Trailing

One of our mentors told us that "the only way to learn trailing is to trail." So, we shall trail. We started out this week at Cloverdale with a twist on our trailing theme: we mapped vole trails. Parting the thistle sea (in places), digging up tunnels, and probing grass thatch for well-worn runs, we set all our discoveries to paper.




Then we put the papers together to form a nine-piece map of the vole zone.



Back at camp, we made our fire, cooked dinner (yummy little bread buns filled with wild onions and chanterelle mushrooms and baked in the coals), and joined RDNA essentials and Cultural Mentors. We spent the evening forming new clans and societies. Everyone will get to try on new roles in the RDNA village.

The next morning Native Eyes set out for a rainy bird sit all by ourselves on the same vole hill. Intermittent periods of song, rain and silence marked the sit. Afterward, we got back on our trailing kick. We broke up into two groups and one group walked single file, not making an effort to hide their tracks, and hid. The other group trailed the first, keeping their heads up and eyes toward the horizon, trying to see the hiders before walking into their midst. We had so much fun that we played the game four more times before heading back to camp.



At camp, we got down to the business of helping to stoke the Essientials and Cultural Mentor people on tracking. Our first step was to set up a model of some particularly pertinent sign, helpfully placed at a focal point of the main house. We gathered the duff, sculpted the dummy turd, and arranged it painstakingly on the front porch. The first person out the door walked right past it without so much as a glance down. Actually, people noticed it pretty soon and began questioning us about it. Success!



To follow up, we sketched out posters and stuck them up on walls. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos.




The above showcase of scats is by yours truly. And no, the scats are not launching, levitating, flying or exploding. Those action lines are intended to represent scrapes in the ground.



That evening, the Essentials and Cultural Mentors folks watched the great dance, and we chatted with Jon Young about his upcoming trip to the Kalahari. We retired with many questions bouncing around our heads regarding bushmen, tracking, and mentoring.