Perhaps it's because of the limited range of a porcupine. When the snow is deep, it doesn't take as long to find its den. Less trudging through the snow, more thinking.
Of course, I can track beavers to their holes in the ice that leads to their lodges.
But porcupines are there for the touching, though I won't advise that. Leslie followed the trail while I took a photo of the porcupine's recent meals, patches of gnawed bark up pine tree trunks.
When I got to the tree where the porcupine had its den I told Leslie I didn't see it and she told me to get closer. I saw the quills, but, didn't thrust the camera close to the porcupine.
Not that porcupines panic when they are in their den. Last March I got a photo of a porcupine that didn't quite fit into the trunk.
I was impressed that its quills were relaxed. Being inside the trunk of a large tree must be therapeutic. No doubt a porcupine finds its center inside a tree.
But philosophically speaking there is no center in the woods. Stepping back from the tree, the porcupine's tracks in the snow proved that.
Turning around I saw further proof in the continuation of the porcupine's trails in the snow.
If only I could have climbed the tree and taken a photo from the top to make apparent how the woods stretches the brain of the animal that thrives in it.
At this time of year I make my own presence felt in the woods, not as the ever philosophical tracker but on my own account. I cut down trees for next winter's firewood. Logging, for I do drag logs out, is universally depicted as a heroic act, and what I mean by "heroic" is unthinking. Man sees tree, chainsaw roars, and timber the tree is down on the ground, especially when a mass of men sets out to level the trees for profit. But one person in the woods in the winter, colder the better, with only a hand saw begins to get an inkling about why the mammalian brain is shaped with such convolutions. The brain must comprehend four dimensions in a deceptively unpredictable realm. Trees hang around a long time and each has its quirks.
Let me hasten to add that this is not an instantaneous realization, not instinctual fear of the dark woods. It grew on me. I evolved to the point where the woods became my brain. Animals come to this realization much more quickly since their survival depends on it. Plus the brain of any tree climbing animal like the porcupine must evolve beyond our flat screen thinking cap.
Of course, I can't illustrate all that with photos but toward the edge of the woods I stumbled upon the works of a smaller porcupine. Its gnawing on a pine tree seemed large enough
But the den was just a few feet away
Note the smaller trough and the bark stripping at the base of the smaller tree. This porcupine didn't have the brain yet to command the woods with the elegant curves and angles of it deep troughs (deep thoughts). It climbed the nearest trees and stripped what may.
Now brainy as I make myself out to be, did I make any scientific observations to prove this not uninteresting distinction between the foraging of mature and immature porcupines, for example, try to eyeball this less venturesome one and prove that it was indeed smaller?
No way. Too damn cold for unpaid work. The golf course between me and home was a few feet away. Once again I had the cold wind blowing my brain back to its puny size. No wind chill in the woods. How my brain can stretch there,
though if you saw me you'd think I was just looking dumb up into the trees and not see the man looking for his god.
A porcupine has made the root cellar at our cottage his den, poop and all. We saw 2 of them yesterday headed to the "den". The smaller of the 2 waddled away but the bigger one went into the cellar. We shone lights on it and made loud noises so it disappeared. Today my husband cleaned out a ton of poop and tried to block off what we think is his entry. What is the best way to ensure that he sets up home somewhere else?
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