A bear came out of hibernation hungry and destroyed my coop overnight. It tore through the long-standing structure over the creek, in the back of my land where I also had a small cabin. I stood in the way of that, because my coop included numerous internal small doors the bear couldn’t climb through. I’m happy all my chickens survived that night. And I feel bad for the bear too.
Now I’m up front on the land in an emergency 8×8 work shed and chicken coop, built of plywood which both warms me and saddens me because trees are everything to me, and the ants are moving in already. I think it’s because the county came through to cut trees under power lines at the road and in doing so destroyed a massive ant hill that a few of us knew about for years. The ants are everywhere, searching for a home. In here too, plenty far from that road. I need to use deterrent now, some of which kills them. All that I’ve found, before and after, I’ve scooped up and brought outside. But today I spotted one off-balance, struggling. It’s a constant choice, a constant sacrifice, one way or another.
Now that I’m up front on the land again, we can better tackle the invasive species before they spread. Scotch broom. But I found a bushtit nest in one of them. We took down the small forest of them in the meadow, even though the songbirds liked it, and kept a small cushion of plants around the one with the nest. But those are all starting to flower now, fast. Instead of taking them down I planned to get on a ladder and simply snip the flowering branches for this season. I’ve placed a bird feeder and suet feeder nearby to help. To say sorry, too, I suppose. To say I’ll help however I can. However else I can. That bushtit took spider silk, moss, lichen, black cottonwood seeds covered in a kind of comfy snow it comes with, and made such a striking large nest for its size. I hope to feed her babies.
This winter, neighboring goats broke away and trekked through our forest, our protected wetlands, a fish-laden creek. Girdled trees. Stripped bark. Energy reserves are holding for most of them, at least right now. But as soon as I saw the first true death, a nine-year-old evergreen I’ve watched since shortly after moving here, I committed to doing everything I could for the rest. I bought tree wound sealant. I’ve been out at each of the fifty-some trees, precisely sealing the countless grooves, skipping days when rain is forecast within 24 hours. I walk by that dead evergreen and grieve, every time.
And because there is so much driving in my life right now, moving between this land and the inherited house left to my partner, I am hypervigilant about the wildlife near or on the road. I’ve missed so many, thankfully, due to a halt on the brakes. But I’ve also hit some. Killed some. They are all in my lifelong memory now. I stopped for each one. Turned around. Brought them back. Called the rescue. I’ve seen awful things because of this… just awful timing. It’s a sacrifice. Every single choice, every action, one big conflict, one big contradiction. But one has to keep fighting for the good. For the possibilities. For what we want. And what I want is to help. Wildlife. Habitat. Even though it’s hard, and I can feel like a fraud too.
What happens if I give up? Give in? To this chaotic world, the hate at every turn, the selfishness, the it’s-you-or-me. So even though, with all of this going on, I also stepped on a snail on the woodland path, hearing and feeling the crack and snap of its body, I immediately researched what I could do. And I did everything under the sun. So much of this is accepting that mistakes will be made and committing to also doing what we can to correct them. I thought I watched where I stepped carefully, for years. It wasn’t careful enough. And because I’m now more careful, I spotted a caterpillar climbing a grass blade recently, a type I hadn’t seen before. I researched it, learned all about it as I observed it closely, helped it to the right tree. Watched it longer, making sure it was the right move. It was.
I train my dog, who I found on the road too, not to chase squirrels. I keep my birdbath clean. I let the deer know it’s safe to be here, that we share this place. It’s all lessons, stacking, compounding, creating a wiser human in me with every one. Nothing sacrificed is ever in vain. That caterpillar lives because the snail suffered, at least for a time. I had to go through the heartbreak of accidentally harming animals just trying to cross the road so I could spot a songbird sitting still in the middle of the lane, broken wing, stunned by another car however long ago, and knowing to quickly stop, still watching as cars kept passing over her, and to run at the right time, to save her. That songbird lived because my eyes are searching more quickly now.
This hypervigilance… it can hurt to be witness to this level of truth, to seek out harm. But how else are we to prevent it? In any capacity of life, read that for yourself again, but especially for wildlife’s sake. We need to stop turning a blind eye because we are sensitive souls, or because it hurts too much to know. Why do you think there are so many ways to say the same thing? Bury our heads in the sand, ignorance is bliss.. It’s in our nature to run the other way, to seek safety for ourselves first. That’s helpful to a point. But we have overcorrected in the face of so much horror, and wildlife is paying for it.
Who is going to stand up? It’s us. The sensitives. The hypervigilant. Because we know the feeling of being them, consciously or unconsciously, we are them. We feel it. That’s not a reason to run. It is what we are here for. We see, we feel, we know, better than most. In other arenas of life, we may feel less than, weak. And so it feels the same here, when we are forced to feel the center of impact, and we go small, hesitate, push our inner voice aside. When really, our biggest strength is right there, in those moments. So give yourself the chance to realize it. The immense connection to purpose when you save, support or protect a piece of our beloved wild..life.
Believe me when I say this is tough to open yourself up to. But it is what we are meant for.
