Watching and Listening to the Wolves

Each year, my fascination with the wolves returns. In general, it is because winter brings more visible wolf activity, and often times it is quite close to home. That makes it easy to become an armchair observer of their habits and behaviors.

We have learned to keep our window ajar at night from the latter part of February to early April. This allows us to hear the wolves if they start to howl. Sure enough, the last few nights, we've been able to listen to their songs. It's generally just once a night that we hear them, and for some reason, two nights in a row, they started at 2:35. Did someone schedule a concert?

After listening, in the remaining quiet sounds of the regular night, I found my mind filling up with questions. Why do wolves howl? How far away are they? Did they just kill a deer and they are ringing the dinner bell? Or did they just finish eating, and are singing their happiness for full bellies? Most of the answers to these are things I'll never know. But it's great to have the opportunity to contemplate them while anticipating my next chance to hear the songs again.

We took an early walk on Gunflint Lake one morning this week, and no sooner had we reached our landing then we noticed a deer kill to the west, just past Sharlene's cabin. The ravens were swirling and hopping as they jockeyed for position to grab a few morsels. A wolf was on the carcass, enjoying a few bites. Despite the fact that we were several hundred yards away, the wolf heard our footsteps on the snow. It looked up in our direction, and then decided that it was time to head to Canada. Off it trotted. Greg decided to go back up the hill to get his camera. While he was gone, a second wolf came down from the shoreline, and took the place of the first one. It sat down and began to gnaw on a bone.

Wanting a closer look, we went up the road to Shar's driveway, and then quietly, slowly, made our way down to her landing. The wolf was quite focused on it's meal, so we were able to get into a good position to observe. Most interesting in this case were the sounds that we heard. The wolf was crunching through the bone as though it was a carrot. The ravens were chattering to themselves, and then they would swirl up in flight, wings whistling. We were able to watch for several minutes, until this wolf, too, heard sounds that signaled company. Soon he picked up his bone and headed north as well.

We continued our walk by first going out to the remains of the deer. All that was left was the skull and a few bits and pieces. We walked north, in the direction the wolves ran, but then turned east, toward the sun. Just ahead, we could make out a third wolf, running to Canada, too. I speculated about how they would find each other to be reunited. Between scents, howls, and excellent eyesight, I'm sure they had no problem.

Empty Nests

Finding a bird's nest is always exciting for me. I love to see how they are constructed, what materials are used, explore the way a bird weaves it together. We've had the good fortune to find many nests around here, and also in faraway places. I recall one nest that Addie found on a vacation out west. It had horse hair woven into it. That made us hope that our local birds were making use of the donkey hairs that would fly free in the springtime.

Roughly a year ago, as I was walking to the mailbox, I looked down and found a nest literally at my feet. So I brought it home and photographed it. In some way, it felt like a little gift that day. Today, I think about it in a different way...that of empty nests.

Last week, we joined the ranks of the empty nest ourselves. Paul was scheduled to return to the U of MN--Morris, and this time, Addie went with him. She has started her college career by taking advantage of the post secondary education option available in Minnesota. This allows her to finish high school by taking college courses. It's a very exciting time, but definitely one of adjustments, too. In recent weeks, she was busy finishing up her work for her fall semester, while preparing and packing to move away from home. We were contemplating our future of hauling all of the firewood ourselves. Changes for everybody.

Someone else moved on in recent months as well. That would be Moses. After his buddy Jethro moved to Montana last year, Moses became amazingly lonely. We had always observed that Moses could live without Jethro, but Jethro hated to be too far away from Moses. So sending Jethro to live with other donkeys seemed like it might work. But it didn't. I guess they had bonded over the four years that they spent together, and after all, donkeys are herd animals. We were now Moses' whole herd, and none of us were able to spend a lot of time with him. In the end, Greg decided that it would be best for Moses to re-join his old buddy, but in a new place. I'll write the story of his departure and subsequent reunion on another day, but for now, suffice it to say that we really truly are empty-nesters.

The first thing that I always notice is the change in the conversation. When Robert left, when Paul left, each time, there was one less voice in the discussion. So too is it with Addie gone. Even Moses got a word in at least once a day, when he would sing for his supper. One might say that decision making is easier, as consensus for two is easier to reach than five. We were lucky to have many a dinner together, full of lively talk about work, ideas, studies, life. And I have been blessed to spend an incredible amount of time with my kids, given that they each homeschooled for so many years. So I can't complain. We're happy and content with the way things have turned out. But that doesn't mean that we don't miss 'em....and for way more reasons than just the help on the woodpile.

A Little More Respectable

It's a bit embarrassing when guests from the Twin Cities arrive and say, "Hmmm, we actually have more snow than you do." For an area of Minnesota that usually has more snow than we know what to do with, it's hard to deal with a dry winter. Fortunately, that has changed now, thanks to the storm system that planted itself over the northeastern part of the state the past few days.

As usual, we started to hear about the possibilities of this storm several days in advance. The system was predicted to bring a mix of rain, slush, and eventually all snow. The numbers listed as possible depths were 6 to 11 inches. I've learned to be skeptical of these, because inevitably, I am disappointed. This is especially true in a year like this one, when El Nino patterns are influencing the winter weather.

This time around, I had a new plan. I told Kent at the Coop that I was planning not to read the weather reports, not to track the storm advisories, and not to look at the radar. In other words, I was going to see if reverse psychology works on the weather. He laughed and expressed his doubts.

Sure enough, it didn't start to snow when they said it was supposed to. Better than that, it didn't really rain either. That would have been worse. We had few brief spells of light mist on Saturday, but nothing to cause damage. Sunday morning it was still merely overcast, and Greg took off to go to town. He called me shortly before he arrived in Grand Marais to say that it was snowing heavily. Still nothing here, but at least I wasn't feeling sad about that. By eleven, it did finally start to snow.

It continued to snow all day, all evening, and through the night. We had gone to Shar's to see the football game. At the end, when the Saints were shooting cannons full of confetti into the air, I checked to see if our own "confetti" was still coming down. It was. Good sight.

Today, we measured eight inches by midday. Greg has been out plowing all day, with just a brief break for lunch. He said that underneath, it is a heavy wet snow, and that was slowing things down. Trees were bending over under the weight of it. I went out to shovel stairways, and released some of the cherry and birch trees from their burdens. We don't have many pin cherry trees left, and I really enjoy the short time in the spring when they cause the ground around them to turn white not from snowflakes, but fallen petals. It's satisfying to see them spring back up.
So we are once again in full winter mode. More shoveling to do tomorrow as I go around and bank the cabin foundations. Time to power up the ski groomer and give the trails a set of new tracks. Do you think the reverse psychology worked?

Another Mangy Wolf Story

You may recall my post last year about a mangy wolf that was living on the south shore of Gunflint Lake. Many folks had opportunity to see her, and we discussed how she was doing, with as little fur as she had. We were impressed by her ability to find warm shelter and enough food to survive, even during the cold snaps. We knew that she had made it through the winter, because I last saw her in May, crossing the road by our sign, and running up into the hills. After that, I figured it was just too busy around here for her liking, and thought little about her whereabouts.

This winter, another mangy wolf had begun to show up. I hadn't seen this one, but several neighbors had spotted it. We wondered if it could possibly be the same one, but folks were saying that this one was darker. One recent day, I did see a lone dark wolf come out from the driveway of Birch cabin, look at me, and then continue on up the road. It turned and walked in to the pasture. It didn't seem to be in any hurry, even after it saw me, but it did seem to have fur on it. These moments pass by so quickly sometimes, it's hard to capture all of the details.

My neighbor Ev and I talked today about the wolf. She told me the story of her husband John, who went ice fishing with another neighbor recently. John didn't get any fish, but his neighbor got a nice 5# lake trout. They called it a day to head home, and the fellow left his fish, as well as his lunch, on the porch of the cabin while he went in to get something. When he came out, he just caught sight of the wolf, running off with both. The guy ran after him, and the wolf dropped the lunch, but kept the lake trout. As Evelyn said, at least the wolf had one good meal at that point.

Early this week, I got a call from someone at Gunflint Lodge, asking if we had seen the current mangy wolf. I said that I hadn't, but knew that others had. It turned out that the wolf had been hanging out near the lodge, and had actually come up behind an employee, and had snarled at him. I have to admit, that would certainly freak me out! He went to the lodge to report it, and the upshot was a call to the authorities.

A fellow from the Dept of the Interior was called in, and he came up to see if he could find the wolf and put it out of its misery. I guess that he had been receiving many calls on the wolf, and given the report of its condition, this seemed to be the best answer. Greg met the man on Wednesday, and was able to tell him that he had seen the wolf the afternoon before, about a mile in on our side road, just past the Pines.

Yesterday afternoon, I got the call that the wolf had been located and then shot. Some friends stopped by in the afternoon, and they had actually seen the dead wolf in the back of the truck. It was a sad and sorry sight---virtually free of hair, save for little tiny bits on its body, and a ruff around it's neck and head.

It turns out that this wolf was a female. Greg was fairly certain that last year's wolf was also a female. Could it have been the same one? We'll probably never know. While I hate to see the chapter end like this, it is best for the wolf to now be out of her misery. Mange is quite contagious, so I am hoping that no other wolves show up with it. It seems that the wolves will have a tough enough time this year, as the deer population appears to be in decline. I find it so interesting to have a front row seat in this show of nature and survival.