TRAIL TALK

On this particular day I am late getting started. As the new day dawns, animals, large and small, usually seek lay ups where they can rest in anticipation of their evening feed.

I tell myself that it is unlikely that I will see much but you never know, and after all, I need the walk.

As I enter the state forest on a little used jeep trail two whitetail does cross the road and effortlessly hop over a four and a half foot tall woven wire fence.

Oh to be able to move like that, almost floating, as if giving the lie to that whole gravity thing.

A movement at my left periphery causes me to glance in that direction. There, approaching the does is an eight point buck, all of his attention on the lovely ladies.

The girls are having none of it.

Coquettes, teases, they waggle their tails at him as if to say, “in your dreams big boy!” As they move away. The buck follows the does into thick cover, giving new meaning to the old saying, “hope springs eternal.”

As I continue my walk down the narrow track three hen turkeys strut across the road not far from me prospecting for any tasty tit bit that might present itself. They will eat almost anything, insects, seeds, acorns, the occasional snake, they hunt and peck.

A mob of toadlings hop in the road. They are intent on going everywhere. Some go this way, some that, while some just sit. Chaos reigns.

Perhaps they are like humans in this lack of direction or perhaps humans are like toads?

A movement at my feet and I stop to watch a cobalt blue wasp waggle her way down a hole she has excavated for the purpose. She was carrying something, an insect or some hapless spider.

What is the spider thinking?

That it is alive is sure for it is to serve as fodder for the wasp’s voracious larva after they hatch. Does the spider know? Does it feel?

I lift my eyes and am surprised to see a bear. Lush black coat glistening, he, for it is obviously a male, about two hundred and fifty pounds, stands sideways, watching me, one front leg lifted, ready to flee or charge in an instant.

Clever creatures bears, processing all of that information.

At the distance it is difficult to see his brown, red flecked eyes but I know what is there, an incredible intelligence, calculating, interpreting, all as his senses drink in sight, smell, sound.

One moment he is there and then he is a memory.

I stand there in the trail awash in a hormonal stew of endorphins. I am afire with an intense sense of life and joy.

I walk.

I praise God.

Then I see her, or perhaps I should say I sense her. A gray fox. Her tracks are there in the trail. Delicate, almost catlike, she strolls along intent only on moving to… where? How do I know she is a she and not a he? Well, she squats to pee. Not always a sure sign but I am sure that this is a vixen.

Further along I come to a demure, ladylike assortment of fox scat. Some tiny grayish feathers in the blood black scat indicate that just perhaps she has dined on a quail. Lucky fox, unlucky quail.

As I approach the blacktop road that will lead me home I hear the cluck of turkeys. I slow my approach. There in the road are six hen turkeys. They see me but are not alarmed. They strut like sweet little dinosaurs, velociraptors, they move ahead of me, always maintaining that safe distance. Smart birds.

Imagine turkeys being five or six feet tall, the darned things would eat you!

Turkeys behind me I come across another mob of baby toads. My goodness they are all over the road. As before there is no direction. Some sit immobile in the road like little fat toad Buddha’s. They sit among the remnants and grease spots of other little toads that have gone wherever it is that deceased toads go.

I try to shoo the toads off the road but they defy my efforts and shout little toad obscenities at me. Herding toads is just like directing some people, fruitless and a waste of time and effort

A car is coming.

I stop shooing toads and try to assume a somewhat normal, if not dignified posture so that I will not be mistaken for a stooped over, arm waving lunatic cavorting and dancing in the road.

Too late, I was seen before I heard the car.

As the car moves slowly past the driver hurriedly rolls his window up and stares at me with an expression mixed with curiosity, concern and fear.

Split, splat, splut, cute little toads are transformed into cute little bufotenine laced grease spots under the tires of the automobile.

Idiot toads be darned!

A six inch long juvenile pygmy rattlesnake has met the same end as the stupid toads. This section of blacktop is not conducive to long life for the local wildlife.

A caravan of fire ants excavate the snake’s body, mining it for any and all nutrients.

I use a twig to lift the deceased snake to the side of the road and lay it on the trail of ants. Four or five ants sting me for my troubles and as their way of saying thanks.

I will check back tomorrow and there will be nothing left but the little snaky skeleton.

Hey, What a day!

This then is trail talk.