Willow Spring Pics and the Promised Natural Dye Pics too!

Okay, so I checked my trail camera today and it was a good thing I did. I set it down by a little wetland area I call Willow Spring, near a bunch of overgrown apple trees and overgrown pasture land. This place is thick with brush, grasses, shrubbery and dead trees. There is a lot of browse and food around, and lots of cover for all sorts of animals. My camera caught pics of red squirrels, eastern cottontails and chipmunks but no birds this time around. I also got a pic of the resident porcupine, a skunk and a ton of raccoons! There are tons of them, mostly a pair that seem to be brother and sister, and once in a while, there are three of them running around.

They all seem very healthy, and it is nice to see them around, because the raccoon population got hit really hard about 10 years ago when the rabies epidemic moved through the area. We had a few rabid raccoons move through camp at that time, and we had to make sure none of the campers got anywhere near them. Then, after the wave of disease passed, we saw hardly any raccoons around our camp for many years.

So, it is good to see them back! I am also sure that they are hitting our compost pile hard during the summer season, and searching the bushes for crusts of sandwich and apple cores.

The skunk and porcupine didn't stick around long as they passed through the area, so I am thinking they are finding a lot of food and aren't all that hungry to sample the fallen apples.

The deer stayed for a long time, and I had about fifteen pictures in different stages of eating, sniffing, scratching and looking around. I was surprised that there weren't more deer running around in the area than just this one, but I guess they aren't using this trail.

Next week I will post more pics and I am moving my camera to another spot, so we will see if I can get a picture of a coyote, or a fisher or maybe the bobcats rolling through. I will probably pick up a road kill of some kind to see if that will attract some different animals. Meat, especially decomposing meat, will bring in crows, hawks, opossums and other scavengers. We might even see a bear!

Right now, the forest and swamps are chock full of berries, hawthorne apples, wild apples, acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts and lots of other seeds and foods. It hasn't been that cold yet, so the need to pack on the calories hasn't kicked in just yet, but it will happen.

Getting good pictures starts with scouting the trails, to see which ones are being used by game and finding food sources, too. I have a lot of timberframing to do for the next few months, but I will try to get out for a mid morning walk and see what I can see.

I am also adding some pics of Trista's wool, which she dyed last week. The colors came out beautiful, and she is going to make a sweater with it! More pics of that as she gets it started...

She used elderberries, goldenrod, onion, black walnut and purple asters, I think. They came out pretty nice, don't you think?

Fall Update and Thoughts...

Just wanted to let you know that Trista and I are putting together some photos about her natural wool dyes, as well as some Juniper pics, on her blog, Nature's Hearth, and I should have some nice pics from my game camera soon to post on this blog in a few days. Willow Spring seems to have two very active raccoons, who look healthy and well fed, as well as the usual deer and rabbits moving through on the trails. I think you will like the pics!

We also have three workshops coming up this fall, in October. The first is the Sacred Hunt, October 1-3, which shares skills, philosophy and awareness of the sacred art of hunting, (pretty obvious!) The second is the Unearthing the Soul Retreat, with Trista, October 8-10, which is about preparing for the coming year's growth, vision and changes as well as celebrating the past year's learning and manifestations.... good stuff and very effective and powerful, too.

Last but not least is the Wolverine Survival Intensive, October 22-24, which covers the skills of survival and earth philosophy that will change how you see and experience the woods and nature forever... Chock full of learning and crafts and skills, it won't let you down!

I know we are just a few weeks away from a big election and all the blather about the economy and stuff the media wants us to obsess about, but if you take a moment and think, most of what is important to us in life doesn't have to do with that stuff. It has to do with the people we love, with the connections we make as friends and family, and our ability to enjoy our lives, work for a greater purpose and feel good about ourselves. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't be a pawn in the media/political arena, and get outside, feel good, and work on things you can change and grow with, rather than stress about fear, hate and worry. In the wild, you can't change a thunderstorm. You just ride through it. It will pass, eventually, as it always does. The sun comes out, and there is another day. Don't let yourself be caught up in things that waste your time and don't really help build towards your personal vision and family and community.

We all make choices in our lives, as to what we want to focus on. What we choose to listen to, and thus create our own reality. This isn't an opinion, it is a practice, one that must occur every day. We hear what we want to hear, what's important to us, or what we value.

Have a great fall, and hope to see you soon!

Skills for the New Earth-Connected Generation: Our Sustainability and Wilderness Apprenticeship

So, you can see the direction our country, our world is heading, and the writing is on the wall. On the rocks. On concrete buildings and tall trees.

No matter which way you slice it, the bubble, as we have come to know the modern world, is beginning to burst. Or pop. Sure, it is a lot of small and medium pops that so far we have been able to weather and handle, but it's getting worse. Slowly, creeping, steadily advancing on us, we know

that it's time to pay the piper. Our debt to the animal world, the Earth Mother, to our future generations, is coming due.

You don't want to use the Ostrich Technique and pretend it isn't coming. On the other hand, building a bunker doesn't feel right either.

What you need, really, are Skills.

Experience.

Learning things that will last, that will have value no matter what the future holds. Things that can feed us, feed our families, our souls.

Skills can sustain us, and remove fear.

Skills let us breathe, to relax and feel good about our lives, our direction, our purpose and path.

Skills last forever, and can be passed down to our friends and family and community.

What to do. What to do.......

Hey! I have an idea!

Join the Hawk Circle Wilderness and Sustainability Apprenticeship. It is a powerful blend of old ways, modern skills and knowledge you can use right now to reconnect

with nature, your deeper self, and grow.

Apprentices learn about gardening, composting, harvesting foods and preserving them. They learn to make baskets and buckskin, take part in workshops and youth trainings. They learn the art of traditional timberframing, as well as practical skills of stacking firewood, basic carpentry skills, cooking and much more.

Apprentices make a four to five month commitment, and provide their own food for the duration of the program.

They participate for five days a week, sometimes part time, sometimes full time, trading their sweat equity for real experience and skills that change how they see the world forever.

The farmhouse is heated by a wood stove, and the shared commercial kitchen allows for fabulous meals, communal gatherings and potlucks. The barn is ready for all kinds of projects both building and native skills. The natural surroundings are perfect for this kind of retreat and intensive, undistracted learning.

We only need five people for the fall and winter, so if you would like to be considered, please contact Ricardo or Trista at 607-264-3910 or HawkCircleOffice@gmail.com.

We'd be happy to see if this program would be a good fit for you.

Remember: Skills Trump Fear. They are the antidote to catharsis, to just going along with the herd, and they are the key to freedom.

Skills you can choose from to learn while in the Apprenticeship:

Tanning Deerskins using Braintanning

Fire by Friction, without matches

Natural Fiber Rope and

String

Bark Baskets and Containers

Basic Stone Tools

Knife Sharpening and Care

Useful Knots for the wilderness

Cutting, Splitting and Stacking Firewood

Bread Baking and Herbal Butters

Campfire Cooking Skills

Wilderness Shelter Building

Traditional Timber Framing Cabins and Barns

Bow Making

Deer Hunting Skills

Organic Gardening

Harvesting, Identifying & Preparing Wild Foods

Tree and Plant Identification

Community Living Skills

Winter Snow Shelters and Survival Strategies

Earth Philosophy and Personal Ceremony

Animal Tracking and Nature Awareness

Working with Youth teaching Native skills and crafts

Raising Cabins and Barns

Okay, there are probably a ton of other skills I am forgetting to list here, but these are the first ones that come to mind that past apprentices have wanted to focus on, so here ya go! If you want to learn some other skills not on this list but that are listed on our website, give us a call and we will see if it can work out!

The Fall Semester at Hawk Circle: September 5th-October 30, 2010

Have you ever shot a real bow and arrow? Gathered your dinner from a mountain meadow or grove of trees? Do you know how to skin and prepare good meat from a hunt? Can you make a warm shelter to spend a cold night in the woods?

These are some of the skills offered in the Fall Semester at Hawk Circle.

It's not just skills, though. It is about wandering, connecting, and exploring yourself as you connect to the natural world.

Time changes at Hawk Circle. You can read for hours in the sun or grass, then be inspired to make indian curries for

dinner with your fellow students. You can make your own buckskin, or an ash splint packbasket that you will have for generations. You can sleep under a star filled sky so clear that it takes your breath away.

Insight, healing, rejuvenation and finding one's path are what this program is all about. It will change you in a good way. You will find strength, knowledge, direction and friendship.

Autumn is my favorite season, and the colors of the leaves, the frost, the fresh berries and foods are all amazing. I love giving someone their first taste of cattails, or wild game cooked over the fire. I like sitting out in the pre dawn on someone's first bow hunt, waiting to see what comes along, while we are invisible.

You can build a shelter with sticks, leaves and bark. You

can draw sketches of plants, or carve a bow and arrow. You can learn to timberframe cabins and homes using sustainable methods our ancestors used for hundreds of years, too. You can spend time in the garden, harvesting the remains of the summer crops and planting new seeds for the spring.

Later, as the season winds down, we sit around the woodstove, working on our projects, playing guitar or drums, and share our stories along with sweet birch or pine needle tea. "Will it snow tonight?" someone will ask. "If it gets cold enough!" I will answer, and we go to sleep wondering what the morning will bring.

Eventually, we find our spots on the mountain where we will go to seek our vision, our inner path and truth and purpose. Here we sit for day, or several, some without food, asking for guidance and direction. We support each other in our

seeking and inner journey, under the guidance of our mentors and staff. "It's hard" I say, "but it's worth it."

There is a light that begins to shine in a person's eyes when

they uncover their truth and discover their own path. It is a shine that comes from within and it let's part of their spirit out into the world, seeing things in new ways, with hope and trust and brightness.

If you need a little inner light, or the taste of autumn olive jam on fresh baked bread, come spend a season here at Hawk Circle. We'd love to have you around our campfire.

Willow Spring Trail Camera Pictures

I put my trail camera on a small elm tree overlooking a little wet spring to see what might come by. It's about 200 yards from my house, and the game trail is in an area that gets little human traffic. The whole area used to be pasture, along with some old heirloom apple trees that could have been an orchard a hundred years ago.

The red osier dogwood, black willows, sedge grasses, arrow wood viburnum and nannyberry provide excellent cover for all kinds of animals, as well as food, and there is plenty of water, too.

The trails of deer, foxes and other animals crisscross the region, and there seems to be food available during every season.

I didn't bait the area, so these pictures are all from animals moving around, in their natural environment, doing their thing.

The porcupine chews on plywood scraps inside our timber framing barn workshop, when he can get in.

We hear him gnawing in the woodshed or barn, and it is always fun to see how our students react to finding him with a flashlight at night!

One thing that is funny is that we don't really see the raccoons or hear them at our camp, even though they are clearly here and around us all of the time. Very few tracks, no problems, etc.

I hope to keep it that way! I am sure they get a chicken or two during the year, but you never can be sure it isn't the bobcat or a fox, either.

The bobcat is probably a large female who had two kittens last year. I saw the pair of them while bowhunting last year, chasing a rabbit. I first saw the rabbit, a small cottontail, stalking his way through the honeysuckle and hawthorne, and I couldn't figure out why he was stalking until he was out of sight. Then a few minutes later, I saw the young bobcat sniffing and following his trail. He never missed a step, and he would stop and sniff the air above his head to catch any other scents. He was followed shortly after by his twin, who seemed to be mostly checking up on the situation. Neither of them saw, heard or smelled me, perched in my tree stand about ten feet up. It was one of my favorite moments hunting last year.

Enjoy the pics. I have moved my camera to another area, and will keep moving it around and seeing what I get. I am hoping to get some pics of the coyotes, which have remained elusive so far, and also the fisher, the beavers, maybe a mink or two, and even the rare but present bear in the area.... I will post them as I check the camera every month or so.

Earth Changes & Wilderness Skills: A free Conference Call with Ricardo Sierra

Why a Relationship with Nature is Important for our selves and our children.
The changes that have been happening over the last two decades are mostly likely appetizers for the main courses to come. Each wave of disturbance, disappearance or storm is followed by new growth and awareness, no matter if the wave is ecological, social, technological or economic. I will be sharing ideas, concepts and strategies for understanding what has been happening and continues to unfold, and provide guidelines that can help you, your family or business adapt and grow.

Email us at HawkCircleOffice@gmail.com and let us know you are interested. We'll send you the call-in info and log-in code.

Many blessings,

Ricardo

The Battle on the Balance Beam: Wolverine vs Ninja Cat, vs Red Squirrel

Last weekend, we went on a great hike and found a perfect log for balance beam battles.... Personally, I am waiting until it is a little warmer, but the staff and apprentices were not deterred by the icy waters! Here is the video of their adventures...

P.S. Did you see the hidden animal in the dry leaves? It is a scout awareness test! Let me know what it is if you find it!