I’ve Never Seen a Squirrel Fly, But I Have Seen Them Fall

This summer while I was cleaning my car a falling squirrel nearly hit me.  A big old squirrel fell from a large tree with a heavy thud, the first time I can recall ever seeing a squirrel fall from a tree and this isn’t the sort of thing I would miss.  I have always wondered, do squirrels fall out of trees? so I have always kept a keen look out for falling squirrels.

Well, guess what, the other day I heard another thud and turned to see cloud of snow and fur and a little squirrel picking himself off the sidewalk.  Bad luck.  A fresh foot of snow had just fallen and this squirrel has the misfortune to land on the cleared sidewalk.  But he seemed fine, more or less.  Once he got to his feet he cleared out in a hurry.

I suspect squirrels quickly hide after a fall partly out of pride and partly for practical reasons.  The squirrel’s misfortune, after all, could be another animals opportunity.  Imagine a fortunate fox who might happen to be where I was standing…just a quick couple of loping hops and there’s dinner.  Or lunch.  (This happened midday.  I should keep my stories truthful and believable.)

I did walk toward where the squirrel ran to hide and found him sitting peacefully, catching his breath.  He saw me and scattered.  He looked fine, though.  No limp, no stitch in his gait.  It seems squirrels can take quite a fall and bounce right back.  That’s good.  I worry less about squirrels now.

Not long a go I knew a woman who liked squirrels almost as much as I do.  She comes to squirrels via Italy and had a noble way of calling them.  Her pronunciation was something like “squire-earl”, which I thought was a nice way to talk about squirrels.  I still have a fun card featuring stylized drawings of squirrels I planned to give to her.  Not sure that opportunity will ever come again.  But then I was never sure I would see a squirrel fall out of a tree either.

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Minnesota Fishing Opener Controversy

Going Fishing.

There is a proposal to move the Minnesota fishing opener to May 5?  Where have I been?  But a much more important question is:  Why?

Perhaps it is appropriate that this change originates at the state legislature, because if there is a group that seems unwilling to plan wisely, it is the legislature.  Unlike some legislators there are Minnesotans who make plans and depend on planning for success.

Has Rep. David Dill, DFL-Crane Lake, the man who proposed the change, considered the people who operate resorts, for example?  Some of those resorts might not have planned to be fully open on May 5.  Instead their plans for May 5 likely involve readying their resorts for the reservations they have for May 12.  And the people who have reservations for May 12, will they be scrambling to find a resort that is open on May 5?

And what if you don’t need a resort.  You have a cabin.  Maybe your cabin is ready, maybe it isn’t.  You might have called the guys and already have taken May 11 as a vacation day.  If you’re smart you took May 14, too.  Now what?

Let’s not forget about all the wives, girlfriends, mothers and such who also planned around the opener.  Let’s face it, everyone sees everyone for Easter…mom and wife are likely looking forward to a weekend alone shared with other “widowed” friends.  What are they going to do, reorganize girls night out for May 5?

What about Wisconsin?  Golly…a lot of us go over there and we had a sort of truce in the fishing wars.  The very walleye eager angler could cross the border a week early for — what I’ll grant you isn’t very good — fishing.

Discussion?  Public input?  Hello?

I don’t know…we’re killing wolves, electing Republicans, and now changing the fishing opener on the fly.  What the hell’s going on in Minnesota?  Send help, please.

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A Walk Away From the Order of Things

Image via Wikipedia

Darkness sets in early now and this is especially so in the cover of thick woods.  At almost the moment I stepped into the woods I saw a deer quietly pulling at some remaining green leaves on the path’s edge.  She looked up and stared, only 20 yards apart.  The deer waited motionless — frozen but seemingly unconcerned – and so I took a couple steps toward the animal.

I expected the deer to move quickly off the path, but instead she resumed eating.  I got a few feet closer and she looked up again, her ears pricked up high and straight.  This time she appeared more alert, with her neck taught and chin firmly pushing upward; she seemed to almost be standing on toe-tips, ready to to spring away.  Instead the deer took a half hop into the woods and was gone.

I kept walking slowly, trying to be quiet and casual.  I’m certain I must have seen this same deer many times.  I looked around for some of the others but found none of them.  When I reached the point where the deer had been feeding I looked into the woods and she was there, maybe 20 feet away.  She didn’t seem alarmed at all.  In fact she turned her gaze away from me to rub an itch on her flank, then slowly looked up again at me.

I thought of taking a step toward the wood, but didn’t really see the point.  I realized I would have been disappointed if the deer let me get any closer.  I’m worried enough as it is.  She seems too tame.  And as I am fretting about this the deer took a half step toward me, stretching her head in my direction.

I had ever been so close to a deer before and so I don’t know what deer do, but she seemed to be lifting and lowing her lip; I presume taking in my scent.  She didn’t seem at all stressed otherwise and so I worried more.

I know I am not the only person this deer sees.  We are in a city, after all, and even if the places she haunts are less known, certainly other people share my path often enough to see the deer.  It likely is a daily experience for her.  But I feel responsible…or responsibility, perhaps.  And so I worry.

This poor deer has grown so accustomed to people that she lingers easily when people are near.  What will happen when someone decides the city needs to cull the deer?

In a way I feel like my friendship with the deer in this park is a betrayal.  I give them no reason to fear me and I never spend more than a minute watching them.  By stopping, looking, and moving on I sense that I am telling them I am not a threat.  But I am a threat.  Not me specifically, but people like me.  And maybe my actions train the deer to misjudge people.  They don’t see us as a threat.  They don’t hide when they sense us approaching.  I don’t like to think about it.

(It was dark and getting darker fast.  That’s for sure.)

So I continued my walk.  The cemetery looked especially nice tonight.  My camera phone doesn’t handle low light very well.  But I did get a decent picture of the changing maples.  Cemeteries looks rather nice in the fall season.  I wonder if there’s something archetypical about that.

I’ve mentioned before that I find it ironic on these evening walks through the woods that the cemetery shines brightest, like a refuge of some sort.

Is this another of my silly posts?

No raccoons tonight, but I did stop and hope one would appear.  You have to stop in the woods.  Stop, stand still, and listen.  Tonight was a breezy and sounds were hard to pick up.  Nevertheless when you let your ears survey what is happening around you, you do pick up a lot.  Tonight I wasn’t disappointed.

I heard an owl calling from high up in one of the very tall, very old cottownwoods.  It was a great horned owl, I think…well, I’m pretty certain.  It called out on an interval spaced by a minute or two.

A tip for finding an owl — they are not easy to spot, especially in the dark — is to use a kind of triangulation.  Listen and get a general bearing.  Then move a short distance keeping your eyes fixed on a point in the direction from where you heard the owl.  Stop and wait.  Hear again and look again, adjusting your reference point.  Naturally your perceptions will start to home in on the owl.  At first I thought tonight’s owl was near the cemetery fence, but it turned out to be nearly on top of me!

Finding owls when you hear one in the woods can be a difficult task because their call is so throaty, soft, and muffled.  I gave up on actually seeing my owl tonight.  It was getting spooky dark.

In fact through the brush I saw moving figures heading toward another corner of the woods.  Druids, I suspect.  So I figured my time to linger had likely run out.  The night shift has things to do and who am I to get in the way.

I still worry about those deer though…

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Roughing it Elegantly

These Guys Get It!

I borrowed the title of this post from a book I had as a boy.  Roughing it Elegantly was a guide to the outdoors by Patricia Bell, I believe.  (I suppose I can look it up.)  Reading the book inspired an interest in the outdoors that hasn’t entirely faded, but has become far too passive.

It is another guide the outdoors that I want to comment about anyway.  Specifically it is a tip in the book that I enjoy very much.

The book is Your Cabin in the Woods, a 1945 perspective on recreational outdoor living written by Conrad Meinecke.  It is great fun to read and I often read it cover-to-cover in one sitting when I do read it.

The tip I enjoy most always makes me feel good.  I like the aesthetic, the style of the tip…literally.

In the chapter “What Shall I Wear?” he suggests for “Winter Togs” that one should select a “necktie to reflect one’s personality, whim or mood.”  Shoot, yes!  Why would you do anything else?  And I look forward to doing just this, selecting a necktie that reflects my personality, whim or mood whenever I am tramping about in the woods.  In fact I just went to the Brooks Brothers site (seems entirely apropos to fulfill this advice at Brooks Brothers) and selected two ties that I think will suit the task perfectly.  Both are a wool flannel and one suits a more flashy mood (stripes) and the other a more serious or working mood (grey herringbone).  I can hardly wait!

Now of course I need to make sure I have the proper shirt and vest or jacket combination for this tie, but I doubt there will be many fashion critics at the Decoy Inn or the Lumberjack to judge me one way or the other.  In general I think we need a bit more style — a little more panache – around us whether in the woods or not.  I’m going for it.

Not Bad, But a Tie Wouldn't Hurt.

And, by the way, it is indeed Patricia Bell who wrote Roughing it Elegantly.   I highly recommend both of these books — Your Cabin in the Woods and Roughing it Elegantly — for anyone with outdoors interests.   Roughing it Elegantly is a more practical and current guide book, but both offer a flavor for things as they once were and still can be in the woods.  They just come from the perspectives of different eras.  Nothing wrong with that either…just like wearing a tie in the woods.

Now that you have read this, tell your friends before scrolling down and reading more posts.  Hurry.  Don’t dally.

And since I am pointlessly babbling rather than concisely concluding my post with purpose, let me stoop to a little materialism, as if I haven’t already.  But golly…I have to say, I’m kind of giddy all over about this Bodum Frykat Grill!  You want to talk outdoorsy panache?  This has panache.  Where do I get one?

Regrouping: Day 2

Cover of Coraline (Single-Disc Edition w/ 3D)

 

(For those of you looking for Sweet Lake:  Part 2, have faith.  I have more pictures to share.)   

Today was not a bad day…sales-wise.  The problem here is we need better than “not bad,” we need great!  Last night I watched Coraline, a delightful film about a young girl overcoming incredible — even supernatural — odds.  Inspiring!  If Coraline could outsmart a dead old witch or whatever it was that she was doing, you’d think that an above average guy could have an average sales day, wouldn’t you?  Well…today’s goal was to get out and stay busy.  And I accomplished that.   

Today was another beautiful day along the St. Croix River Valley.  A brilliant day.  Bright blue skies and changing fall colors, trees in muted and subtle browns, oranges, and golds…but mostly yellow.  This really hasn’t been the best year for color yet.  A few trees really shine, but most are slowly giving up the summer green and we’re a long way from anything postcard-worthy.   

On a day like today, it can be a challenge to remain focused so I let the day steer my attention.  That isn’t always a bad thing.  A sales guy should clear his head every so often.  In my line of work true vacations are rare and costly.  If you’re not selling, you’re not making money; you need to be ahead by a few days to give up a few days and even then it can be very difficult to let go.  This is an important thing for anyone truly wired for sales to keep in mind.  If you are driven to sell, you’ll be feeling anxious about time away from the beat.  So what about the rest of us?   

Well, for those of us not truly wired for sales, downtime is no less anxious.  If you have time off and are not prepared for it, you’ll feel like you squandered go time and cheated yourself.  If you’re ahead of the curve and feel like you earned a day or two, you might feel guilty about giving it up to vacation.  Now of course I am speaking in the generalized “you, you, you” when it is really me, me, me…but I challenge a sales person to tell me it is different.   

Today will likely be chalked up to one of those squandered days, but not altogether a bad one to squander.  I mentioned that the day was gorgeous and that it truly was.    

River Level Falling. St. Croix River. Stillwater, MN. October 2010.

 

 I walked along the river in Stillwater.  It has been in flood, but if you look at this picture you’ll see by the line of floatsam that the water is receding…we are post-crest, kind of like my career!  

 

But not all of the day felt crestfallen.  Hardly.  I drove up toward my beloved Marine on St. Croix under the pretense of scouting out new leads.  Lo and behold, I found a few.   Actually met a couple of smart and professional business owners.  One in particular impressed me.  A young guy with a new garage right on the highway.  He isn’t set up with any advertising other than a decent and tasteful sign on the highway, but he appears to be doing all right.  He could do more and he understands that.  He seems to understand that he knows how to repair cars and is prepared to let people with other expertise help him grow.  I hope he chooses to do business with me.  I can help him.

 

In fact I met a few other smart professionals today.  No one came charging at me, knuckles dragging and mouth foaming to tell me what a fucking idiot I am.  I kind of a appreciate that, to be honest.  It feels good.  I talked with a manager of a bookstore, an attorney, a beauty salon owner, an antique dealer, and a roofer today…

 

Oh, the roofer.  Bad news there.  The guy can’t pay his bill.  Awfully polite about it, but that doesn’t do a hell of a lot for my bottom line.  I’ll lose this account and the commissions.  This is a bigger account, too.  I am doing what I can to coach him through this (something that I actually have some skill at doing) and find a way to keep his account alive, but it is not looking good.  My guess is the lights will be out come winter. 

 

It shouldn’t be that way.  I know from my sources alone he is getting flooded with leads.  He says he is getting work, too, but claims that the market is undercut by low bids from competitors.  Yes…and no.  Over the weeks I have tried calling this guy and he never answers his phone!  How can you do business when you don’t answer your phone?  And I have some of his competitors on my books.  They claim to be on a recovery now, making money again, hiring again, and I see yard signs from those businesses out around the market quite often. 

 

But that really is not my concern, I suppose, and I do feel badly for the struggling roofer.  Perhaps things will come around and it will not become a total loss for me.

 

eventually I made it to a nearby park for a stroll.  I chose Sunfish Lake Park in Lake Elmo, a point between my early door-swinging activity and a later appointment.  I like to take a walk at this park and it seemed like a good place to make some calls and get my papers organized.

 

The colors here were disappointing.  Still a lot of change to occur, but washed out yellows look like they will dominate the autumn landscape this year.  Not to be discouraged, I got out for a walk.  On this walk I loaded up my GPS so I could share my wanderings.  This is the first attempt to transfer a Garmin map to WordPress so not only is it exciting, but it is a bit uncertain, too.

Muted October Colors.

 

 

Hmmm…well, that was rather disappointing.  It seems that the GPS route has been saved as a separate post.  I’ll have to play with that a bit.  GPS makes me a little nervous anyway.  I feel vulnerable to CIA predator drones, but since no remotely-fired rockets have disrupted my walks yet, I walk on fearlessly. 

 

I did encounter two birds I am struggling to identify.  I would say they were quail, but I don’t think we have quail here and I am too far south for grouse; they looked too small anyway.  Perhaps they were grey partridge, but the colors seemed wrong.  These birds had a beautiful almost chocolate brown … what do you call it?…plumage?  (I almost thought foilage…been looking at too many faded trees.)   They were very easy going quail/partridge.  I thought I better sneak up on them for a good photo, but that effort was all in vain.  They didn’t do anything but squeak, chirp, and cluck as they outsmarted me and casually pidgeon-walked into the underbrush.  Why don’t birds fly for the camera! 

 

On my GPS map you might see where I went into the woods outfitted in an expensive suit and shoes  to outflank the little birds.  Cordovan leather actually does quite well in the brush.

 

I walked 1.55 miles and decided it was too hot to sit around the park and make calls.  I drove to Mendota, Minnesota, instead.  Now there is a park for making calls!  I went down by the old Faribault House and found a picnic table, brought out my laptop computer and my cell phone and started calling clients.  Now THIS might have been the most productive part of my day.  I am completely convinced that a peripatetic approach to making phone calls is the best way to do it.  Hell, there wasn’t an objection or an angry client that I could not handle while on my feet strolling through the sun-dappled shade of old Faribault’s historic back yard!  It was brilliant!  I was brilliant.  I really got a lot done.  Damn near made a sale, in fact, over the phone, but that seemed sloppy.  I scheduled to meet the client Friday morning.

Alexander Faribault's Back Yard. Mendota, MN.

 

This really was a highlight.  The day was slogging along, but in a pleasant sunshiney kind of a way.  Nevertheless, I was starting to feel a bit discouraged.  This was feeling like one of those days I would later recall as one squandered, although it never was all that bad.  Good things happened today.  But better things happened in Mendota.    

 

I even put pennies on the rail road tracks.  I used to think that flattened pennies would make great blades for spinning fishing lures.  I still think they would.  And if I get a chance to retire, I think I might even make a lure or two with flattened pennies as spinners. 

 

I also like trains and Mendota rarely disappoints.  Stay near the tracks long enough and a train will come by.  I enjoy standing near the train when it cars pass.  I get a sort of vertigo sensation that can make me feel a little motion sick.  Still, a train is an impressive sight.   (Hard to call clients from the side of noisy tracks, however.)

Choo! Choo! Trains are Cool!

 

 

 Your tour guide rambled on a bit.  The take aways today?  Bodies in motion stay in motion.  My approach to the day was not particularly graceful, but I kept finding ways to stay busy, even when it is most difficult for me to do so.  I really do love my strolls in the parks, watching trains, and driving down county highways.  It is hard to stay focused on sales.  But if I let my sales responsibilities share my day, I seem to get it done.  (Kind of a childlike approach.  Look at it that way.)

 

Now let’s see what we can do with this work.  Nothing matters if there isn’t a signature on an order.

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