Finding the real wacky world of the outdoors

I sat alone in an Appalachian Trail shelter watching rain pour down for the fifth straight day through tall pines.

More than 40 years later, I am guessing they were longleaf pines.

My Kelty backpack and everything in it, except for my food bag, was wet. Well, my sleeping bag was only damp. My sodden Vasque hiking boots weighed me down like cement shoes.

Misery sat shoulder to shoulder with me at the front of the shelter. I wanted to quit hiking the AT, but it would have involved a 12- or 15-mile bushwhack to the nearest little town. So I sat feeling sorry for myself. Pathetic.

Then squirrels started flitting about. One of them grossly misjudged a jump more than 60 feet in the air, thudded to the ground and knocked itself senseless. In my sorry self-pitying state, I was sure it was dead. I finally got the gumption to check, but then it got up groggily.

Too often, we want to imbue wildlife with a sort of special wisdom, almost a supernatural vision. A lot of times it is hogwash, sort of like bestowing Noble Savage on indigenous people.

Yes, it is a weird memory, but a vivid one. It came back to me last week via a pair of robins. As I turned on the garden hose to water my wife's flowers and my vegetables, a robin flushed with a loud scolding from our front lilac bush.

When it happened again the next morning, I checked the bush and found the robin eggs in a nest.

Why would it nest there? I guess they had a practical reason. I had pruned the lilac, which opened up enough space for the robins to build a nest inside.

If you're pruning lilac bushes, do it right after they finish blooming in the spring. And lilacs should be pruned hard, back as much as a third.

So it was open enough, yet protected, to build a nest. But why by the front door and a spigot I used almost every day?

That brought to mind a rash of less-than-bright moves in the natural world I've witnessed.

In May, Bill Buchhaas sent a photo of a mallard hen nesting in the Home Depot in Shorewood. It's not like there is a lack of nesting spots near water in Shorewood.

My all-time favorite came at our old house. My desk overlooked our backyard where we had a big wooden bird feeder, my favorite wedding gift from Jeff Wyse and Sheila O'Neil.

Stuck writing one winter, I was staring out the back window when I spotted a Cooper's hawk coming like a missile down the northern alley, then making a slight turn to crash our feeder. Instead it smashed full-speed into the feeder, knocked itself out and flopped on its back in the yard. I couldn't believe it.

After looking at it for a while, I figured I better see if it was all right. Just as I came around the back of the house, it rolled over, shook itself and managed to lumber into the air and fly away.

Don't even get me started on dumb rabbits, why they might be the perfect prey. Two weeks ago, our neighbor was exercising his dogs in their backyard when they stopped to stare at a rabbit frozen between us.

I asked Bob if he wanted me to flush it toward the dogs. He laughed and said, "They had a nest right here [pointing to where the dogs ran on their washing line] last week."

Anthropomorphism, basically attributing human characteristics to, especially, animals, is frowned up in the natural world. But what I am referring to is more of a attributing almost supernatural powers to the animal world, as if they do nothing wrong.

Reality is that wild animals do dumb things all the time. They also doing marvelous things.

Back to the Appalachian Trail that rainy evening, just before sunset the rain cleared out and the sun came out.

Before dark, the space between the tall pines filled with flying squirrels. I raptly watched them glide and my spirits lifted.

The next morning, I set out with renewed spirit. My walking and the heat dried my Vasque boots and I was able to dry much of my gear the next evening at the next shelter.

Even if I didn't yet know it, it was time.