Thief River Falls to Roseau Wagon Trail Thursday June 17, 2021

    Standing in the Palmville Cemetery recently, after a family funeral service, I thought about what the land adjoining the southwest corner of the cemetery looked like when my late uncle Martin and aunt Irene Davidson owned the quarter (1932-1971) and the northwest wind used to blow unabated through the tombstones.

    Deer grazed along what used to be an open field in 1971, and before that, some 70 years, an old wagon trail wore through the woods following the west side of Mikinaak Creek to its confluence with the South Fork of the Roseau River, northeast of the cemetery, where it flows northward toward Wannaska, some three miles distant.

 

A fifty by thirty mile survey map of Kittson, Roseau, and Marshall Counties

 

    The now-indistinguishable Thief River Falls to Roseau Wagon Trail, and clearing that the field had become is shaded now, north and west by tall rows of 41-year old white spruce and hybrid cottonwood trees that I planted in 1981, towering above the aspen, willow, and baumigilead growing in the creek basin and the bur oaks on south of the cemetery. Red fox and skunks sneak through them doing what they will during the night, as do deer, raccoons, and coyotes, and owls on their way afoot and wing. (Rumor has it a wolverine has been sighted by area residents; I may have even recently captured one on a trail camera.)

    Little has changed for wildlife here except they aren’t as persecuted at every turn as in the hundred years past. There’s little trapping done anymore; fewer people are living hereabouts, farming. This means fewer people traveling on rural roads to take shots at ‘varmints’ meaning: gophers, skunks, fox, woodchucks, brush wolves, gray wolves, weasels, hawks and owls.

        All the same, YouTube is full of images of urban brush wolves (coyotes). They’ve been populating cities across the country for years, and been needing a few varmint hunters to keep their precious cats and dogs safe from depredation. Instead of people shooting each other, they could hunt four-legged varmints. Unemployment rates would plummet. Pets could sleep on the stoop unmolested, if coyote (and raccoon) numbers would spiral down.

   https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/livingwith_wildlife/coyotes/index.html

  I have to say my wife isn’t fond of raccoons; she thinks they’re rummaging around wanting to find a way into the house via a chimney (which we don’t have) or roof vent (which we do) to den in our attic or put our drivable collection of very old cars to ruin with their wily goings-on. Raccoons go past the game cameras every night, one after another, trailing their big fluffy tails.

    To appease her, over the years, I’ve live-trapped several and released them unharmed on some DNR land on the Hovorka Ridge, 4 or 5 miles away. I’ve always wanted to mark them somehow to see if they make it back here eventually. Some people say just poison them; but I don’t have the heart to do that. I’ve gotten soft over the years, sure, but when the wife says,  according to the videos, all they’re doing lately is digging up worms and grubs, I think ‘what’s the harm?’ I may regret it some day, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

    

     Yes, yes, yes (groan) she feeds the birds this time of year, yet. In years past, we have solicited bears doing this, but not this year so far. The fact is the benefit outweighs the threat of bears on our doorstep. We wake up to the birds singing every morning and throughout the day, and this makes her very happy except for hearing one annoying bird, who, all day long, sits in different trees all directions of the compass, and emits a highly discernible “Eep” every two or three minutes. This does not make her happy; so I am made aware of it just as often -- unless I can make myself scarce.

    She has looked for it on-line and learned that other (women mostly) people are disturbed by the same repeated call which they have identified as baby Great Horned owls. The owlets are in the very early stages of semi-adulthood, but still waiting for their parents to come with food for them; and waiting and waiting and waiting. “Eep! (Ma!)" And "Eep!" and "Eep!” See how annoying it is? ARGH.

    But on the other hand, it could be worse, just as she poignantly pointed out yesterday morning, bless her. We’ve really got it made living herein a rural environment; far from next-door neighbors (and I’ll bet the feeling is mutual), amid the beauty of northwest Minnesota’s woods, weeds, and water. We get to sit in our big shaded screen tent on cool mornings, and leisurely drink coffee (or other beverages), play a few hands of cards, and appreciate the world around us for as long as we are physically able to acknowledge such mediocre things more every day just off the Thief River Falls to Roseau Wagon Trail.