March 29, 2012

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Help support Philip Walter and I to document the disappearing knowledge of traditional homesteading from people that still rely on it, before the laws, policies, and modern technologies overrun this old wisdom.

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See below for some more photos of my past travels to Romania.

Preparing the scythe


Speaking with a shepherd

A common scene in town...

March 16, 2012

Recalling a winter trip…

With a fresh cover of clean snow, Jordan Chalfant, Matt Dickinson, and I set out on February 13th, 2012 to try to find tracks of the elusive bog lemmings of Mount Desert Island, Maine. We went to Sunken Heath bog as our first destination. Little did we know that this trip would take us through a medley of other animal and botanical signs. 

To reach Sunken Heath we had to first go through a red spruce and balsam fir forest. Inexplicably drawn by our curiosity to follow any animal tracks we found, we were forced into a slow, but deliberate walk. Most of the tracks in the forest were the bounds of mice and red squirrels--common in these coniferous habitats. Matt suddenly stopped, staring at some squirrel tracks as if there was something different to them. Indeed! These tracks were not the bound pattern of a red squirrel, but mostly a hop pattern common to flying squirrels! Out first special find of the day.

Flying squirrel
Further along we came to some eastern coyote tracks that altogether deviated us from the path towards the bog. This coyote then led to the intricate tunnels left by a species of shrew in search of insects. The track patterns of the shrew were actually visible within the tunnel! Finally, after another coyote and some mice, we made it to Sunken Heath bog. The botanical world opened its doors.

Shrew tunnel
Eastern coyote
I had been to bogs in other seasons and greatly appreciated their botanical diversity. But I never thought I'd find it out here in the winter. I realized that a common feature of bog plants is woodiness with evergreen leathery leaves (an adaptation to help them deal with the extreme growing conditions of bog habitats). This allowed me to identify most of the species I encountered--a botanist's greatest revival in the brown winter months! 
Picea mariana (Black spruce)
Sarracenia purpurea (Pitcher plant)
Oclemena nemoralis (Bog aster)

Alas, although we came across some other wonderful tracks, we found no bog lemming signs in Sunken Heath bog. Out next stop was to be Wonderland Bog in Acadia National Park. 

But.... we were halted once again. This time by a weasel! Of course, that wasn't enough. Following another coyote, we reached a set of impeccable bobcat tracks! The bobcat had crossed the coyote trail, stepping carefully right over the prints the coyote had left. We followed a bit, only to realize we were following the coyote. The bobcat had elusively left the trail! Being a bit hurried for time, we moved on towards our final bog destination.

Bobcat track
Finally at Wonderland Bog, we found what may have been some burrows in the snow left by bog lemmings. Unfortunately, their lack of clarity prevented any conclusive certainty about their presence. The bog lemmings continued as an elusive—yet useful—mystery for exploring the plants and animals of Mount Desert Island, Maine.

Possible bog lemming burrow...

March 2, 2012

Moose

Yesterday morning I found myself making a decision that I really had not been expecting. Which, I pondered, would be a more effective defensive weapon if a moose charged me – a large orange plastic shovel or a smaller metal sidewalk scraper? Needless to say, this was not quite how I had envisioned my morning of housesitting and jury duty going. When I let the dog out moments before, he disappeared into the darkness barking hysterically. I peered after him to discover that he and the neighbor’s dog (a fractious animal over which I can exert no control) were dancing just out of reach of a young moose that was standing in the driveway. Standing, incidentally, between me and the barn, where I needed to go to feed the horses, who were tense and wheezing with fright. The moose was agitated, turning to face the dogs, hair raised on its back, pacing the churned up snow near the barn door.  I managed to recall my dog and get him safely in the house. The neighbor’s dog continued to caper gleefully, ignoring my shouting completely, until the moose charged her, which sent her dashing towards the protection of the house, where I was able to grab her and shove her inside. The moose put on the brakes, slip-sliding on the icy driveway, before it lost its footing entirely and fell heavily on its hindquarters. It stood and looked at me for a long moment, then turned and began walking slowly back towards the barn. The barn to which I needed to go.

Bull moose in Chugach State Park, AK. photo credit wikimedia commons
Moose (Alces alces) are big. Very big. There’s just no denying that. The Alaskan sub-species, Alces alces gigas, with which I am most familiar, is the largest. They easily stand six feet tall at the shoulder, weigh well over a thousand pounds, and a large male’s rack can stretch six feet across. Their legs are long and powerful, their necks massive. The moose before me that morning was small, perhaps only five-and-half-feet at the shoulder, no more than a year old, and skinny. Nevertheless, it was easily many times my weight and strength. People usually use words like “majestic” to describe the moose, rather than “elegant” or “beautiful.” They are the largest and least lissome of the deer family. To me, however they are neither beautiful nor ugly but apposite. They fit in to their environment, both literally and figuratively, in way that just makes sense. Despite their large size, they are surprisingly good at blending in. Many a time I can remember peering into the woods off the back deck, trying to see what the dogs were seeing. Then – there! for an instant as it took a step – the large dark form of a moose would become clear. As soon as it stopped, however, you had to know just where to look to see the white legs, the hump of the shoulder, the swiveling ears. Their size and shape allows them to browse high up on trees, reach down to pond bottoms for aquatic plants, and fend off wolf attacks. And too they hold a proud place among the arrary of northern megafauna – grizzly, dall sheep, caribou, musk ox, king salmon –  big animals for big country.

While the moose in the driveway was inconvenient, it was not really all that surprising. South-central Alaska has had a year of deep snows –Anchorage has gotten around nine feet – and the four feet or so that has been consistently on the ground since December is enough to pose a serious challenge to the local moose. In an attempt to find shallower snow and better forage, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley moose population has moved en masse down to lower elevations and thus into closer proximity with people. A degree of this seasonal movement is typical, but this year the trend is extreme. They have become a more-than-common sight next to roads, in yards, and on the river flats. One made it three stories up an Anchorage hospital’s parking garage and nearly wandered into the foyer before being stopped by a security guard:  

photo credit Leslie Bagley, ADN
By halfway through the winter, the number of moose killed by trains and cars surpassed last year’s levels – 270 in an average year, with at least 400 already lost this year -- and many more are destined to starve unseen. The Alaska Moose Federation has secured approval and funding to attempt to lure moose away from roadways with feeding stations, as well as dart and relocate animals away from roads and traintracks out to more remote areas. This has come under criticism from some residents and biologists, who see this as a waste of money, a mixed message to the public about feeding wildlife, and potentially even harmful for the animals, as feeding moose is not as simple as it might seem.

While their summer diet consists of a wide variety of plant life, as befits an animal of their bulk, they survive the winter eating, essentially, wood (they primarily browse the buds and twigs of willow, birch, cottonwood, aspen, and other trees and shrubs). The microbiology of their rumens shifts seasonally in response to their diet, so by midwinter, the wood-digesting gut-fauna dominates alsmost exclusively. So even if they found more calorically-rich food, they would be unable to digest it – one reason why it is against Alaska state law to feed a moose. Moose have starved to death with innards stuffed full of hay, and I was worried that hay was what had attracted this moose to the barn area.



Moose-browsed shrubs and saplings showing evidence of repeated heavy browsing. photos by author


Combine all this – deep snow, high browsing pressure, and the energy needed to maintain a large warm body available only from frozen twigs, and you have moose that are on the edge, calorically and behaviorally. As the risk run by expending energy grows – one strenuous escape from a predator could spell death – “fight” starts to look a lot better than “flight.” Energy-stressed moose are more belligerent and aggressive, refusing to yield cleared or packed ground for deeper powder, and are more likely to charge nearby dogs, cars, and people. It was with this in mind that I surveyed the shovel and the sidewalk scraper. While the shovel might be more visually intimidating, its flimsy construction unnerved me – I decided that, if worse came to worse, a whack to the face from the sidwalk scraper might make the moose think twice – although last month one tiny 85 year old woman used a grain shovel to sucessfully beat off an enraged moose that was stomping her husband. Taking her courage as an example, I walked slowly towards the barn, hugging the snow berm for protection, talking calmly to the moose and holding the sidewalk scraper horizontally to look bigger. The moose continued to mosey (they seem to have two gears: incredibly fast, and mosey) on down past the barn and disappeared into the stunted brush behind it. Suddenly I could breathe again; grateful that this encounter had gone smoothly for moose and human alike. 

References

Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Moose Species Profile. http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=moose.main

Boots, Michelle. “State OKs group's plan to drug, relocate roadside moose.” Anchorage Daily News, February 29th, 2012

Demer, Lisa. “85-year-old woman wields shovel to stop moose stomping.” Anchorage Daily News, January 23rd, 2012

Joling, Dan. “Alaska approves moose relocation away from roads.” Anchorage Daily News, February 28th, 2012

Klouda, Naomi. “No muffins – or hay – for moose.” Homer Tribune, February 3rd, 2010.

Sinnott, Rick. “Feeding hungry moose is a fundraising bonanza.” Alaska Dispatch, February 29th 2012.