Dear Kula Diaries friends,
It brings me great joy to present our latest edition of The Trail Register — Animal Encounters!
And when I say 'our’ — I really mean it, because the Trail Register features YOUR submissions… your unique signatures about a topic… seen through the lens of your own, beautiful perspective on the world. I really have had so much fun selecting the Trail Register entries every few weeks, because I never know what I’m going to find — and I absolutely love reading your stories… seeing your art… and hearing your audio surprises!
At the bottom of this entry, you’ll find our next prompt. Keep in mind that if your selection is added to a Trail Register entry, I’ll send you a gift (and it’s usually something pretty unique and cool) and a thank you note. Fun stories and an abundance of gifts? This feels like a beautiful way to share our lives together — so thank you for being here.
Also — for those of you who enjoy listening to the audio versions of the Kula Diaries, I did decide to do a voiceover for this one (although I’m reading these in my voice, not the voice of the author).
Without further adieu… let’s read the Trail Register — Animal Encounters:
Angie VanSchoick: Close (Animal) Encounters
You can find Angie on Instagram @avansch
Which encounter to choose? As someone who often ends up with moose in her front, side and back yard, it can be a challenge to determine which encounters are the most memorable one(s).
There is one encounter, though, that stands out mostly for the absurdity of it in my mind. In October 2018, my husband and I went to Yellowstone with his parents and our then 4 year old daughter. He and I had visited there ourselves in 2007 or 2008. His parents had never been and we thought it'd be a great opportunity for all of us to enjoy this National Park. We visited some of the usual spots, but also wanted to go on a hike together while we had the opportunity. We parked at the trailhead and sent them off to Old Faithful with instructions to come back for us in 2 hours - we knew how fast we'd hike, what we were hiking and also knew we wouldn't have any cell service. (If I had to guess, we were hiking to Fairy Falls, as I recall ending up by Grand Prismatic Lake, but I swear it was a loop we did.) We waved goodbye to the family and started our adventure. The scenery was beautiful, as one would expect. We were about 3-4 miles into our hike when I rounded a corner and saw this buffalo statue. "Wow!" I thought to myself, "That would have been really hard to haul all the way back here on foot." And then, the statue snorted!
I was less than 10 feet away from this bison, but he/she didn't care I was there at all. I stood there, talking to the bison, "Nice buffalo! How are you today? You gave me quite the start! I hope I didn't interrupt your sleep. I'm going to take a picture of you, then be on my way." I took my picture. "Thank you, buffalo, I'm going to start walking this way now. You don't have to bother yourself with us at all. Have a great day!"
Once we were far enough along, I told my husband that I have never had to reconcile a thought so hard in my brain as I did that time around. Before the snort, you would have been hard-pressed to convince me it was an actual buffalo standing there. Fortunately for us, the buffalo didn't care and didn't follow us. It remains one of my most memorable wild encounters.
Kally Abrams : Blueberries & Bears
You can find Kally on Instagram @dancewithweeds
Blueberries beckon below while a gentle breeze passes through as I tuck myself in all snuggly & warm only now I allow the night to swallow me whole. Dreaming but awake, what is that I hear, a deep sniff & snort, displacing the chill with warm critter’s breath, I dare not exhale, I’m frozen. Darkness filled with a million brilliant stars, I swear there are as many blueberries to share, go away bear, are you really even out there? Waking up slowly in my hammock to the gentle warming beams of sunlight, a new day has begun, was it a nightmare, I’m still unaware in between that sleep & awake state.
My heart raced so loud last night, dreaming I certainly must have been, so very real that sound of a wet noses sniff & snort, I can still hear it in my mind as I try to sort it out. A sleep I did fall back into, snuggled into my quilt, I must believe, as I lay here stretching & deciphering what wasn’t real to was is true.
No, I’ve decided that critter visitor wasn’t real but those blueberries right below me are, I hear their call, wild blueberries filled my dreams now into my oatmeal they shall land.
Maria Ordovas-Montanes: Nature Isn’t Quiet
Maria is a subscriber of the Kula Diaries who submitted this beautiful audio recording of nature. Maria writes, “I wanted to recreate a walk in my hometown, but without being there to record, I took to freesound.org … enjoy ‘walking’ with a few creatures!”
You can read more about Maria and listen to one of her podcast episodes right here.
Rachel Strum: ‘HEY BEAR’
You can find Rachel on Instagram @sturmykins
The punchline of this story is, the reason people always yell "Hey bear" when they see a bear in the wild, is because A) that's what we've seen OTHER people do in media and B) that's what's running through your mind anyways- Hey! Bear!
I was camping for one night in Granville State Forest in Western Massachusetts. The campground only has about 24 sites, and mine was in the corner with a creek on one side and the main road with more forest past it on another. It was around 10:30pm at night and my fire was still going, but all red coals and no leaping flames. All my fellow campers had already gone to bed or were at least in their tents already. I was partway through a perfect s'more when around the tree to my right appeared the head of a bear as if to say, Hey, wanna share? It smells good! I've seen bears before, but always from the comfort of a vehicle. Just last year, we had a black bear decide to cross the road right in front of our RV. My dad had to slam on the brakes and my mom couldn't believe we didn't tell her their was a bear so she could see. Frankly, we'd both been too stunned and were also trying not to HIT the bear.
We've barely moved on from man vs bear in online discourse, and I can confidently say after this encounter, I'd still chose the bear. First thing out of my mouth was, in fact, "Hey bear!" This encouraged the bear to move over to the next tree, still only about six feet from me. I shoved the last bit of s'more in my mouth, got my headlamp to it's brightest setting, and sidled over to the picnic table to wipe my hands on something. I continued to keep the bear in the beam of my headlamp and shouted things like, "Go on! Get!" He lumbered along to the patch of trees between me and the main campground, but then started heading over to the tents and bear box of the campers next to me. A fed bear is a dead bear, and I didn't know how careful they'd been in packing their things away. I also knew that if I was in one of those tents and someone knew there was a bear, I wouldn't want them to just watch. So I sighed and cautiously marched over to the bear. Keeping about five or six feet between us, I kept up my yelling and clapped as loud as I could, slowly moving him out of the campground and to the woods across the road. The bear barely cared, and the clapping really seemed to be the only thing that he didn't like. Once he was safely across the road and into the woods, I returned to my fire. A little while later, one of the women cautiously got out of the tent and came over to me. She asked if the noise earlier have been me and if there had been a bear. I said, yep, that was me and a black bear! It was apparently the first time they had camped anywhere with a bear box and were almost certainly not actually expecting a bear encounter. I honestly think I'd have been more scared to be in a tent and have heard me chasing the bear out of camp! The rest of the night was uneventful and when I mentioned the bear to a ranger the next morning, the only thing that surprised him was that the bear wasn't afraid of people. Though his first question was, of course, did he get anything?
Annette Hanson - ‘So, What Got My Tent!"
It was my sister’s turn to plan the trip. Weather was not what we were hoping, but always good to get out and about and her youngest son could go with us which was a plus. And I did learn that I can take my tent down while under the fly and I would survive in cold rain.
We were first gifted with mountain goats. First a male (picture proves that) and then the moms with young, all wandering around our tents. You probably know, as a pee expert, that they like to lick your pee spots for salt!
Most campers know how you’re not supposed to have food in a tent – most people think bears. The goats were all fine. But due to rain, we ate most of our meal in Cathy’s tent as we played cards and then she left the pot under her fly. I accidentally had a little bag of raw cashews with me in my single tent. In the middle of the night, I look up at my tent and see, sort of in the dark, something on the “outside” of the tent mesh. Well that’s interesting I thought, kind of large, but what is it….. plop, not on the outside but on the inside as it fell onto my sleeping bag. So now there are two creatures in the tent that are like “WHAT??” Me and the mouse! The mouse is running around me and back up the mesh and falling back on me. I open the two sides, but there is the lip of the tent and the mouse just can’t figure out how to get out. So we keep playing the run around game. Finally he makes it out and I zip up everything, but he is determined to come back in for the nuts. Actually, I didn’t really realize I had them in the tent until I saw the hole in the bottom of my tent and a chewed up bag. It looked like he had been going in and out and in and out eating them. And he wanted BACK in. I took what nuts were left and threw them outside and he seemed happy with that.
In the morning my sister looked at the pot and was thinking – “I don’t think we had wild rice in our dinner!” Well, we didn’t. I think the mouse spent some time in our pot finishing off our meal.
Captain Joe Wubbold: The Gray Whales
Captain Joe is a dear friend of The Kula Diaries and hosts a weekly radio show called ‘From The Captain’s Chair’ for The Voice of Vashon. You can listen to his broadcasts every Tuesday right here.
I had my first command at sea when I was 23. I was the captain of a patrol cutter home ported in San Diego.
An American yacht had gone high aground in Scammon’s Lagoon, in Baja, maybe 1200 nautical miles South of San Diego. (I haven’t looked up the distance, but it was a long way, I remember that!) I was sent to rescue them and get them back to SD.
Getting underway and headed South, I became embedded in the migration of California Gray Whales, thousands of them also headed for Scammon’s. Some well over 40’ long, all exhaling noxious fumes, all moving at about 5 knots, which was my speed for fuel conservation. The yacht was now in no danger, just stuck high and dry. Bumping up against my hull, we all sailed together in happy if smelly harmony.
Our navigation was spot on, and at the precise latitude of the lagoon we all made a hard turn to port and sailed in. There was my rescue, waving and dancing. And there were all my whales in the lagoon, happy to be there.
Once all of the whales and your Captain, his crew and his sturdy and doughty little Cutter entered Scammon's, my objective was easily seen. High up on the beach, the crew of the yacht seeing us come into the lagoon caused unseemly jubilation on their part, and some serious decision making on mine. Although this was my first command, I was the beneficiary of two experienced Chief Petty Officers, some good junior petty offers, and an eager and obedient crew. So we conferred as to the best way to get the yacht off the beach and headed homeward bound.
I decided to send my Boston Whaler-a coincidence, that- through the surf line with the end of a light messenger which in turn was bent on to the towing hawser in the Cutter. The crew that went in with the Whaler then heaved around on the messenger, and brought the bitter end of the towing hawser to the strongest point on the bow of the yacht. Then slowly, carefully, the Cutter pulled on the hawser, pulling the yacht across the beach, into the water. She started immediately to fill up with water, for she had been holed in her beaching.
So instead of her sailing off on her interrupted voyage, we patched the hole, put a pump on her, and towed her all the way back to San Diego, pumping all the way, with one of my crew members in the yacht to tend the pump, while the yacht crew came into my Cutter. It took me several days, this time without whale company, to get my flock home, but we did and happily too. Mission accomplished.
Love,
Captain Joe
Dearest Kula Diaries friends — it has brought me so much joy to share these amazing stories of Animal Encounters, so thank YOU for submitting them. If your submission was chosen — WATCH YOUR MAILBOX!! You will soon be the recipient of some fun mail from me!
And now, I am delighted to announce the NEXT PROMPT for The Trail Register: TRAIL FOOD! Tell me your best story… or share a photo… or draw a picture… or write a poem… or compose a song — whatever inspires you — with a theme of ‘trail food’. You can interpret that in any way that works for you - maybe even a recipe! Think outside the box and, most importantly, have fun and be creative!
Submissions are due by September 30th! I can’t wait to see your trail register entries and to share them with The Kula Diaries. You can share them by clicking right here or on the photo above.
Sending you all so much love — thank you for being here!