and mosquitos.

Investigating some wolf and turkey trails, Snow Tracking Immersion in northern Wisconsin, January, 2026.

Nicholas WazeeGale has dedicated most of his life to learning the ways of Nature through foraging wild foods, tracking wildlife, hunting and fishing, naturalist study, tanning, handcraft, cutting wood and hauling water, and living in the wilds in hand-built homes. This path has evolved into a career in teaching from this background with the Driftless Folk School, Kickapoo Valley Forest School, in his own events and programs, and doing trainings and surveys for various organizations and groups. He is passionate about facilitating connectivity between people and landscapes, reading the stories of the land, writing, reciprocal relationship with the Natural World, and making beautiful and useful things from the gifts of the land. He lives in the biologically rich and varied Driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin.

He is a Wilderness Guide by way of a year long wilderness living immersion program and is certified as a Track and Sign Professional and Specialist through Tracker Certification North America.

natnuances@gmail.com, IG: @naturalnuances, FB: Nicholas WazeeGale

bio photo credit; So Sinopulos-Lloyd

As I look out my window on the warming world and trace the twigs of cherry against the gray sky something shifts. The mind quiets, the heart slows, centeredness settles in. When we look at patterns and pleasing compositions in the wilds I feel we aren’t simply studying those organisms or seeing something outside ourselves, mere reflected light arrays and external stimuli, but rather putting together and making one the world inside us with the world outside us. I am convinced these worlds were never meant to be separate and within a properly cultivated perception they truly cease to have any truly tangible differentiation.

I would like to write on how our love for the world around and how the aesthetic that develops out of that love guides us and bridges the seeming gap between ourselves and our surroundings in Nature. I realize this might wander away from standard discussions of nature observation and tracking but really, as we dig deeply into study and observation and bringing Nature fully into our beings it all meanders and blends. Eventually we aren’t really observing our natural world during one time period and then not observing it during another part of our day; if we fully commit and can afford the cultivation of attention, it becomes continuous. It becomes how we observe ourselves and other humans, noticing the weather shifting outside, recognizing and putting the ash firewood in the stove first and setting aside the oak for later, and if your home is rustic enough, seeing if a mouse has been in the frying pan before you cook your eggs. It is also feeling empathetically the destructiveness of a modern world that consumes species, landscapes, and humans in it’s insatiable appetite for power and profit. But for now let’s look into following the thread of beauty and a cultivated aesthetic guiding us to see, absorb and interconnect more with our world.

When a we glance at a tree along a field edge and think ‘elm’ there is some synaptic connection occurring, some recognition of crown and bark and branching, an English term applied to our local species flashes through our mind, and we may just move on. If we instead stop and really look at those twigs and the lovely herringbone pattern of branching, and the buds swelling and enlarging for the coming of spring, now we are feeling and having a fuller experience. We may think of other elms we know, examine more closely if they are a Red or White Elm, and even utter some appreciative words. We now have opened the channels for the patterns, nuances, and sensations of this tree to enter our inner world and what we come away with that helps ‘see’ the next elm is something quite different. We are now recognizing the being who is standing before us, a living and sentient being that we are beholding, and who is beholding us! And possibly now, before we take that picture to go written passage we are thinking of, we may stop and address this one as we would any other we respected, and take part in the deeper exchange that is ready to happen.

This way of more deeply relating is a very large part of what makes tracking both very meaningful to trackers and what makes it so much more than dryly analyzing some prints, checking a species or behavior box, and moving on. In it’s well developed form it is a tangible connecting with another being in our surroundings and one who has no regard for a home of walls, heat and distraction. Rather they are likely one who rests in a carefully selected home of leaves, tree trunk, or a stone ledge, dozing and staying tuned to their world with one ear or eye as they rest. They live in a realm where some level of awareness their surrounds is perpetually necessary, where the seconds between becoming aware of a disturbance and responding correctly may mean being in a dangerous situation or having a full or empty belly. I believe that this pervasive awareness reaches so far as to even facilitate some knowing that a cumbersome two-legged animal is upon their trail, but it may be a while before I can get my hands on any evidence of that. However if a dog can know when their master is approaching home well before the vehicle noise is possibly audible, why can’t a coyote become aware of a human trailing the strand of impressions that lead to the safe brushy hide where they lay curled up. Whether or not we are mentally fluid enough to catch on to all that is possible in this game is our loss or gain. It’s not entirely important what has proven or not in the times we are playing, it is more about juggling all the possibilities for our preferred outcome. The Coyote and Bobcat are presumably quite content to have us not think of them at all, let alone adjusting our strategies for allowances around how sensitive they may be to our presence.

One of the things that has guided and augmented my knowledge and awareness in all of these things has been a compelling aesthetic, an enraptured, flowing love for the details that comes with really looking into and seeing fully that which catches the eye and speaks to our developed connectivity with all these beings. We definitely don’t need to confine this discussion to tracks and twig patterns, it can be a glossy green beetle, a new and graceful bird, a trout newly lifted from a clear cold stream, any of so many things that can and do speak to us profoundly. As a nature-loving person who grew up before the age of cell phones and somewhat before the internet, I can speak to how one had to observe new discoveries in the wilds with a detailed eye. So many times I would see a new bird while out, look at her closely, working to absorb wing-bars, eye stripes, rings, throat patches, or streaking on the breast. At home with the field guides I would find out that I had not looked quite closely enough and could only pare it down to a few possible migrating sparrows. Often disappointing but the next time I would be ready to look that much closer and absorb that much more detail. From these long running interplays between knowledge, love, and observation with Nature a distinct aptitude for detail and appreciation of aesthetic forms. Ignore the apps as much as you can and lean into the looking, the attention you give your quarry, and the absorption you can hold from the experience. This is also a way the experience becomes you and the lines between inner and outer worlds blur and dissolve. Nature ceases to be background, filled with mechanical animals, and becomes a world of animate fellow beings sharing reflections, insights and revelations about them, their world, and our not-so-terribly-unique human world.

I was walking down a small draw here in the Driftless region just three weeks ago, a narrow wooded valley with a mossy, swampy bottom and tall White Pines along the edges. Mixed wooded hillsides of oak, maple, pine and hemlock rose up moderately with some rock faces along one side. The midwinter’s snows were starting to melt and the night had been warm enough to register clear prints. I had seen some really fine coyote activity in the snow, and deer, and turkey, but what I was hoping for was cat. As I approached a big flow of ice that fully filled the floor of the valley I saw faint prints in the frosty dusting that were too round in shape and toe for raccoon and with a trapezoidal. I walked back to where they had come and found the back trail. Beautiful Bobcat prints moved through the soft snow and revealed where the cat had come down a broad fallen White Pine and jumped down onto the snow leaving impressions of widely splayed front paws. Where the cat had jumped down from the log were two sharp hinds showing full claw extension, which we just don’t get to see very often. Ahead of these I could see where the fronts had been before the cat jumped down, including a barely touched down front out ahead of these. After absorbing these a moment I backtracked up the log to find, to my delight, that the cat had been under the trunk base and root mass in a cavity, likely resting in the dusty chamber therein. I photographed these, cumbersomely sought the trail arriving at these upturned pines, and contentedly wandered out (this was just a short hour and a half wander between various human world business).

It wasn’t until later that day that I realized what I had likely seen, or rather experienced, in this set of tracks. I may have gotten a bit absorbed with the beauty and clarity of them, because I feel now that I actually missed an important aspect of the story here (a good lesson in how things can be overlooked in an exciting moment, and a lesson I get to work with long term). What popped out upon reflection is that this cat seems to have departed the log in such a way as shows haste or urgency. The deeply impressed rears and well engaged claws on the log are not typical nor do I feel they were they required for simply dropping from that trunk. The slight touch of front right before retracting and the animal sending themselves down and to the side of the log spoke of something…. indecision, or assessing? Landing on the incline of an odd little bank instead of on the flat ground just up from it, paws widely splayed in catching themselves seems poorly considered for such a steady-footed being. All of this called to my mind a disturbance that affected the action, and all of this seeming response goes in a direction coherently away from where the dog and I were exploring a little way up the draw from this site prior to arriving here. As my mind reviewed all of this evidence I thought over the dusty prints walking down the log, originating from the dusty den-like cavity under the trunk. Would they have become muddy not dusty in the wet snow if they had not just been laid down? I don’t have that answer but I think there is more potential information available there. Similarly I cannot speak with certainty about the cat responding to my presence, but the more we break down barriers to seeing our connectivity in Nature the more the real stories can be revealed. This is all an ongoing process of gaining knowledge, growing, and refining approaches and awareness in all of this. We don’t get done (that would be boring anyway) and our teachers may always be well out ahead of us. That is as it should be.

In these moments and interactions we grow, expand, draw in, and gain depth in our perceptions, our interconnections, and our belonging to the lands upon which we live out our lives. I celebrate the development of these qualities and aptitudes in all of us and hope my sharing of story and perspective here helps others engage deeply and receive and interrelate more fully with their time and experiences in wild places and with those they meet there.

Elk trail with heavy foot drag upon a frozen northern WI lake, in late January. All the more beautiful for having explored these trails with a superb group of friends/participants.

A last note: I will likely keep many of these more trimmed and pertinent to observations and occurrences in our upper Midwestern landscapes. I look forward to finding good balance between explorations of perspective and relationship with wild landscapes and with rich and available experiences upon them. I also will be sharing summer programs and events that I will be facilitating in these coming months, so keep an eye out for that shortly also!

This fine bit of work will be familiar to many of you and unfamiliar to many also, but regardless there is a lot to see and learn here. I am familiar with this ‘sign’, this rearrangement of a tree, but it was how damn stark and fresh it was that struck me. I genuinely admire the beauty and aesthetic of such things, and the work of these distinctive beings often catches my eye and kicks up my sense of awe. And as an experienced observer of such things, the next thought was obviously ‘Maybe there’s a dropping or two in that pile’. There was, which is a treasure unto itself, and also confirms the very fresh appearance of the excavation by way of it’s pristine and mostly intact condition.

Let’s back up here though. This is the sign left by a feeding Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), who is likely the largest North American woodpecker (after the likely extirpated Ivory Billed, sadly). None of our other local woodpeckers have reasons or means by which to create cavities this large or so forcefully created. This crow-sized bird is awesomely adept at hammering open both live and dead wood; oak, pine, maple, fir, basswood, birch, ash, and cherry, 60 feet up or on the ground, it’s all fair game. They are boldly colored in black, white and red, and often very loud in their calling, feeding, and drumming (which is the rhythmic rapping you hear in the coming months from all woodpeckers as they establish territories and communicate with mates). You should look them up, they are truly an impressive member of our forest communities, and a total keystone species with their feeding and nesting cavities providing crucial shelter and nest spaces for mice, various squirrel species, Kestrels, smaller owls, Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers, smaller woodpeckers, bats, and countless other small animals. They are significant characters to get to know if you want to tune into how our forests work. Let’s return to that scat.

First of all, yes, many of us in the world of wildlife tracking touch scat. We all have different standards, mine are that I only handle herbivore scat, and occasionally insectivore scat, and on occasion other scat if there is a compelling situation, or water to wash in afterwards, or I forget my standards. Sticks are a great alternative if this isn’t turning you on and I usually use them.

Whether you love or hate scat, no one should be able to argue with there being some high quality educational material here. This scat is sheathed in an elastic coating of uric acid solids, which is a waste product from birds and some other animal digestion of protein rich prey. Maybe you have seen it on songbird droppings (below that swallow nest on the porch?), on turkey droppings in the summer, or on a snake scat in a woodpile you are pulling from some cold evening. It is the same stuff that hawks and other raptors eject in quantity as waste in addition to ejecting pellets. In this case we are shown the full scenario upon inspection; a white coating on a scat thoroughly and completely composed of Carpenter Ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus) parts. It just doesn’t get any cleaner than that. But we aren’t done yet.

We also get to see some really excellent scoring marks from the Pileated’s sharp and well built bill. We could delve deeply into this birds adaptations like a spongy bone lined skull to cushion their brain, their long, sharp, and barbed tongue that literally wraps back and around their eye sockets for more ability to stretch out and gather torpid ants from deep down some tunnel, or the unique feathers that keep debris out of their nostrils while they work, but that’s not what I am after here. I want to look at what we can see with our own eyes and senses on site here. These marks are from the bird’s hammering bill blows chipping wood out, strategically breaking the wood along the fiber structures that runs up and down through the tree. If you work with wood or split wood for firewood, you can understand what is being done here. Wood cleaves much more easily along these faults than in other directions (also the tree doesn’t break as quickly but I’m not sure if that is a consideration of the woodpecker). And the cavity obviously follows the galleries or excavations of their prey, the Carpenter Ants (also often grubs or various other wood ingesting invertebrates) that are burrowing up and down in the heart of the tree. These are visible in the third picture below, a closer view of the very top of the cavity.

And then there is the tree itself. We are experiencing first hand in these investigations the tangible importance of dead trees, of forests where deadwood is abundant in all forms from broken limbs and branches on the ground to massive trunks or snags full of raccoons, flying squirrels, bats, and so many other lifeforms. A uniformly aged forest at the 30 or 40 year mark, with no older growth, deadwood, or variation is almost never going to show you the kind of diversity of animal life I see in the forest I wandered through today, unless there is a comparably uniform stand of corn on one side and a diverse forest stand on the other. And so as we observe the scat, the excavation, and the holes at the ends of the excavations we are literally reading a story of diverse forests, the nutrient cycle, a keystone species providing fashioning an alcove, the significance of deadwood, and a host of adaptations in a forest species. All without AI. Just our senses, our attention, and a well formed and filed database called the human brain, properly stimulated by Nature.

If you know your Eastern trees you may recognize that this is a dead Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata), a tree of significance in our forests during life for the high protein, oil-rich nuts they drop and feed to numerous wildlife species and human foragers. If you gather these nuts you know that they deliver more reliably than many mast or nut-bearing trees, and lack the tannins that make some hickories and acorns challenging for we fickle primates. The aptly named Sharbark’s bark shelters and provides nest sites to certain species which specifically requirw this kind of splintering bark (notably the neotropical Brown Creeper), and the wood is notoriously strong and tough, hence hickory often being used for tool handles. Luckily for someone this one’s wood was degraded to a fairly punky state but we do get to see some unique patterning of the bark where it’s been chipped (at bottom of the excavation and in the chip pile) which is quite pleasing to the eye. And we could stop there but let’s not. I truly haven’t observed this pattern much in other barks, perhaps you have, but now that I have it will come to mind when I do again. This is how the mind becomes a powerful tool in tracking. It holds these images, these puzzle pieces carefully, and when a pattern or form or event is encountered again in a new scenario, it is ready to offer matches and piece together the story. Not only ready but eager actually, in some cases pretty much salivating for the chance. Maybe in a firewood pile or a washed up bit of driftwood, we will see.

Finally, I would point out that because I experience these birds frequently, and likely this given individual regularly as this was in my home woods, that the digging into deeper observation at such a site connects me to a being in my immediate surrounds. It helps fill in some more imagery and knowledge of this robust, feathery being when they come sailing past in their undulating, flapping and gliding flight, or when they raucously sound off an ongoing alarm as I attempt to quietly walk a muddy deer trail through new wood nettle shoots and unfurling ferns this spring. This woodpecker knows me as a neighbor without a doubt, maybe fondly and maybe not, and with close observation I slowly close the gap in my knowing of my neighbor. And when I look over that next dead hickory for firewood, maybe one that’s missing a bit too much of the crown, I may think of this tree, circle around to check out any excavations, and move on with a nod to my neighbor the Pileated and with acknowledgement to all they do in the forested world of the Midwest.

This is connection, literacy, and relationship with the land in motion. And I firmly believe that this is what being human on this Earth was made of for a very long time. It takes a bit to get the language going, but the richness that comes in time is well worth it. When you see something new and interesting in the woods, and also with scenarios old and familiar, take a minute to look a little deeper. Ask some questions and seek some answers. They may not come right away, but they will, and the mind will be sensing and picking up a lot more information than it was before you asked any questions. When, why (especially why!), where, how (this is an important one), who, and how many are all terrific and simple questions to begin with. See what you can see in that hole, or on that fed-upon vegetation (even if it’s your beloved raspberries), or somewhere that it appears an animal laid down. You just might fall in and find yourself in a whole new world, one more filled with wonder, beauty, dynamic expression, and efficient and cooperative systems than the anthropocentric chaos of our modern human world.

Thanks for following along here. The photo of the Pileated on a pine (yes you can tell) goes to Steve S. Meyer, and is a Wisconsin photo. From Cool Green Science.

Many of you who will see this are already pretty turned on by tracking. There is the search, the seeking treasure upon the wild and unpredictable landscape. The finding of an unusual set of tracks in an unexpected place, visions flowing through the mind of an animal trotting the shore, looking across the river intermittently, seeking the right place to cross. The mind pondering questions like “why was this badger here on this sandbar?” or “are they really going to swim across here?” or “how well do badgers swim?” The excitement and questions that lead to more learning, to seeing with the mind a whole new being or scenario within the complex and always developing stories written upon the land.

And to go to a far away land and sort through the stories there is all the more tantalizing. So when a being shows up in track and sign that outweighs your dreams, moves with grace and power that sings through their tracks, pulling your honed imagination to visualize tawny fur, rippling muscle, perceptive and searching eyes, and a looooong sweeping tail, it can really get under your skin. I live within landscapes that hold a wonderful array of wildlife; wolf packs are within an hour’s drive, black bears are also very close, and bobcats out my back door that always excite me with their round, in-turned prints, perfectly zigzagging as they tromp delicately through the powdery snow, feeling out the next rabbit or raccoon that they might lay their claws into. But to upsize that being into an animal carrying comparable presence and perceptivity but up into the size of a wolf, one who can pull down adult deer or elk on their own, is moving to say the least. And for my psyche that prizes the whole-being sensation/realization of fitting into Nature’s realm, not apart or above it as we have been conditioned to conceptualize, there is a deep satisfaction with interfacing with such a presence while perceptually navigating through the stories written upon the landscape. A feeling of clicking into place within the landscape, head coming up to look more carefully at the golden grassy horizon, my assessment of the freshness of the spoor becoming more detail-oriented and pertinent, and my envisioning of the animal who moved through those prints becoming so much more riveting and lifelike. I am not describing fear, though the reality of sharing a wild place with a large and invisible predator does make one feel they need to be ready for some additional possibilities. It is engagement, coming out of the stuffy anthropocentric mindset, and into a rapt, focused, yet deeply calm state of presence. For those of us who are lovers of wild places and the stories they share, this is zen, this is being fully in the moment through the entranced realm of connection, honed perception and seeing through tracking.

Before these last weeks I had seen exactly two cougar trails in my life, and both of them in the previous year. One was on my trip one year prior to New Mexico, when I jumped a fence and dropped into a wash by Santa Fe (the trail in the photo above). The good Matt Nelson had told me to check high ridge lines and low routes like washes. As I drove to Santa Fe a couple of ridges descended down from either side into the valley the highway was routing through, and a wash threaded under the road snaking between them, a connecting route. Perfect I though as I pulled over, and trotted out to the wash a ways down from the bridge. Within five minutes I was staring down at a set of big prints in the sandy, debris laced substrate, recognizing the overstep walk but not full believing my perceptions. Elated, I lovingly followed for a good while then hustled to figure out camping for the night north of the city, excited about all the trails I would find in the next week. After one week of tracking around and seeking such things, I had found almost no more sign of cougars on that trip.

My other earlier trail was in British Columbia, on a seven day wilderness canoe trip I found myself swept away upon by my generous housemates. I had so many phenomenal experiences on that trip that I was pretty overdone by the daily endorphine rushes by the later days. After lightly sleeping through one of the later nights, listening to moose milling about on the sandbar where I slept, I rose in the predawn to trek a lake rimming bear trail to some sandy edges down the lake. As the light came up I was checking out rub trees, gathering bear dreads like precious gems, and investigating the abundant bear rootings and shredded logs along the trail. With fuller light I dropped down a twenty foot bank to check out activity along the thin sandy lake edge, overhung with alders and fallen firs. Some young bear tracks followed the shore, and beaver sign abounded. And then slowly out of the rain-dotted sandscape emerged, in ethereal and almost imaginary fashion, a set of weathered round tracks with tear drop toes. Tingles of excitement and electricity shot through my body and some local wildlife most certainly heard my slightly muffled exclamations.

Moose, man, and cougar.

My recent trip started out as a pretty challenging run out west. The car was growing a repetitive noise that left me increasingly unsettled as I made the long haul across the plains (it’s a long way if you haven’t driven across the plains). Rains had been falling in the southwest, making the desert pans and arroyos more dense and unyielding of stories than I thought they would be made by moisture (I actually got rained out for two days early on). And in many of my selected area for exploration it turned out to be so rocky and gravely in substrate that the tracking was quite challenging. I enjoyed those spaces for the bird life, wild rocky ground of the infamous Apache resistance campaign, and the varied plant species that rearranged by understandings of what plants can do and persevere through. I arrived in Tucson winded but gladly jumped into scouting out and conducting a track and sign workshop for some of my brother’s community there before settling into some down days and explorations with my brother after that.

We headed out for a hike in the Catalinas north of the city the first day, up flowing rivulets that rarely run through the grassy, stone formation filled valleys, up and over a gap and into a rockier basin. Down we wandered upon the hiking trail to a small reservoir fed by a year round stream and lined with Arizona Sycamores. As we arrived at the bottom I wavered on whether or not to slow us up and wade to the small sandbar of decent substrate across the creek. But there was a pile-up of sticks and flotsam just downstream so I quicky launched onto that and across, avoiding the annoying debooting/rebooting scenario. And I was very glad I did.

The first picture shows a beautiful double register of an adult female. I find this a very pleasing representation, it’s a front with hind overlaid, and of large size, classic toes, and a heavy animal. I believe she was indeed a female as she seemed to have a smaller individual with her, the second pictures show a proper cat representation but at 2” across compared to her tracks at roughly 3.5” across. I was so very pleased to find these on what was essentially the only prime bit of substrate along our 3 hour hike. Their tracks upon this small patch of sand wasa potentially telling of how much these animals were favoring the lush green, grassy oasis around the reservoir, replete with deer and game and water.

The second day we were off to the Santa Ritas for some camping and exploring in that mountain range. After some good hiking and rock hopping for the afternoon, my brother introduced me to a favorite dispersed camping area surrounded by high craggy ridges. In the tiny washes we explored briefly behind the camp area before he took his leave and returned to Tucson, something familiar popped out.

These were in the gravely substrate I so often ran into in Arizona, and so required some moments of careful examination. But with a closer look, all the confirmatory evidence was there. Large round toes, asymetrical features like a leading toe (3), prominent trilobing to the back edge of the pad, and in the first picture a round front (lower print) with a more elongated hind ahead of it in a classic feline overstep walk. In many stretches these tracks were trotting and smeared forward appearing that the cat was moving with some momentum, maybe while staying low to the ground and sliding into these tracks (moving quickly and quietly in on some other being? or through and past sleeping campers?). The scat pictured was from lower in the same wash but the next day, and was the first clear latrine site, though not fresh, that I have found. The scat was huge, large for what I know of wolf even, and so clearly ball-and-socketed in proper cat fashion. The next morning’s exploration was accented with baying hounds in the distance, a distinct shot at one point, and later with a dead cougar and hounds in the back of a side-by-side grinding past on the road as I returned to my campsite. I am still digesting that whole experience, but I feel I was being shown another aspect of the lives of these powerful beings, at the hands of another predator, one with a repertoire of trained animals, firearms and other disjointed technologies rather than the patience, perception, amazing physical ability, and deep connection to the ecosystem of these cats.

The finale came not in Arizona but in the northeast of the New Mexico the morning before I headed back across the plains. I was checking out a beloved and abundant wash in the pale dawn light when before me once again glowed a string of the vague yet featureful round orbs. Walking, trotting for a stretch, pausing next to a juniper, then heading up a rocky draw into the cacti filled grasslands. Seeking a fat deer or a resting place for the daytime, I don’t know, but I do know that they were exiting an area with a decent amount of human activity and houses and into a rolling grassland and juniper and cacti studded landscape of washes and hills and diverse wildlife. And based upon there being no tracks over these prints, except for one single striped skunk track, in what I know to be a very busy wash, I feel they had come through in the later part of the night, not very long before my humble boots treaded upon that ground, feeling the same gentle give of the sand, the same cold air on our faces, taking in, and being taken in by, the same community of plants, birds, rodents, and other mammals through our senses and our whole beings. How rich and vibrant a moment. I spent a half an hour taking some photos, sketching several tracks, and sitting and being there in the first rays of sunshine. I touched a couple tracks in thankfulness and quietly and contentedly walked out of the wash and embarked on the long drive home.

I am only getting to know these beings now, at this point in my life, and pretty late in a life long dedicated to the Natural World by which I am so enraptured. I am shy and deeply humbled by my meeting of them and the little glimpses into their world I have received. These are blessings that I hold dear, that pull me forward into the relationship with the world I believe in. Just to know that they exist, largely unseen, moving quietly up sandy washes and over rough ridges into places only they and their wild relations know well, is a gift of knowing that wild and rich realities will continue to await those of us who seek this kind of wealth, this kind of relationship with the Earth. I breathe this in and move forward in this convoluted and mad human world with a little more clarity and centeredness. With thankfulness for Cougars.

A Deer Mouse bounds through powdery snow towards the camera. Note the expressive tail prints showing direction and negotiation of the puffy snow.

I have spent many hours of my life sharing stories and experiences from my life lived close to the land over the past years. Embarking on that here, I hope to curate a more cohesive and dynamic collection of these writings and one that is more conducive to other’s journeys into reading the stories of the living landscape and connecting more deeply to their place upon the Earth. I may be an experienced tracker and naturalist but I am a pretty regular human working to do good work and show up for the world around me as best I can. What I do have and will offer here is my unceasing fascination with and dedication to the Natural World and the splendid complexity that we can see and experience and take apart in there. This is my passion and this is the work I have dedicated myself to in life.

This account will be dedicated to two things: sharing observations, experiences and inspiration in connection with the living landscape, and secondly, to share word on the classes and events I offer in foraging, tracking, handcraft, and wilderness skills to facilitate others having the depth of connection and ability they desire with their natural surroundings.

As a naturalist and outdoor educator I live very modestly I am not looking to make money here. I am open to that developing and being supported in this work, but I am currently trying to simply reach more people with what I love to do and wherein I see hopefulness and take my inspiration, and have the programs and classes I run reach those whom they may serve. And I enjoy writing and sharing of the Natural World that I see so much magic in, and deeply desire to grow the awareness of all that that world still offers us. I work at a local forest school as an educator and naturalist, run many programs on my own and with the Driftless Folk School, and enjoy receiving much of what I need in life from the abundant wilds of Wisconsin and feel rich in ways that have little to do with money. It is for the love of these realms that provide me with so much that I will primarily write and share here.

I will endeavor to post some rich observations and stories of the living land once a week or so for now through this platform, and see where it goes with time. In the next month I will be putting out word on my summer programs and events and inviting folks to get involved in those. And I truly hope that this platform will coordinate a closer sharing with others that hold the same passion for connection to place and having real lived relationships with the wild communities that surround, support, and make life vibrant as connectivity to our wild spaces and flora and fauna has always done.

Cougar double register along a small stream in the Catalinas, AZ

I am just back from some explorations in New Mexico and Arizona learning all I could of the plant and animal communities there, their seasons, their terrain and substrates and all else I could feel, smell, see and sense. It was a rich and challenging time that ended with my cup very full of new experiences. In the end I left with a handful of moving experiences involving cougars, which I felt very affected by and honored to have been given, even if not altogether pleasant. I will work to share some of these experiences soon here.

This platform is new to me. I entered many emails into it today to try to reach out and begin this in earnest. I am sure I am fumbling some of how this should be done. It wouldn’t be the first time for me. I invite you to come along with me, and also to disembark if it is not a good fit. I wish all of you whom I have crossed paths with in these past years wellness and happiness in these trying times. And hope that sharing of stories and the connective practices of place-based living can create community and good paths forward for all of us. Be well.