It was the birds who called us back to Lone Bobcat Woods.

Many of them are just returning themselves. They call in the spring! And they welcomed us in their own unique perfect ways. A raven couple who took up residence in the past year flew over to check out what we were doing by the well and generator. Robins chittered across the meadow; a woodpecker tapped furiously on the oak near the woodshed. Hawk shrilled, towhee called mournfully, juncoes pipped, pygmy owl hooted like clockwork.

We are now with another community of friends, just as we have been in Seattle, Portland, Tracy and Port Townsend. A non-human community where our souls sink deep into the soil.

But the water isn’t sinking deep! Our neighbor declared we’d had 72 inches of rainfall (normal is 60, and the past two years have been droughts with about half that). Heavy snows have brought down many branches, especially the oaks. One of our tallest heritage oaks toppled over, unmoored from her roots in the super-saturated soils.

In the meadow a silvery meander drains into three successive ponds (image above is Robyn’s pond). “Bear Bed Springs” is a creek! We rejoice to see these ponds stay for more than a day or so. They last lingered here in the wet winter of 1999 when I drew the 37 Views from Lone Bobcat Woods.

It took only an hour along the road with the chainsaw for us to clear away dead branches and leaning trees so we could drive Little House in. No big deal. The water system required a cap for a broken pipe. The solar electric system seems to be quite fine: batteries were well trickle-charged over the eight months without any electrical loads. The house fared well. We’d left two skylights open, which let the house breathe. Not musty, just a little dusty.

We parked Little House and within minutes I was cooking dinner. Thankful for a gentle re-entry with sweet welcomes from our natural community while the sun turned deep scarlet between the black tree trunks out the back window.

Last winter a major branch on a large, very old black oak tree came down in a storm. This summer Four more heritage black oak trees have come down or lost a major branch, one barely a week ago. Concerned for safety, we had a Grandmother Oak taken down beside the garage.

That made Five.

I counted her rings. She was over 320 years old. She was born not long after the Pilgrims landed here on Turtle Island. She watched the native Maidu people come each season to collect the black oak acorns, to hunt and trap, to net salmon, to gather the gooseberries and hazelnuts and more.

Yesterday we visited a nearby hillside that was once a native Maidu village site. We asked our Tsi Akim guide Grayson about these oaks. A tracker, botanist and landscape designer, he suggested that these trees may all have experienced something at the same time, perhaps a fire (we know one came through here in 1910 or 1911). They may have shared experiences or tendencies that could lead to their all collapsing now.

He suggested they may be experiencing conditions now that could push them towards dropping. The eight days of fierce winter north winds may have dried them beyond their tolerance. Then in spring we had the plentiful rains after shoots had begun, causing especially lush green growth — perhaps extending branches and leaves weighing more than the trees could hold up.

Incredibly, we came home to learn that yet another huge oak had come down. Perhaps at the very moment we were talking with Grayson.

Number Six.
It is like so many in the same generation who have journeyed together are now leaving, leaving all at the same time.

Behind them are other Elders and young ones to carry on. But oh, I grieve to lose these beautiful presences, solid and knowing, in Lone Bobcat Woods.

“The forest never changes,” Robyn noted, “and it is always changing.” Like all of Life.

Yesterday I discovered a small western bluebird lying beside the front porch. Apparently she’d died after flying into the large glass panels we put up for winter. Now that it’s warmer, and the migrating spring birds are returning, it’s time to replace the glass with screens.

I hold this lovely tiny bird in my hand, saddened by the unintended consequences. I think of the turkey chicks who tumbled into the ditches we’d dug for our utilities back in 1990. It is impossible to not create hazards for wild creatures.

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