More Snippets
☆ July 27, 2011
While my camera battery charges, I have another round of snippets from my phone:
Found an echo and wild strawberries in the woods that begin about 200 yards from my camp (I have rolling meadows to one side, aspen and pine forests to the other).
And there are gooseberry bushes everywhere!
Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard the sound of only five engines other than Mike’s when he comes to visit:
– three planes
– a neighboring rancher checking his cows
– a military helicopter
Have I mentioned how much the Farmily is loving it up here? There was no adjustment period. Each and every one of them seemed completely blissed out upon arrival. In fact, I’ve never seen them all so stimulated and so at peace.
And.
A few nights ago, in the midst of the coyotes singing as they do each dusk (and which Charlie still ignores!), I heard one long, lone wolf howl. The sound is impossible to describe. I can only say that everything that has ever been said about the wolf – every totemic power, every fear – was embodied in that howl. Mike told me later that there were two sightings of a white wolf about five miles from here.
Comments
49 Responses to “More Snippets”
Leave a Reply
MY NEW BOOK!
More, Elsewhere
- No Tweets Available
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:04 am
Although I’ve never heard a wolf howl, I can say I’ve felt the haunting, eerie feeling while sitting on the side of a lake, in the dark and hearing the Loon song echo across the water. Beautiful.
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:09 am
The call of the Wild! I hope to hear this one day! We have a Mexican Gray Wolf breeding program here in St. Louis which was the first of its kind, founded my Marlon Perkins in the ’70s. The last remaining Mexican Gray wolves in the US Sonoran desert were rounded up to begin this program. The wolf is so important to the ecosystem! http://www.endangeredwolfcenter.org
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:18 am
I recently found your blog and love it! I don’t understand why there is such an anti-wolf sentiment. News this morning is of a massive wolf massacre planned for Idaho.
I would love to visit Wyoming. I’ve always lived in the city and would like to see a different side of life.
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:26 am
way to give me chills! the way you write is a true gift. thank you.
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:36 am
Thanks for the snippets. I am lucky enough to live near the Wolf Sanctuary and can hear those howls. They also have wolf howls for the public in the fall. Also spent some time in Montana and Yellowstone and was able to hear the different packs “talking” to each other with their howls bouncing around the area. Oh how I envy you!! Thanks again for all the sharing!
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:38 am
To Katie G (above) check out the wolf howls this fall and the learning center there.
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:39 am
I’m so happy to be reading of your camping adventures. I actually dreamed of you a couple nights past. We were sitting at a table with light walls and high ceilings, and I think we might have been discussing the building. I, of course, didn’t have a good visual impression of what you looked like, but when I woke up, I was very sure that I had dreamed of Shreve Stockton. It was a curious yet happy dream. :)
July 27th, 2011 @ 10:27 am
My basenji Oti used to howl in his sleep, and it was a very other-worldly sound – it would give me goosebumps. Hearing a wolf howl in the wild would be so cool…
Loon calls give me that haunting feeling too. It’s great!
July 27th, 2011 @ 10:29 am
I became the first member of my family since the 1930’s hear a wild born wolf howl in the lower 48 a couple of years ago in Yellowstone. A couple of weeks ago I became the first member of my family hear a wild born Wolf howl in Washington State. I felt honored to have heard it and completely agree with you on the feelings it invokes. They don’t scare me – I live with them just like I live knowing that bears, and mountains roam the area where I live. I am glad they have returned.
July 27th, 2011 @ 10:48 am
And sure as heck someone is going to shoot it. I think I’d rather just heard about the howl not the sighting. Let’s not forget about Charlie’s parents.
July 27th, 2011 @ 11:23 am
We have gooseberries up in the Sierras and the black bears love them! One of these days I’m going to beat the bears to them and make some gooseberry jam.
As for the wolf howl, you’re so lucky to have heard it; the way this country is going, the wolf populations will be decimated again and no protection to be had by the gutted Endangered Species Act. I shouldn’t get started…
July 27th, 2011 @ 11:25 am
Gooseberries and white wolfs? Ah fond memories of my childhood.
For several years during my childhood, we lived on a research station. Wild berries gallore. Wolves, bears racoon, skunks, moose etc etc. The thing I remember the most was my father taking me to see the wolf den. There was a protected pack living there and Dad and a wildlife officer used to check them out once in a while to make sure they were okay etc. Since they knew Dad and trusted him, we were able to get close enough to the den to see them and yet not so close to make them nervous.
We had a siberian husky and when the wolves talked to each other our dog would sometimes join in.
Wolfes and coyotees too will leave you alone if given their space and wild animals to eat.
Wolfes when they feel safe and content will sometimes sing to each other. It is different from their usual “talk”. It is hauntingly beautiful and there is absolutely nothing in human music/singing that can compare.
Glad the farmily are happy. Does Charlie even realize he’s a coyotee?? Since he was raised in a semi-domestic environ with no “elder” to teach him, he probably doesn’t know how to respond.
As for the berries – fresh, jellied, sauces, the possibilies are endless. Have you ever sundried fruit? Good to have for the winter.
Enjoy the peace and tranquility.
July 27th, 2011 @ 11:46 am
Do they hunt the wolves in your area? and in my spirit world, white wolves and white black bears are sacred! how does that apply where you live? thanks and ahimsa!
July 27th, 2011 @ 11:50 am
White wolf? Fantastic! Sounds amazing.
July 27th, 2011 @ 12:13 pm
Let Charlie know that there is a factory somewhere that makes full sized rubber coyotes for sale to construction sites. These rubber coyotes are used “to scare away geese so that they don’t get flattened by construction equipment.” These imitations are being used at the hospital site near my home. I think Charlie should ask the company that makes them for royalties for using his image in a commercial enterprise.
July 27th, 2011 @ 12:16 pm
A white wolf? I hope they leave her alone.
Thinking of Avi’s The Good Dog. A nice companion read to Call of the Wild.
July 27th, 2011 @ 12:30 pm
Shreve, your site sounds like Heaven to me..to hear the coyotes yip, You the wolf howl, the fresh air,(like air nowhere else in the world)fresh berries,untouched by chemicals, and of course, and not least, Mike coming to visit. Life is good…You are truly blessed!
July 27th, 2011 @ 12:55 pm
So much food for thought here. The peace of the farmily – being away from all the mechanical noises of “civilization”? AND being exclusively with their most important human.
July 27th, 2011 @ 1:01 pm
Do you bring Charlie & Chloe into the trailer at night?
July 27th, 2011 @ 1:13 pm
Simply magical! LOVE IT!
July 27th, 2011 @ 1:24 pm
that’s really a good question barbara ! i remember once in jackson hole, it was dusk and across a lake there was a male elk that was bugling in a very haunting way. in walking along the shores of the lake i suddenly realized that not ten yards away was a group of about a dozen female elk. they were silent as a mouse, still as could be, and listening to the call as well. i kept walking and to this day i think they may still be standing there, so still they were.
July 27th, 2011 @ 2:42 pm
I always thought coyote and wolf howls would sound the same until I heard wolves in Yellowstone in winter. Such a beautiful, soulful sound compared to the coyote that sounds more urgent to me, they’re definitely different.
Years ago in Tahoe I saw a white wolf cross a trail head not more than 50′ from me. I’ve never forgotten the rush of such a glimpse – 3 seconds later and I would have missed it, or of how insignificant I felt but somehow not worried or scared at all.
July 27th, 2011 @ 2:45 pm
My first real true wolf howls happened on a summer morning in Tucson, Arizona. It was about 80F and sunny and my spine turned to ice. Uncontrolled shivers. It was terrifying. These are the REAL Bad Boys in the Woods and if our civilized veneer has forgotten, our true selves have not. There’s such dark magic in the wolf.
July 27th, 2011 @ 4:04 pm
I have an 11 yr old all white Siberian Husky that will only howl and when she “sings” with my Great Pyr, the songs are magic. I live in a city next to major expressways and alot of humans and traffic. A coyote passed through a few years ago and I had the pleasure of seeing it although it made no sounds. I have only seen a wolf in the zoo and I give my support to the efforts to protect them. Shreve, I only hope that before my days are done, I can spend some time enjoying just a fraction of the sights and sounds you bring to life with your words.
July 27th, 2011 @ 4:50 pm
wow….sounds so beautiful. I am so jealous of what you get to experience. enjoy it :)
July 27th, 2011 @ 5:46 pm
I have been lucky enough to heard a wolf howl on severla occassions.. the sound touches your very soul..one never forgets that.. I hope the white wolf will be safe fro the humans there…marlene from Cambria
July 27th, 2011 @ 6:34 pm
cool
July 27th, 2011 @ 6:49 pm
You sound like you’re already in heaven. You’re in a beautiful place surrounded by your Family and only nature sounds. And to hear a wolf howl out there….wow. I’m a wolf advocate and so hoped to see a timberwolf when in WY a fews years ago. But didn’t. We have the Mexican Gray Wolves here (AZ) in the wild that are barely hanging on for “various” reasons. Look forward to your next snippet.
July 27th, 2011 @ 7:59 pm
Chills. :)
July 27th, 2011 @ 8:46 pm
sounds woooonderful!!! as an artist who’s been researching & becoming enthralled with wolves for the past few years, i am thrilled you have heard one in the wild!! closest i’ve come is this audio clip of an interview with a bioacoustics expert. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/chroncast/detail?entry_id=16946 an incredible wolf chorus starts at min 3:36. just hypnotic…
July 27th, 2011 @ 8:55 pm
It’s an extraordinary sounds – the howl of a wolf. I was coming back from Cooke City going through Yellowstone back to the North entrance and I heard it. So did my dogs…we stopped for a minute and on ledge by the side of the road, the wolf stood. I had goose bumps. Apparently so did my pooches because they didn’t make a sound. Then the wolf was gone…it was an amazing.
July 27th, 2011 @ 9:58 pm
Wolves are fascinating animals, elusive and intelligent. But they aren’t magic, and failing to see that and treating them as some otherworldly “being” isn’t doing them any favors. The return of wolves is awesome, but the interaction they have with real, live, feet-in-the-dust people can get harshly realistic very quickly. They’re incredibly skilled killers, and I can’t help but wonder how these comments would look if Shreve had to report on Charlie’s death, torn apart by wolves – they’re natural competitors, and wolves relentlessly protect their territory.
Nature isn’t emotional. People are.
Best of luck, Shreve, on seeing a wolf – I’ve had my eyes wide open for a long time and haven’t seen a wild one yet! I could go to Canada where they’re more common than coyotes, but it wouldn’t be the same…
July 27th, 2011 @ 10:54 pm
Ripe berries brings bears.
July 28th, 2011 @ 8:22 am
My only Wolf sighting came on Isle Royale MI NP. A perfect scene the wolf was on a point overlooking the lake a sundown and let loose the song. I still get a corkscrew feeling down my back just remembering it!
I too have also held a hummingbird, he (a male ruby-throat hit the south facing window and I went to the rescue. I held him for 15 minutes and showed him to a neighbor. while She was holding him he woke up and perched on her finger and let out a call like a bandsaw cutting through sheet metal, then zoomed off.
I had a larger encounter with a Rough Legged Hawk that hit the same window a few years later. He was stunned but before I picked him up I put on a pair of welding gloves and a heavy coat! Talons and beak oh my! I held him for about 20 minutes when he started to struggle I held him for a bit more. He stopped struggle looked me in the eye and made the most evil hiss I ever heard. Yep time to go.
I have since fixed the window from bird strikes, they only happen at certain times of the year. I stretch deer netting over the window, and now instead of thump I hear boing!
July 28th, 2011 @ 8:26 am
You live in a part of the country where coyotes are, wrongly, seen as vermin and shot on sight, including by your own boyfriend. Wolves aren’t seen much better. Wonder how long it will be until the wolf you heard is shot dead and proudly displayed on someone’s fence. There’s a war against wolves in this country, the very animals we spent millions to restore. Private ranchers grazing their animals on OUR lands are doing everything in their power to make sure there’s an open season on wolves. And the sick war against coyotes only creates MORE coyotes. You live in a happy little bubble, but outside of your bubble, the only good predator is a dead one. It’s a war on wildlife going on right under our noses and it has many victims and much collateral damage.
July 28th, 2011 @ 10:07 am
OMG! A Wolf! Oh god, please let him live! :|
July 28th, 2011 @ 11:06 am
With all the predators up there, how are you keeping your animals safe when you go out on your jaunts and at night? There is something a bit off and overly idealistic about you and your summer adventure.
July 28th, 2011 @ 2:08 pm
Holy smokes, Folks. Consider the possibility that nothing terrible might happen!
July 28th, 2011 @ 3:55 pm
That it might be a white wolf brings to mind Ernest Thompson Seton’s tale of “Lobo the King of Carrumpaw” and his lady love the beautiful white wolf Blanca. A true tale that is heart-wrenchingly sad. See http://www.pineapplefish56.net/Lobo/LOBO-THE_KING_OF_CURRUMPAW.pdf
The character of thes wolves turned Seton away from wolf killing from then on. Livestock get thrown into the wild and endure all kinds of dangers mostly disease and toxic weeds. Carnivores are way down on the list and of those wolves further down still. Yes wolves are killers but so are people. Wolves have to do it to live. We don’t. Who exactly are the vicious ones?
July 28th, 2011 @ 3:59 pm
I agree with you, Deanna, people are being very glass-half-empty here. The Farmily is probably much safer here in the mountain meadow than they are down closer to people (the uber-predators on this planet). All of them have natural defenses (horns, claws, fangs, hooves, fast flight reflexes) against *natural* predators.
July 28th, 2011 @ 5:37 pm
Wow Shreve, why did you delete my comment? I was respectful on all accounts and even complimented you. I’m trying to help the wild ones (wolves) and their pending doom by humans in this country. Don’t you care? I don’t understand. I really thought you would, but I was wrong.
July 28th, 2011 @ 6:42 pm
WOLF?? How…incredibly…COOL!!! I’m having a jealous moment, for sure! : D
July 29th, 2011 @ 8:13 am
i’m not deleting comments, i don’t even have the technology to do so up here. if yours didn’t show up, repost.
honestly, the animals are in much more danger of being killed by a car in the valley than by something up here. everyone is inside at night.
this collective worry of danger in ‘the unknown’ or ‘the different’ and the absence of worry in ‘the known’ or ‘the normal’ is indicative of something very sad.
July 29th, 2011 @ 9:47 am
A couple of my posts haven’t made it through cyberspace and disappeared entirely. Who cares? Hey, it’s a BLOG – and a classy, sweet one at that – so no worries when that happens, guys.
Deanna (#38) – well said. :)
Bubbles, predators, jaunts… none of this jives with what I know of Shreve, her farmily and her life. Perhaps those who have only recently started following this life-saga simply don’t yet comprehend the care and preparation she puts into everything. There will always be dangers and risks to absolutely everything, everywhere, but it’s far more dangerous and risky BELOW the mountain than it is ON the mountain. The joy her animals are exhibiting warms my heart; I think THEY think they’re in heaven. Her decisions are personal and really none of my business. I feel blessed just to be in on what I consider a bit of a secret, this life of hers.
BTW, this is just my take on things, but when someone is alone on a mountain, caring for her beloved animals, positive comments are especially helpful, and negative (if well-meaning) or snarky comments require hard-won effort to avoid discouragement or sadness. Just sayin’…
July 29th, 2011 @ 4:21 pm
Well Shreve, the explanation of the cow’s moos was very fun to read. Animals do communicate more effectively than we know. Us silly humans. So quick to pass judgement and be FEARFUL of practically everything. There are only 2 kinds of emotions, which are both shown here….Love and Fear! (the wolf thing really got everybody going). Neighborhood pitbulls are just as, if not more, dangerous!
July 31st, 2011 @ 8:48 pm
Funny – the snippet that hit me was the one about not hearing engines. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do – to live somewhere where you could only hear the sounds of nature, not of man – no planes, no cars, no other people’s music blaring.
I’m guessing the nighttime sky there must be spectacular, too. What an wonderful thing to know that places like that really *do* exist. Thanks for the glimpses, Shreve. :-)
August 1st, 2011 @ 12:48 am
AHH!
Wolf song!
Nothing beats it.
August 1st, 2011 @ 10:58 am
The high country in high summer. I really miss it. Please send a pic or two of the wildflowers, and if you can get it on a moonless night, a pic of the stars. (experiment with long exposures, camera on ground looking up, stars will appear as trails. And tell me/us what you smell!
Thanks so much for putting this out!
August 4th, 2011 @ 8:36 am
Wyoming is now ending Federal protections for wolves :-( no hunting season, no license just shoot them on sight. This country spent millions and lots of efforts to bring back this keystone species, only to turn around and allow an open season on them. Just another example of how humans try to control everything. We wiped them out once, we brought them back into a world where land has been taken over by humans, they didn’t stay in the boundaries we proscribed, or the numbers we proscribed, so now they must die. Most livestock kills are NOT by wolves and it should be the responsibility of the livestock owners to protect their animals from predators, whether wolf or coyote. Only when all means of protection have been exhuasted should anyone be able to shoot a predator! The government should take the funding it gives the killers at Wildlife Services and allocate that money to help ranchers protect their animals properly. The native wildilfe of America should not be subject to the whims of ranchers or governments.