Wrap-up

[Photo is off a batch of wood (one of many) that we've been cutting, hauling, and peeling to begin drying for our cordwood house in the next year or so...]


This is the last blog I’m going to write for this project, just a few notes to wrap-up. I should probably mention the Bluebunch wolves, which we were following earlier this spring (see the June 16 entry). Unfortunately, I have nothing good to offer as an ending to this story. It is not over, and has turned into a large, political mess. We just learned that the female was shot (by Wildlife Services) on August second. We have not been able to get any other information. The seven pups were left to fend for themselves, which at that age is code for “starve”. Hackles are up and fur is being rubbed the wrong way, and politics seem to be taking a front seat in this age-old struggle with wolves and their management. It seems the story is long from over.
I hate to end the blog on a sad note. I wish I could now talk about our last week filming where we saw so much, the mountain lions, the black wolf pups, the bears…
But since I already covered all that, I will instead talk about what the future plans are for our film: what happens now that we’re done the filming part. We’ve finished logging all the footage, which I have to say was quite a lot! Specifically, about 70 hours of RED footage (the big camera), and 67 hours of HV20 footage (the camcorder). We sent all that logged footage first to Jackson, WY to get transcoded so that it is all in workable form, and then on to Belgium (yes, Belgium the country across the big water), where an acquaintance/friend of ours is going through it all as a pre-edit. Our plan is not to think about it for the summer while we re-orient ourselves to non-transient life, to get some space from the whole thing, and then pick it up again come fall and begin the long and potentially difficult editing process. How do you take 137 hours of footage and condense it down to one hour, or even two hours? We have been talking regularly to the folks at PBS Nature, who seem very interested, a mutual feeling as we’d like to work with them also. That’s about as far as the plan goes for now. For the time being, it is good to be thinking about and working on something new. Right now that consists of building our new greenhouse, visiting family, planning a farm, and generally catching up on life on the edge of town.
Most of all, I want to give a big THANKS to all of you who followed this blog. It was fun for me to write, and hopefully at least mildly interesting to read. I know it was a rough go, with long dry spells of no updates, and then bursts of entries that were probably too time-consuming to catch up on, but I can’t say you weren’t warned from the start! ☺ Enjoy the rest of the summer…
Bjornen

The Last Week

I’m writing this blog back at the yurt, on the deck in the sun. Our year of filming is officially over. Of course, it’s a bitter-sweet feeling. I am ready to be done. It was a difficult year for reasons we had not anticipated. But it was also filled with surprises of the kind that will make magical memories; it already has. And now, faced with the daunting task of editing over 150 hours of footage down to a one hour segment (hopefully with professional help!), I find myself sometimes thinking of the simple wandering life of filming. What?! Did I actually say the ‘simple’ life???? It’s amazing how memory works, truly amazing.
We managed to sneak away from watch-dogging the Blue Bunch pack for a solid week, where we headed for our starting point, full circle from when we began last June, near Stanley, Idaho. Near Stanley is a loose term. The destination is fifty miles on a very rough dirt road, deep into the wilderness (the road was grandfathered in when wilderness was created), over two mountain passes and far from the bustling metropolis of Stanley (population 106).
As always, the trip was filled with adventure, which I will try to briefly describe in highlights. We had not even made it to Stanley, when Isaac says:
“I think we have a flat…” and we both listen to the familiar floppy whirr of flaccid tire on pavement.
We pull over at a nearby pull-off, literally 10 miles from Stanley. The day was already moving into evening, and mosquitoes were out in force, as we were parked near a swampy field. We swatted, sweated, and grunted the spare onto the hub, and drove the last miles into town, to find the one gas station in town, in the process of closing. The very nice attendant said the mechanic had gone home for the night, but had just left and if we called him he just might turn around.
He did. And after a long time of soaking the tire in Windex (no dunk tank in this small town!) found no leak. Scratching his head, he, in one last attempt, hit the valve stem, which hissed loudly. Leak found, valve stem replaced, we were very nearly back on the road, except for one minor little detail. He couldn’t get the tire back on the rim. Not really his fault either. Our truck has unusual sized tires (unusual in that they don’t make them that size anymore for this very reason, they are very difficult to get back on the rim. To do it, you need a major blast of air, like from a large compressor and heavy duty air-tool. Not happening here in small town Stanley. The compressor was already over taxed, the mechanic explained, from a day of bad luck where a lady was stuck in her car, up on the lift, for over two hours…long story. He was smiling when he told us this, and I was almost wetting my pants, but you could see the strain in his eyes. It had been a rough day already. Funny enough now. Not so funny then.
Basically, we (all three of us) spent 3 hours trying to wrestle and manhandle the tire back onto the rim, with no luck. We tried every trick in the book, from rim sealer, to a rope, and then a ratchet strap, around the tire. The evening ended around 11:30 with the tire laying airless on the floor, and three greasy and tired people. The mechanic said he’d call some people and try to find a solution for the morning. Isaac and I went off in search of digs for the night (another story, too long for here).
The next morning we returned to the gas station to find our tire filled (filled, that is, with air, and also with a tube, which became another issue we had to deal with when we got home…lets just say we’re lucky neither of us cracked any teeth on the 3 hour drive home… and we’ll leave it at that). But for the time being the tire was on and we were on our way.
The next surprise was a good one. We found the 50 miles of rough dirt road, which we expected to be impassable after the torrential rains we had all spring long, passable. As it turned out, it was in the best shape we’d ever found it. Snow-free (mostly), boulder-free, nothing was blown out, and we only had to cut out 3 down trees the whole way. And to top it all off, as we rounded the last corner before the road ends and we set out on foot, we stared out the windshield gape-mouthed at a huge mountain lion sprawled in the road. I know minds can make things like predators, and fish, and distances, much bigger than they are in reality. And I’m sure that’s what was going on here, but I tell ya this sucker was huge! It slowly sat up, like a typical cat, looking at us with a look that said “what are you lookin’ at”. I swear if I had been standing there in the road, our two heads would have been at the same height. We stopped the truck, threw it in reverse, and crept backwards around the corner as quiet as we could in a large pick-up, got out the camera, and snuck back around the corner, camera rolling. The cat was gone, of course. But we spent the next hour creeping around on foot looking for it. There was a lot of sign on the road, like it had been hanging around for a while in that one spot. Isaac searched below the road on the steep mountain slope, while I searched ahead on the dirt road. I came to the last down tree, a well branched and bushy lodge pole, and just as I was clambering through the dense branches, I looked up to see not one, but two mountain lions bounding gracefully across the road not 30 feet away.
Of course, we never got them on film except for a brief, over-excited (ie: bouncy) blip on our little camcorder, but we spent many hours searching, and at least got to see them with our eyes.
The next day when we hiked down to our destination, we found that not only was the wolf pack there that we had come to see, but they had 5 pups, 4 of which were the most beautiful silver-backed black. This pack had never had black pups all the years that we’ve followed them in the springtime, so this was a truly exciting discovery. As far as we know there are no black adults in the pack, but it is very likely that we didn’t see all the adults. The black coloring in wolves seems to be a recessive trait.
The day we hiked in was pouring rain, cold, and peppered with occasional hail. I distinctly remember wondering what the heck we were doing out there. It seemed kind of like a token trip. But then we found the black pups and it made it all worthwhile. And from there on out, the weather was perfect, sun for warmth, with some overcast for filming. We have a hidden camp spot there that we return to every year, and it has become a familiar place. There is literally no flat ground in those parts, every thing is either steep up or steep down, so one year Isaac burrowed out a flatish, pine-needle, tent-shaped bed on the uphill side of a huge Doug fir tree. A tiny, clear mountain stream runs right by, which we drink straight from, and you can sit in the last light of evening and listen to warblers and the occasional night hawk.
We found morels on the trail, and picked them for dinner. We watched wolf pups play and romp and explore, and interact with adults as they came and went from their feeding duties. We saw several black bears, one of which was the most unusual brassy blonde color (all over, not just along the back) and seemed to be being chased by a larger, black bear. And the wildflowers were, surprisingly for how late in the season it was, just coming into full bloom. It was a perfect end to the year, full of good treats and surprises. And after all the hoopla around the Blue Bunch wolves, it was a nice reminder that, at least in some places in the wilderness, wolves are free to be wolves.

Gift of the mountains

Isaac thinks they look like cooked slugs. He’s actually not all that far off, they don’t look all that delectable. But personally I think the presentation is a big part of it. I had only been able to scavenge three shrooms, and not very big ones either, so even on the small salad-sized pewter plate lined with a folded section of newspaper to soak up the excess oil (butter), they swam. They looked kind of listless, limp, and glossy brown: most definitely slug-like. But they also, in a weird sort of butter soaked, lightly battered way, looked really delicious. This is how it happened:
I hem and haw all day. Should I cook the morels (or at least what I thought were morels) for dinner? It was probably my last chance at the mushrooms this year, and already they were past their freshest moment. Being a mushroom picking newbie, my personal criteria to myself had been a) get a book, and b) ask at least one knowledgeable person to look at them (ie: someone who has picked these mushrooms regularly). I had the book: Mushrooms Demystified, by David Arora, a very writerly and wise sounding name, I thought. His book is good. It’s a tome, in the most basic sense of the word: full, knowledgeable, and lengthy (it’s 2 ¼ inches thick!). From reading the book I came to within 95 percent sure that the mushrooms sprouting up all over our yard were most definitely black morels. But there was still that insistent, nagging voice in my brain the kept me from actually picking them. ‘You don’t know for sure… mushrooms can make you very sick, they can actually kill you’. Yeah, yeah. But really, mushroom are no more dangerous than any wild gathering one might do, they just get an especially bad rap for some reason. Perfect example in the book: someone comes in carrying a wild onion they found ‘hey, let’s put this in the stew tonight!’ Great, no qualms. Everyone looks at the harvester with a mix of envy (why couldn’t I have been the one to bring home the wild goods) and adoration (wow, so-and-so is so enthusiastic, and quaint, how nice). And yet in reality, that “wild onion”, at least out in these parts, could just as well be a Death Camis, one of the most deadly wild plants around, and conveniently it looks very similar to the Camis Lily, whose roots are edible, but in order to distinguish between the two you must see them both in flower, which happens at different times of year, making the comparison very difficult. And yet, in that same scenario, if the person had breezed in the door brandishing some wild mushrooms, and making the same exclamation about putting them in that nights stew pot, no doubt their reception would have been much different. It would have consisted of some looks of extreme worry, some whispered, or not-so-whispered remarks about poisonous and deadly, and some politely yet firmly dealt rejections as to their intended destination.
So back to that particular day. I hemmed and hawed as I spent the morning in the yurt logging footage, and packing up to go out again the next day (Isaac was out filming at Blue Bunch all day, but intended to return for dinner that night). I thought of a billion different recipes as I checked e-mails in the office, and I stewed some more as I walked around town on errands. As I was returning to the office to get in the car to come home, I ran into a friend, who happened to be an experienced morel picker. After catching up with each others lives, I asked her about the mushrooms, and after a brief tne minute discussion, I was thoroughly convinced that these truly were morels, and should be picked and made into dinner that very night.
When I got home, I set out into the yard armed with confidence, and a basket. Ok, I hadn’t quite completely filled my personal criteria. I hadn’t physically shown the mushrooms to anyone. But I was confident enough to skip over that minor detail and pick mushrooms. I had some dissapointment coming to me when I traipsed about the yard, and found that most of the mushrooms I had been drooling over and all but singing lullabys to, were too far gone. I had waited too long. But I did find three decent specimens which I popped into my basket and took to the yurt.
That night, not as dinner, but as a scrumptious (all the more so because there were only three) appetizer, we ate morels. Dusted lightly in spelt flour, salt and pepper, and sautéed in butter, they were exquisite, even though Isaac commented about cooked slugs. Think escargot, or whelks. They certainly have an exotic quality to them.

Later: We were able to find another harvest when we went for our last week down near Stanley. The elevation is much higher where we were, and the morels quite a bit farther behind the ones here in McCall. We found enough to eat there, cooked plainly with our pasta, and even to bring home a (homemade cardboard) flat of them to cook for a main meal back at the yurt. I think we’re both hooked now… I know I am at least. The hunt is most certainly a good part of the fun, made all the better knowing what deliscouness awaits your tongue. Yummmmmm….

Getting Complicated: The Blue Bunch Story

[I’ll get a pup picture in here eventually, but it has to come from the big camera, here’s a filler: it’s a horizontal rainbow we saw on that ridge one of the first days we were up there. The other picture is Isaac, filming, and yes, that white stuff on the ground is in fact, snow…just a dusting, but snow. And yes, it really is late June]

We’ve managed to get sidetracked. This is our self-proclaimed final month for filming this project (we knew we’d have to put an end date on it or else we might go on filming forever… there’s always a little more to get, a little that we missed, a little that we could get better, and a lot that we never even saw). So in our minds we are getting a little antsy to get back out there one final time, to go back to the area where we began this whole adventure last year, and to check on the wolves there.
But while spending some time in town, we got wind of something that is going on right in our backyard, that has captured our attention. We feel this is too good of a story to let slide, simply to get back into the wilderness. This is something that we feel people should be aware of. I don’t want to get mired in politics in this blog, so here’s the short and skinny version:
There was a pack of wolves that lived on a nearby ridge, Blue Bunch Ridge. They happened to roam an area that is public land, and because this is Idaho, that means that land is also used to graze sheep and cattle. Occasionally, these wolves stray from their normal wild diet, and take down a sheep/lamb or cow/calf. How often this happens is another subject up for debate, which I am not going to get into here, but seems like perhaps the wolves get blamed for more depredations than they are actually responsible for… but that is all speculation. Our experience, from many years of watching wolves, is that they strongly favor wild food, even when domestic game is available. But again, those are simply my observations/opinions.
Anyway, so last fall these wolves apparently made a depredation (I don’t know the details, sheep, cow, one or multiple). Being that the area is heavy with non-wild grazers, Wildlife Services decided it was time to step in and take out the pack, probably with some pressure from the people who own those grazers. This is all fair and square, they are allowed to go in and kill offending wolves for up to 60 days after a depredation (they made the rules). Ok, now I’m feeling badly because I really don’t know the exact details, and I should have looked them up before trying to write this, but I’m hoping no one is reading this for the hard facts… I think Wildlife Services went in and shot some of the adult wolves in the pack at that time, but not all of them. Time passed and for whatever reason they didn’t get back to it until this spring. Yes, by now we are way beyond the 60-day rule. But they have made a promise to the grazers that they would get rid of the problem (the wolves), so they come out again sometime in April and shot the rest of the pack, except for the radio-collared alpha female. They figured that if any other wolves were in the area, they will join up with her, and then they can shoot more wolves by finding her. Trouble is, we’re now way beyond wolf breeding season, and yes, she is pregnant, and soon enough she goes to den and delivers seven pups.
Now Wildlife Services is in a real pickle, because not only have they made a promise they didn’t keep, and not only did they already have several chances to finish off the pack, which they didn’t take, and not only are they way way way beyond their own 60-day limit, and not only is it quite possible that this particular wolf never did any depredating herself, but now Isaac and I are up there on Blue Bunch Ridge watching and filming this female wolf who is working her tail off to feed seven hungry and boisterous little fluff ball pups, all on her own with no pack to help her hunt and feed. It seems an almost impossible feat. For us, it’s an ideal filming opportunity. It’s a good story: single female, seven pups, against all odds, being hunted by humans as well. And, she is away a lot, searching for food, so we have plenty of opportunities to film the playful pups without being found out by an adult.
Long story shorter: She is succeeding. She is somehow able to feed herself and her seven pups, which are doing extremely well and growing up healthy. But Wildlife Services is still after her, and now the pups too. One day we hear a low flying airplane, and see (and film) the plane circling and circling around the den area where the pups and female are currently. Luckily they all stay under trees, and therefore not visible to the plane, and therefore are not shot. But now we too, are in a pickle, because soon we get wind that Wildlife Services (soon after that day with the plane) where told by the big guys in D.C., not to go anywhere near the wolves while there are cameras (us) out there. Bad PR for them.
We hadn’t intended to be watch-dogs. We hadn’t intended to ‘save’ these wolves. And we’re not trying to kid ourselves that it will do any good anyhow, except maybe for these particular wolves, for a little while. In all reality, and as cruel as it sounds, it would be better if they did get shot (and we were able to film it, or enough to get the point across anyhow), so that the public could become aware of what was going on. Shooting a single female and seven very cute, very young pups would certainly look bad to the public, especially to those people in Kansas or New York who don’t have any ties to the land like the grazers do. This particular land belong to those people in New York City just as much as it does to the people who graze animals on it. My personal opinion is that if you choose to graze animals on public land (which by the way, is fairly destructive to the land) than you should have to face the facts that you are sharing that land with natural predators, like wolves, like bears, like mountain lions, and that depredations will happen on occasion, and that that is part of the risk of grazing on public land.
So for now the story sits. We film the wolves whenever we see them, which isn’t much these days because we are being really careful to not bother them, as we feel the female has enough work cut out for her simply with feeding the pups, and we don’t want her to find us, and then have to move the pups again and again. And Wildlife Services isn’t hunting for them, as long as we are filming. So for the moment they are ‘safe’. But that doesn’t do whole lot of good for the rest of wolves, for trying to keep people honest, and for the importance of rules. Because what good are rules if no one follows them?
Anyway, that was a rather poor telling of a situation much more complicated than I made it seem. Like I said, I don’t know all the details/facts, and I don’t intend to get political here. My apologies to those who know more, for all that I botched. This is just my skewed perception from my little corner.

The arc

[Those are my feet, getting ready for a little more hiking…]

This is an old entry, but I'm trying to get back up-to-date so I have to upload these in order... these are the final entries!

We’re preparing to go out for one final push to wind up this year-long (has it really been a year already?) project. I’m going to keep it a secret when we are planning to leave, because it seems when ever we pick a day to leave, it always happens a day (or a few) later… but soon!
The hardest task at the moment is to dry out all the gear that Isaac has been using recently (he’s been going out and filming at nearby areas), because McCall seems to have become the location of the next arc. Noah must be just nailing the last few boards on his big boat, somewhere high in the mountains not too far away, and pretty soon we are going to be shocked by the influx of pairs of exotic animals migrating from far and wide, as well as the rising flood waters… Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but hardly. It has been raining for, I don’t know, a month? I don’t remember when it started, but it’s been pretty solid for weeks now. We’ve seen a few (as in minutes, or hours) glimpses of sun in all that time, but no more. Now it just rains all day, and occasionally we get a break and have a cloudy day with little wetness, but no sun. It’s just the weather, I know, and we can’t change that (thank goodness), but ok, ok, ok! Ready for some true springtime sun and warmth!
So anyway, drying out the gear has been pretty difficult. It consists of waiting for a moment when the downpours subside, staring at the sky for a while to try to decipher its language, then bolting out to the truck, ripping out all the damp and condensing gear, hanging it all over the cloths line, and then hopping around the deck doing all the sun dances we can think of to ward off the dark grey clouds which by then are looming heavy and close over the trees. Soon after, the drops start falling, and we pull it all down again and pile it back into the truck to wait for the next little break. Fun.
Maybe dry gear is over-rated, as its all going to get wet again the moment we get out there and set it up again. But beginning a trip with damp gear is always a little disheartening…