Voleopolis

We became voles in Native Eyes this week.

We drove down to Pescadero, had a challenging time with the bow drill on Tuesday night (the later and darker it gets, the harder firestarting seems), ate delicious fish provided by our fisherman, and crashed out. One of the Cultural Mentoring people helped me greatly with my bow drill technique, and then I joined the rest of the Native Eyes crew
sleeping around our fire circle. It was a frosty night, and even with my borrowed 15 degree bag I had cold spots and major trouble sleeping. I need a good sleeping bag.





The next morning we went out to Cloverdale Ranch to explore for voles. Out in the meadowy valley bottom, we got on our hands and knees and began rustling through grass and bull thistle (ouch!) in search of vole sign. Immediately apparent was a network of trails about one to two inches wide of packed-down dry grass, concealed under the layer of thatch: the characteristic grass tunnel systems of California voles. We followed the trails for hours, finding underground tunnels, middens, latrines, caches, chambers, nests, and what must have been miles of vole grass
trails. We mapped Vole City, played a tag game of voles and predators,
saw, stalked and chased real voles, and even got nibbled by voles in
their tunnels.





In the evening we traveled further South to log some more data points on our Cybertracker units and visited the Hypericum infestation there. Perhaps we’ll have more time to investigate the Hypericum next week.