animals (151)

Fox and Weasel Skins

Skinning roadkill animals is such a win-winner. Rather than left to rot, the skins can be rendered like this. I skin the animal, tack it down (pushpins) while stretching it, fur side down, on piece of plywood. Then I cover it with salt so no skin is visible. In about a week I remove the salt, roll it up, and ship it to Bucks County Fur Products in Quakertown, PA. In about 6 weeks, UPS delivers a beautiful tanned skin. Ooops! Haven’t I said all this before?

   Shown are 2 weasels, and a fox with a thick glossy coat; fur seems best in the cold season, when their coats are maxed out. I need another fox or two and then my friend Louie and I are going to make me a fur coat. Fur inside. Roadkill coat. I like that.

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Bobcat Hunting Gophers

Dear Lloyd,

Your blog is one of my very favorites, inspirational and informational. I won’t even go into the fact that I still have my original copy of SHELTER, purchased in 1975 at a bookstore in Cleveland, Ohio.

   I thought you might enjoy these photos of a bobcat I surprised on an early morning hike at Sonoma Mountain outside Petaluma. He/She was hunting gophers when I came along (luckily with a telephoto lens!). I went to post these on Instagram and was dismayed to find that the bobcat hashtag was overrun with photos of hunters proudly holding up their beautiful dead bobcats (one hunter even referred to his kill as “nigga”). Sad, to me, anyway.

   So, please enjoy!

   Sincerely,
Stefan (Gutermuth)

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Around the Homestead as The Year Turns

Cold Weather Layering Brrr! Cold. For California, that is. Sunny morning. California defaults to blue skies in winter, whereas I’ve found Europe in winter defaults to grey. These mornings, it’s 40-50° inside the production studio. Right now I have on 5 layers — silk undershirt, 2 different weight Smartwool Merino shirts, homemade vest, Patagonia down vest, homemade (fingerless) gloves, silk scarf and large wool scarf, homemade Alpaca wool knit hat. Oh, and Smartwool Merino wool longjohns, knee-length wool socks and Army fatigues (which I love for the pockets), Keen (the brand, that is) lightweight hiking boots. Actually, I never toted up all my winter clothes before. Layers. We have a couple of little 660 watt ceramic electric heaters which we use to heat the person, not the room. I leave mine on for maybe half an hour on cold mornings, then turn off. Take a walk to get blood moving.

Skinning Roadkill Fox The other morning a large ice chest appeared in our yard with a note saying, “For Lloyd from Nate.” Inside was a very large male grey fox that had been hit by a car. It had a beautiful glossy winter coat. There used to be lots of them around, then maybe 10-12 years ago, they all disappeared. Now coming back; beautiful, elegant little animals. They are to domestic dogs like buffalo are to beef cattle.

I skinned it, stretched it on a piece of plywood and salted it down. In a week I’ll send it off to be tanned.

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Foxy Lady

Went off on my weekly coastal run last night. The  (full) moon had just come over the horizon, and after getting lost and cold last week, I had gloves, a warm hat, and a flashlight and windbreaker in my Camelbak carrier. Closing barn door after… A big storm front moved in and pretty soon, the moon was blocked. Unlike last week, I knew exactly where I was and retraced my route from last Tuesday and saw where I’d taken a wrong turn. Kind of like when I was a diver on the high school swimming team, did a full gainer, and hit the board with both knees. My coach made me go right back and do the dive again. OK the 2nd time.

   On the path back down, salamanders were out in force. They’re kind of like dumb, happy mini dinosaurs, taking their time—clomp, clomp, clomp. Nobody wants to eat them; I imagine they’d taste like mush. When I got back to the pub, here was this beautiful little fox on the lawn. Healthy coat, bushy tail, constant awareness.

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Grizzly Trashes Toyota SUV

“There are no scratches on the outside of this car, but the vehicle is totaled!

A man in Waterton Park, (south of Calgary), came out to find the inside of his 18 month old Toyota Sequoia trashed.

A grizzly bear had somehow got a door open. Once inside it got trapped when the door shut behind him, probably by the wind.

The Toyota was the Platinum edition, all the door panels were ripped off, the head-liner torn to pieces, all headrests, the leather seats, the dash shredded. The steering column was twisted sideways. Two of the six airbags went off, the other four the bear ripped to pieces.…” From yougottobekidding

Sent by Lew Lewandowski

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Harmony Farm Supply and National Heirloom Expo

We had a great day yesterday. North into farmland, to Sebastapol and the Harmony Farm Supply, what a great place. Good tools, good additives, seeds, irrigation, etc. No foul chemical smells. Knowledgeable staff.

   Then to the National Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa. Unique event. Yesterday was the last of 3 days (Tues-Wed-Thurs). Tons of different heirloom fruits, vegetables, cheeses, on and on… goats, sheep, cows, turkeys and a huge display of bantam chickens. Food booths (and samples) up the kazoo. It’s a very together farming, gardening, food preparation and preservation show. Real food and respect-for-earth concepts and practices have come a long way in the last 25 years — progress. I’m going to this for sure next year, and we’ll probably get a booth and sell building books. Our kinda people.

   Back through Petaluma and Heritage Salvage, huge amount of recycled lumber, including some stunning old barn timbers.

  Got a lot of good pics yesterday, no time to do anything other than this with 3 of them:


This was on back road between Petaluma and Sebastapol.

Real tomatoes

Bantam Silver Spangled Hamburg

raised by Janelle Thope

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Deer On Beach on Foggy Morning

This was at Drake’s Beach early one foggy morning. I’d walked to the end of the beach and when I started back, I saw that these deer had come down an arroyo. From a pretty long distance away, they spotted me and turned to face me, ears splayed out like sonar detectors to pick up sounds. At this point I was maybe 200 yards away from them, and they scurried back up the arroyo.

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Sea Otters

“Sea otters gather in a yacht harbor in Moss Landing. Scientists were pleased to see the population increase after a decrease was observed from 2009 to 2010. Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle / SF”

These guys just crack me up, the way they lie on their backs. Relaxation. In the ’50s, there was one at the Wild Hook surf spot in Santa Cruz who would come right up to us as we sat on our boards. We called him Sammy the sea otter.

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Foggy Morning, Grieving Crows, Iridescent Dragonflies, and Big Buck

We had a real hot day (for us) a few days ago and I took a long bike ride to a pond deep in the hills. To get in the water I had to make a tunnel through the cattails. The technique is to wade forward and lie down on the cattails and they will accomodatingly bend over, and then when you can’t wade, you swim forward and push them down and pretty soon voila!, you’ve entered the pond through a cattail tunnel. Smooth pond surface.

   Being back in jock mode now that I’m home, intending to build back strength lost in recent months (years), I started out with my triathalon style crawl, smooth and steady. Jeez, it felt good, but after a while I decided to float for a while, and as soon as I did, 3 iridescent red dragonflies buzzed out from the shore like combat helicopters, skimming the surface and angling around my head. They’d go back to shore and buzz out again, I guess cruising for insects. Sparkling. Pretty cool. I decided to float longer. A little bird—dark on top, white on bottom, species I’d never seen—hopped down on a cattail 10′ from me. Didn’t register to him this was a humanoid.

  Then there was movement on the hill and a magnificent buck deer walked serenely across the hillside, oblivious of me. The full monte. Now I’m truly home.

   This morning on the highway, there were 3 crows sitting on the line, looking kind of hunched up, not normal. There was a dead crow on the road — never seen one that I can think of, and these family members were doing I don’t know what. But crows are powerfully intelligent creatures (see the book Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays by Candace Savage) and this was a strong scene.

   On the way back from yoga, the Beach Boys doing “Good Vibrations” on radio. Jeez, this is a masterpiece. Back in the day I never took them seriously. The only one who was real surfer was Dennis. They just seemed lightweight in my quest to be ever hip. I overlooked the soaring harmonies and intricate instrumentals. This is on the Mozart level.

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