Our first discovery was this strange, pocked object. Any guesses?

It’s the top of a dandelion, the seeds having drifted off on the wind.

Then we came across this, which reminded us of the skin of an alien.

It’s actually oozing sap from a red pine tree.

Further along our journey we came across this beautifully colored pattern, like an exotic rug.

This is a tent caterpillar. Can you see the spiracles where it breathes?

This one amazed us. It looks very odd, and we had never bothered to look at one up close before.

This is the point where a pine cone breaks free of its branch and falls to the ground.

Finally, we couldn’t help but notice a not so subtle beauty — this lovely beetle who was spreading its wings out. We weren’t sure if it was injured or doing something else, but we couldn’t help but stare.

What a lovely world we all live in!

This time, she’s applied her insight and considerable writing talents to all manner of birds in her new book called Birdology. It looks like it will be available starting on the 6th of April, 2010. A true ambassador who serves to give voice to animals and ecosystems (from the endangered to the ‘everyday’), Sy has always amazed us in the past, and we can only imagine that we’re going to see birds in a whole new light after we read Birdology. Here’s Sy Montgomery in a video about the book –

Ask for Birdology at your local bookstore! Yay for birds!

Yesterday, we did just that with some of the icicles that were hanging from our roof. We’ve seen icicles all our lives, and were used to seeing them from a single perspective — from a few feet away as we stood and observed. This time we got up close — really close — and looked at the end of an icicle as it dripped from the sun’s warmth. We had expected to find a sort of rounded tip of ice from which the water was dropping, but it wasn’t so. What we saw was a complex crystalline structure, grooved and angular and seemingly hollow-tipped. Its delicate beauty was nothing less than breathtaking.

This has us wondering — what other ‘everyday’ things around us would reveal amazing surprises if we took the time to look up close? Sounds like the beginning of a new quest . . .

That’s a lot of bunnies.

He goes on to point out that the red-tailed hawks, the foxes, the feral dogs, the snakes, the weasels and the hunters all work to keep the cottontail race sustained at fairly even numbers.

This fact can be blithely ignored. After all, we’ve all heard about the ‘balance of nature’. Yet, if we pause for a moment to consider what that means, it should leave us astounded. How is it that so many factors can interweave so perfectly, keeping the cottontail alive through innumerable generations? Indeed, it is from a few years back (37 million or so to be more precise), in the Oligocene period that fossils of a critter named Palaeolagus have been found. Palaeolagus was a lagomorph (that’s what a rabbit is — not a rodent, as is often thought to be the case), and probably looked much like our modern rabbits. So cottontail-like creatures have been living in this state of balance for a rather long time.

It’s not just the rabbits benefiting from this. The hawks and snakes and weasels benefit as well, as do all the plants and insects and other animals who are woven together and interconnected via tooth and blood and unfolding leaf. How amazing it is that somehow, without a guidebook or instructions, every animal and plant and weather system and disease (the list could go on) plays its role, with the result being long periods of stability where different species get their chance on the stage of Life on Earth.

Of course, the system collapses now and again, but each time new species have filled the void left by others, so that a look back at the history of life on Earth is a beautiful progression of the appearance and disappearance of species. If history continues as it has, we too will play our part and then disappear.

This book on our shelf, recounting the rambling adventures of a Homo sapiens called John K. Terres, will continue to grow ever mustier, its pages yellowing and finally crumbling away, to be recycled into the bodies of future species that don’t yet exist, even in our dreams.

Visit our Adventure Journal, and learn about our wilderness awareness/martial arts classes here and our Wild Living classes here.

Doing a little exploration on the web, Rebecca and I stumbled across a site that allows you to see 360 degree panoramas of all sorts of interesting places — from Mount Everest to the tomb of Ramses IV. Using your mouse, you can look all around you (don’t forget to look up!), and you can even visit the moon.

We’re not techno-phobes — we can appreciate all these new advances in technology — but in our minds, at least, there is no replacement for actually getting outside and breathing the air, starting a campfire (even if the smoke keeps getting in your eyes), or climbing a real, live tree.

Perhaps we’re being old-fashioned, but there’s that whole Zen thing about taking a single breath and really EXPERIENCING it. We’ll still do our share of virtual exploration (Google Earth is fun!), but somehow just taking a walk with the dogs is a lot more amazing.

Hopefully, as a species, we’ll never settle for getting all of our experiences ‘virtually’. Sometimes it seems that that’s the way we’re headed! We have faith, however, that there is something in the human heart that will always yearn for the feel of wind, of rain, of that subtle thrill when you’re sitting in a tree and the wind rocks it just enough to invoke a little fear.

We’d love to hear your perspective on this subject! Are these new virtual tools positive or negative? Will we be able to use them wisely? You can see another entry we wrote on this topic here.

We put down the book we were reading — Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  Among other things, Mr. McDougall talks about ‘persistence hunting’ — a mode of hunting that is almost forgotten today. The idea is that humans run their prey down — which seems quite impossible when you consider that humans seem pretty slow compared to most other animals.

I had said ‘I had no idea’, because a couple of years ago I decided to embark on a strange and rather crazy quest. Spurred on by a sort of mid-life crisis and wanting to test my physical limits, I decided to chase after and catch a wild turkey with my bare hands. I devoted a year to the endeavor, training harder than I had ever trained and spending the whole winter chasing turkeys in the hills and valleys behind Sweetwater. The contest didn’t really seem fair, considering that turkeys can run at 25 mph. A world-class sprinter, at the most, might clock in at 27-28 mph, but I’m not a world-class sprinter. And if ground speed isn’t enough, they’re capable of 55 mph flight. Despite being rather outclassed, I had some great adventures, and wrote a book about the whole affair. Now I have an agent and we’re in the process of finding a publisher. On her advice, I can’t tell you the result of my quest, but I can tell you that I’m pretty impressed by the idea of persistence hunting (my quest was to catch a turkey and let it go, so I wouldn’t really call it ‘hunting’, but the basic idea is the same).

You see, despite the fact that we’re not very impressive sprinters, humans are superb endurance runners. In distance races against horses, humans often come out the victors. Some people are suggesting that during human evolution, it might not have been our intelligence that gave us our best advantage (there is some evidence that Neanderthals were the more intelligent species), but rather our running ability, which allowed us to secure game. The remarkable truth is that humans may very well be the best endurance runners on the planet — outpacing all other species.  This video records a persistence hunt by San tribesmen, and gives an overview of how a human can run down a Kudu (a type of antelope).

I discovered that many of the elements of persistence hunting that Mr. McDougall wrote about (many of which are also portrayed in the video above), had come naturally to me during my turkey quest. Toward the end of the winter, I began to ‘think’ like a turkey, and stayed on the turkeys’ trails for long periods by tracking and ‘intuiting’ where the turkey might have flown. In effect, I had observed them long enough and spent enough time in their environment that I understood the way that they reacted when they fled danger.

Rebecca and I are now becoming ultra-running aficionados. We’re going for longer and longer distances, often barefoot, and are discovering that running can be incredibly enjoyable when you relax into it and just let your legs carry you over the hills. It’s an amazing thought to consider that our ancestors might have used this skill to bring meat home to their families. We may not be using it for hunting, but there’s something magical about running over the ground and wondering if, indeed, we are following the pathways of an ancient tradition that shaped human evolution.

Read Kenton’s Latest Nature Column Article in the Dunn County News! (Sorry, the online version is lacking Rebecca’s awesome photography)

Visit our Adventure Journal to learn about our latest adventures!

Then it was if thirty guns started firing all at once, for a loud crashing emerged from our woods, and we knew immediately what we were hearing.

One of our huge oaks had fallen.

Now, our trees aren’t exactly ancient, but one is large enough in girth that two people can’t touch when they try to wrap their arms around it.  We hiked down into the woods and soon found the fall. It wasn’t a tree that had fallen over, but rather a huge half of an oak that had long been splitting down its middle.  The weaker half had fallen away, crashing to the ground.  Standing before it, we could still hear pops and cracks as the weight settled.  We heard these sounds even into the night, as the wood adjusted to the new strains.

It can be sad to see a fall like this.  Luckily, our oak still lives, and has just lost some significant limbs.  But under that massive branch are healthy trees, bent forever under the impossible weight, and it’s sad to see them shattered and broken when a moment before they were reaching for the sky.

Of course, these falls also bring other changes to the forest.  Now there is an opening in the canopy where before there was only shade.  A small maple tree has suddenly learned that it has been growing in a very opportune position — light streams down on its leaves, and it is free to grow into the wide opening left by the oak’s collapse.  Our woods-camp, just ten paces from the fallen oak limb, now has a clear view to the starry sky.  And plants that favor sun over shade will find, for a year or two at least, that there is an abundance of sunshine.

Rebecca and I will enjoy the fallen oak as well.  It’s a climbing-gym now, where we can pretend to be squirrels and test our balance and agility without fear of falling too far. It will provide a graceful arch over our favorite walking-path up to the woods-camp, and in the winter it will be beautiful, the dark bark coated with snow.

A mighty crash, and the woods is given a new song.  How lovely destruction can be.

These questions were just the beginning of a dawning realization that the world around us is filled with far more mystery than we are aware of.  And the realization that everywhere we look we are surrounded by nature– take a peek sometime at the dust on your desk under the powerful lens of a microscope, or stroll through your downtown sidewalks and keep track of the bugs, birds, plants, and other creatures that you see along the way.  Examine your cauliflower before you chop it up for dinner or study the spirals of a shell from the beach– you’ll discover the inexplicably beautiful pattern of the Fibonacci series.

Sometimes I can feel less knowledgeable about these mysteries than I should– after all, I don’t know the answers to how salmon find their way back to their spawning ground each year, nor can I predict which dead elms will have morels in the spring.  With each new riddle that presents itself, however, I have learned one thing for certain:  all one needs in order to unravel the mysteries of nature is an open and curious heart, and a willingness to explore.

Is there a nature mystery that intrigues or captivates you?  Have you uncovered the meaning of one of Mother Nature’s curious enigmas?  Please feel free to share your insights with us in the comments– the joys of nature are often best when shared!

Visit our Adventure Journal to find out about this week’s adventure!

The other day, while seeking morels in the nearby forests, my mother pointed out just such a beetle — a swift-moving creature that defied my attempts to capture it long enough to get a photo.  Only after a few minutes of both of us scurrying about did the beetle hesitate long enough for Rebecca to capture a still image.

Every time I venture out into nature, there are discoveries like this.  I’m not an expert on birds, and it’s easy for me to spot a bird I can’t identify.  I’m not an expert on plants, and many of the woodland leaves and prairie flowers are still undiscovered, unnamed in my world.  Mushrooms pose similar mysteries, and the world of insects is perhaps the most enigmatic of all, for it only takes a few moments of walking about the yard or poking under old logs before I unearth something completely new.

Each of these is a treasure, and in a way, each points to the next.  This strange, gold-spotted beetle who rested for a brief moment in my hands might as well be tied to a string, leading me on to ever-more curious explorations of swamps, tree-tops, ponds, and hillsides.  In nature, there are treasures everywhere, and what can be more grand than sharing such explorations with those we love, and with the friends we’ve made in life?

May your own Gold Bugs lead you to yet-unimagined treasures.

Today, when Rebecca and I stepped outside, we found ourselves at another sort of Grand Canyon.  This one engaged our sense of smell, and it, too, took us to the edge of what we felt possible to experience with our olfactory sense.  This Grand Canyon was created by the wild plum blossoms, which were blooming white all along our country road.  Every year at this time, their smell becomes thick and fragrant, so that it moves over you in heady waves.  In the same way that the sight of the Grand Canyon can make your entire body feel Alive, the scent of the plum blossoms fills your entire being.

As we walked down the road, we considered how lucky we were to experience this wonder of nature.  This was a scent-based ‘Grand Canyon’, and it was right here in Sweetwater, right in our back yard.

How often nature presents us with wonders like this!  These are not subtle phenomena that require us to cultivate more appreciative senses.  These are the Right-In-Your-Face events that are available to many of us every day.  It might be crashing waves on a beach that show us how easily our bodies are tossed and pushed by the force of something as ’soft’ as water.  It might be the bright calls of the birds around your birdfeeder, filling your ears with music.  It might be the autumn leaves turning the hills into a wonderland painting made by a child.  Or it might be the impossible depth of the night sky as distant stars and galaxies  sparkle with light that is millions and millions of years old.

This is the world we live in, and how blessed we all are to be a part of it.