Who’s in the woods? - #59

An owl and an outing.

Let’s talk about the owl.

If you’re like “what owl?” then read last week’s edition.

Whettie was taking water, enjoying pets, and happy sitting on my hand. I sang and Whettie napped. I gave scritches and Whet cooed. Whet was on a great road to recovery but there was one major issue: Whettie wasn’t eating. Upon initial rescue, the first neighbors offered bits of beef that were accepted, but Whet wasn’t interested in anything after that. We needed to find a mouse. Given that we’ve found some hundred mice since we moved in, this seemed easy. My plan was to take Snoots and Finn outside and just let them do their thing.

The problem was the snow. It’s been snowing most nights now, and the mice have retreated underground. The cats caught nothing. I decided to try something else. I texted a handful of neighbors with a request: “if you have neck-snap mouse traps, let me know if you catch any. I need mice.” And the people delivered. Within minutes our next door neighbor replied. “There should be one in our garage to the right of the door. Saw it this morning.”

Sure enough, there it was. I texted my mom.

Even I have my limits. In a moment of sheer luck, Ben called. He’d been mountaineering in the backcountry for five days, and he was calling to say the trip ended early. The same snow I was getting at home was trashing his chances at the peaks. He was coming home, and boy did I have a task for him.

Meanwhile, in the guest room that had been turned into an owl suite, Whet was showing off flying around the room and landing on dried flowers. Flight is great, but it’s not full health. What we were looking for was a pellet to prove digestion was fully functioning. But in order to produce a pellet, we needed to give Whet something he could make a pellet from: a mouse.

So Ben minced a dead mouse on a cutting board you can now find in a dump. I scraped the mouse into a small dish, put the dish into Whet’s box. and then put Whet into the box. Whet had to spend their nights in the box because all the flying in a room with no branches meant Whet was careening into things. We didn’t need another injury. All tucked in with a natural food source, I could sleep easy.

In the morning, I was worried. What if Whet was too stressed to eat? What if they needed to be hand fed? Did we need a fresher mouse?

But Whet did not disappoint, eating every scrap of that mouse and honestly looking pleased as punch. I was a proud and relieved parent. Plus, Whet was pooping just about everywhere in that room, and every poop had the right consistency. We were nearing release time. And lucky us, we had another mouse.

We also had a timeline. As I write this, I’m sitting in a camp chair, wrapped in a sleeping bag by a poorly functioning fire pit with 11 other women. Tonight we’ll all sleep in a shipping container full of bunk beds, like we’ve done for the past several nights.

I am on the Aquarius Trail, a hut-to-hut mountain biking trip. I am happy, wrecked, and bowlegged. When I say I am bowlegged, it’s not because I have the wrong saddle. It’s because we did miles and miles of riding over baby heads – rocks the size of (you guessed it) babies’ heads. We’ve been barreling through river beds, whipping around single track, and agonizing on endless gravel climbs checking the route again and again to confirm yes we really do have another 2000 ft of climbing in ten miles. I am eating everything in sight, washing with a water bottle, surrounded by friends.

The Aquarius Trail is, in many ways, entry level bike packing. Real bike packing requires you to carry your own food, tent, and sleeping bag. Here, we arrive to bunk beds and a fridge full of food. The food is, well… it’s not great, but it’s edible and after the beating our bodies took today, we’ll eat it. In fact, I’d like to eat so much more of it. Each “hut” is actually two shipping containers: one with a kitchen and a “shower” and one full of bunk beds. They’re situated on a platform with a roof over the center. There’s a fire pit, camp chairs, a heat lamp, and a bathroom hut so full of shit you could touch it. I’ve been peeing in the woods.

I needed to leave for this trip, planned over a year in advance on Wednesday morning. Whet ate their mouse Tuesday morning. I wanted to be there for the release, but I also didn’t want to rush. Tuesday was a tenuous day. But with one mouse down and another ready for serving, I had high hopes.

By 5pm that day, there was a pellet. It was time to go. Whet was found on the side of the road about 2.5 miles from our house. I drove down with Ben for the release. We pulled off at about the spot Whet was found and carried the box into the woods. Based on how often Whet was flying around the room, I thought this would go smoothly. Whet had other ideas.

When I opened the box, I put my gloved hand in. Whet hopped onto my finger like it was home. I lifted them out of the box and… nothing. Whet just sat there, looking at me, talons gripping the latest gifted mouse. We stood there for 20 minutes and Whet just sat on my hand, looking around.

My mom had warned me about this – the animal tells you when they’re ready for release and Whet wasn’t. I guided my hand, talons clutching it and clutching the mouse to it, and guided it back into the box. We drove back to the house with Whet in the box in my lap.

Back in the house, I opened the box again in the owl room. Whet looked at me, seemingly realizing they had just been outside and now were back inside. We sat there for a few minutes. It was dusk and Whet was waking up more and more with night approaching. I wanted to try again. I sang the song I’d been singing to Whet for days, and I closed up the box. We headed back to the woods.

This time, I took Whet out of the box as the final light was fading. They sat on my hand, looking at me, and I sang to them one more time before Whet had the courage to hop to a log. A moment later, taking to the sky. There are few things more special to me in this life than crossing the great divide some humans have built between ourselves and the world around us. Having an owl look you in the eyes and then fall asleep as you sing to them can crack you open, and it did. Whet is home – down one eye but perfectly capable of thriving. I sat on the river bank and sang and sang and sang. I wanted Whet to know I was there. And I would be there. And maybe the next time the cats caught a mouse, I’d be there with that too.

To see the full Whet story, watch this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjULNbgOjyE/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

And apologies if this newsletter is formatted strange or has more typos than usual. I just did the hardest ride of my life and I’m literally in a sleeping bag trying to revive myself with M&Ms.