This post details the events of May/June 2022. I have no idea how to write this like a normal person.
Shoutout to Derek Tepe for inspiring me to finish this post. Without him I don’t know when I ever would have. Thanks Derek and I hope you enjoy it.
Did you have fun today?
Make sure you have fun today.
Yesterday I got my fun by declaring that I would twist Mr. Parker Junior’s nipples every time he scratched himself. He’s been wearing shorts up to the mid-thigh, and all that exposed leg is being devoured by insects, and is now covered in bandaids because he can’t stop scratching his bites. In the ten or so minutes between declaring my intentions and moving on with life I got to twist his nipples several times. When I twisted them, he would curl up into a defensive ball and cry “Stop!” and then offer many and varied explanations for his unhealthy behavior, as is his custom. I would not have done this if I had not made a conscious decision then and there that I was going to have some fun, however I would get it. I did, and it changed the trajectory of my day. Sometimes a fun-jection is just what the doctor ordered. So, make sure you’re having fun. You’ve gotta have it. You should play every day.
I have recently spent several weeks of my life in the remote recesses of the mountains of Japan, in a lonely home with a wild Australian man, learning bird calls, following boar trails, hunting for owls, turning all faucets to the right, and unplugging all appliances when not in use. This home was located in a small town nestled in the hills of Kuju, Ubuyama, or the full name, Ubuyamamura, which means Ubuyama village. The kanji for Ubuyama is 産山, which could be interpreted as “Birth Of The Mountain”. I stayed under the good graces of James Cool, who we will henceforth refer to as Scrumpillion Wombus, or in full, The Lord Scrumpillion Wombus, as it is a perfect mix of regality and preposterousness that is the man himself. Scrumpillion Wombus was a gracious host – as long as I did not breathe too loudly, walked on the edges of the stairs so as not to make them creak, did not talk to him more than once every three days, set all faucets to the right and unplugged all appliances as mentioned, kept the royal laundry pole hanging, properly hid myself from the neighbors, showered at regular intervals, and blew my nose when necessary, I was free to do as I pleased, and come and go as I pleased. That is, until that fateful day when he said to me, “Well this has been fun, hasn’t it? You have until the 6th.”
I lived in the other room on the second floor of The Lord Scrumpillion Wombus’s fine estate. The room that was not The Lord’s. Prior to my arrival it had been Scrumpillion’s workout room, where he would carry out a variety of royal workouts, such as shadow-boxing, tabata, and manic cleaning, and where he would hang his laundry from the royal laundry pole. He graciously gave me this room for my stay, on the condition that I keep the aforementioned pole, a long metal rod precariously resting on protruding edges of wall near the ceiling. This request I of course initially obliged, and continued to oblige even after the laundry pole had fallen, entirely to my fault, as I had forgotten to lock it in place with the royal safety hangers (hangers hooked onto the pole at the ends between where it rested on the blind racks above the windows – if you attempted to slide the pole off, the hangars would keep it in place, stuck between the bars of the blind rack) (an ingenious security system that none less than The Great Wombus himself could contrive), and it had crashed into my enormous, precious new photo-editing monitor, that thankfully was built with resistance to thick steel laundry pole attacks in mind, this being one of the main reasons why I was attracted to it in the first place – even after this incident I continued to oblige, now having been instructed in the ways of The Lord’s failsafe hanger security system, that immediately failed, as I went to open the blinds and released the hanger, and the pole fell down onto the only spot in the room that it possibly could have landed between the mounds of camera gear, computer equipment, human craniums, and precious monitors, to strike absolutely nothing, and I took this as a sign from the divine, a being higher than even The Lord Wombus himself (if there really could be such a being), that for the remainder of the duration of my stay, the royal laundry pole really must go.
During this wild recursion at the Lord Wombus’s great estate, my best friends and greatest source of amusement, Scrumpillion aside, were not actually human. They were the feathered, flying, frenzied denizens of the woods – the avians. Yes, there is a whole ‘lotta bird goin’ on over in them mountains of Ubuyama. I could talk at great length about these birds, and I would love to do so, but I fear at the risk of alienating myself from those who are not as interested in these whimsical featherballs, like for example The Lord Scrumpillion Wombus, to whom I attempted to speak with about birds on many an occasion, and who would, in his very keen, very sharp intuition, understand immediately on what topic I came to him to discuss, and would upon perceiving it, reply, “Bird! Bird!” But, somewhat surprisingly, he did assist me with my bird investigations by sharing a find with me, when he sent me a photo of a bird that he dubbed the “fat stupid bird”. The bird that Wombus discovered was none other than the kojyukei, and I was personally aggrieved that in all my searching I was never ever able to find this bird myself; but alas, The Lord’s partridges reveal themselves only to The Lord himself.
I didn’t see this bird, but I heard it many times. This was a common with the birdfolk. You would hear them every day, hear them all around you, right outside the window, and yet, try as hard as you might, you may never see them. This particular bird, the kojyukei, I heard almost every single day that I was there in Ubuyama, and tried to track it down countless times, and never did I succeed. Then Scrumpillion, who couldn’t care less, see them, not only once, but several times, on his way home from work! What a scoundrel.
Had he known then the sounds this fat stupid bird is capable of, he may have labelled it a fat stupid shrieking bird instead.
We’ve now come to the point where I show you all of my bird pictures. These photos were almost all taken from The Lord Scrumpillion’s estate grounds.
There is a story behind every one of these shots. Some stories are short. “I saw the bird and took a picture.” That would be the Wombus way of storytelling. Some stories are longer. One of these such stories is the Aobato story. The Aobato is the Whistling Green Pigeon. The Whistling Green Pigeon was one of my favorites. For one, because it’s a green pigeon. Do I need to say anymore? When all you’ve ever seen are the classic grey pigeon (we did have these in Ubuyama, I was surprised to see them), seeing a green one feels like finding a shiny version of a Pokemon. (Shiny Pokemon are a rare version of the Pokemon that has a different color scheme and is of course, shiny.) However, as if being green wasn’t enough, these pigeons also have an allure in they they are extremely shy, and will never show themselves to humans. They sing their iconic songs all throughout the day, just to remind you that they do exist, and they are out there, you’re just not allowed to see them. You can see from the photo however that not only was I able to see one, but I also snuck a photograph, although I will not say I was allowed to do this. That little green pigeon absolutely did not want to be seen by me, and as soon as it realized it had been discovered, it jolted up, and flew off in a hurry. I have never seen a bird more startled or panicked by my presence. I had really given up all hope of ever seeing this bird, after so many forays into the wild in search of it, and in the end, I had found it through a new bird-sighting technique I had developed after many such unsuccessful hunts. This technique I call looking-for-birds-by-not-looking-for-birds, and I will explain what this means. Of course, it’s not really a good name for the technique, and it should probably be immediately renamed, because the whole point is that you are in fact looking for birds. The secret of the technique lies in how you approach the looking, and I can give you analogy that you don’t need because this is very easy to understand, and I just love analogies. Instead of walking around your house looking on every counter and under every pillow in search of your keys, with this technique, you simply sit on the floor of the living room, and wait for your keys to come to you. Obviously this does not work with keys, (although when you stop and think about it you’re probably more likely to remember where you put them) because birds are really nothing like keys. Birds move around a whole lot more, and birds are more perceptive than you and I, and have better eyesight and the higher ground. They will always see you before you see them, and they will probably hear you too. So, I learned through experience that looking for birds by walking around and saying, “Here birdie birdie birdie!” is pretty useless, but if instead, you pick out a nice spot on the ground and sit there and wait, you will have great success. That’s how I found the aobato, and a whole lot of other birds. I would go out into the meadow behind the Lord’s estate, and sit somewhere where I could survey all, and just wait. I would do this in the mornings, most often, when the birds were at their chirpiest and most active. It was amazing an amazing place to be, on these mornings, to see and hear the incredible whirlwind of bird activity, and it really was a whirlwind. It wasn’t always at the same time of morning. Sometimes it was the crack of dawn, as early as 4 am, other times they seemed to take it easy and relax for a few hours into the day before starting up, but whenever it happened, when it was decidedly bird party o’clock, they were all in, and every bird in the forest was a part of it. All the action happened at this time, and you knew it was happening because it sounded like every single bird in the forest was singing its little lungs out, and all kinds of different birdies would be shooting across the meadow every which way, perched in the trees, flittering in and around them. It is an incredibly joyful thing. It’s really hard to watch a bunch of birds in their morning joy and not be delighted. On one morning, I was truly awake for the very first call of the day. It was the morning of my first solo camping. A major achievement, and I had successfully survived (at one point in the night I had doubts if I would), and I had woken up even before the dawn, the pre-dawn, and watched the sky brighten through the tiny screen in the apex of the tent, that I gambled with and left uncovered by the rain flap, so I could do just such a thing, and I swear not a minute after, even thirty seconds after I had the thought, “I wonder when the birds will start chirping…”, right on cue the first chirp came. Soon after that, the Hototogisu came, the “lesser cuckoo”. Then there was singing all night long.
On one of my Aobato forays I found something else that I had been looking for. But really, I should say that it found me. We found each other, out there, two wanderers in the woods. The Aobato (the green pigeon) call is distinct and there is nothing else like it out in those woods. It was also loud, and I could hear them often from the house. I kept my windows open at all times to hear all the calls, and many times I would hear something new or strange and run over to the window, or outside if I had to, to see what I could see, and in this way I discovered several birds, such as the Ooakagera, the White-backed Woodpecker, who I heard, from a tree 30 meters out in front of the house, all the way from my bedroom, by the pure force of their banging into the tree, and the Kogera, the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, who also has a very cute chirp, and my ears were frequently delighted with both the light hammering and cute chirping of this tiny bird. Actually it was good luck that there are two dead trees right outside the back of The Lord’s estate, both in clear view from the window, and so I got to see woodpeckers too. Woodpeckers like dead trees because they have little yummy bugsies in them. In total I saw three different kinds of woodpeckers – the Kogera, the Ooakagera, and the third, the Aogera, or the Japanese Green Woodpecker. On the second day of my arrival I beheld it in all its colorful beauty as I stood at the window with Scrumpillion himself – and then to my dismay, never again.
This woodpecker was hanging around though, as many of these birds were, even if they didn’t show themselves. I spent many hours waiting at the window, for many birds, but especially for this bird, gazing at my dead trees longingly, camera on the ledge of the window, bug-screen slightly cracked. I had to keep the screen cracked, even at the risk of Giant Japanese Death Hornets (Suzumebachi) flying into my room, so that I wouldn’t scare the birds off when I opened it to take a picture. Giant Japanese Death Hornets did fly into my room, but actually they have never concerned me, because they are so big and giant and deadly that they must have nothing to fear, and are very relaxed and self-assured, and so they don’t care about me. That Aogera never showed itself again, but I knew it was out there, because one day, as I sat in my chamber and listened to various bird calls, when I came to the Aogera, I played the call, and immediately from the woods outside came the same call in response. I probably could have used the call to bait one, but I learned that this is not a good thing to do, as you are deceiving the birds, and that is immoral. (Really it is a problem because birds are A. very territorial and B. looking for love, and so when they hear the call they will either frantically search for the intruder, or frantically search for new love, and waste energy doing so.) If you die in Japan, and have been naughty, you will be sent to one of many various hells as punishment for the crimes you’ve commited in your earthly debauchery, with a creative and relevant punishment to meet the crime. I have seen some of these firsthand as displayed with cutting edge animatronics and state of the art plaster demon sculpting. I can only imagine the tortures one would be submitted to in the Hell of Bird Deception. (They deceive you?)
The thing that found me and I found it was a deer. I had wondered if and when I would see a deer. I thought some of these animals would be much easier to spy than they were. The boar included. But when I was least expecting to find a deer, I found one, which is the same with the Aobato, and maybe a general rule in finding things in nature, because you just don’t really get to have your way with nature. I was pursuing the Aobato call that I had heard from on the other side of the hill, down in a valley where some lumber work was being done, and I had just crossed the hilltop with the baseball field and the few homes and estate of The Lord and was descending a steep path that made an S-curve down into the valley. I heard the Aobato calling from here often, as well as the Aogera, but every time I had come through here I had found nothing at all. I was still at the top of this path, having just branched off the main road to the top of the hill, and was squatting there, peering into the trees, as I was currently on the same elevation with many of the upper-middles of the trees, where a lot of the branching begins, and I could see into the branches and up into the leaves, and would be able to see better if any bird flew into them, as that is a difficult thing with birdwatching, and why binoculars are so helpful, because at the bottom of a tall tree, even if you have good enough eyesight to actually spy a bird all the way at the top, you won’t be able to tell anything more than that it is actually a bird. I was just squatting here, peering out into the forest, waiting patiently for the Aobato to land on a well-lit perch right out in front of me and pose for the camera, when I had the sudden feeling that I myself was being watched, and so I turned to the right, looking down the trail, and saw just a few meters from me, coming up over the ridge, a large animal. It wasn’t moving, and it was standing in the shade, so I couldn’t make out what it was at first, and I thought initially that it was a boar, because I thought more often about boars, knowing them to be around, and not as often about deer – but then I saw its left ear flap down, just like a dog’s would, and I realized that it was a deer. This deer was staring right at me and seemed very much like it also couldn’t tell what I was, and was trying to figure that out, so we were both just stuck there, staring confusedly at each other. Only the top half of its body was showing, up over the ridge. I had my super bird shooter lens at the ready, and knew that if I could get the photo, it would be a real closeup, like the whole face filling the frame closeup, but I also felt that any sudden movements would scare this little deer right off, and I would have lost a magical moment, and for no photo, and so I just looked away (wild animals don’t like to be stared at) and continued to squat there. Another second passed, and I glanced over to see how things were going with my deer friend, and saw that not only was it still there, but it had even taken a step up onto the ridge, to get a closer look. I knew it couldn’t be long before it figured out that I was a big scary human and run right away. I decided it was now or never, and went for the photo. I swiveled, raised my bulky super deer shooter lens up, pointed it in the deer’s direction, looked through the viewfinder.. and saw nothing but leaves. I had totally whiffed, and now wiggled it around desperately, trying to catch a trace of brown, of fur, or snout, anything, and was still whiffing. I pulled my eye away to try and reset, just in time to see this deer wise up and bolt down off the ridge, into the valley, and out into the woods beyond. Actually I continued to squat there, both in sadness and in hope, for some time after. Yes, I was sad.. if that’s the right word.. I was pained that I had just had such an incredible opportunity to photograph a wild deer’s face and blew it, but I was also hopeful that it may have run only a short distance off, and then stopped to look back, as a curious creature might, and then maybe I could scavenge something out of the situation. But unfortunately I never saw that deer again, or any other one, in my time in Ubuyama.
One of my first notes from being in Ubuyama (I write a lot of quick notes down in a journal) representing a typical Ubuyama exploration session: “Morning うぶやま (Ubuyama, written in hiragana because I couldn’t write the kanji.) explore. Rabbit poop. Spiders. Beautiful rock hill under birch? Not confident that it was a birch with that one plant and ladybug larvae. (Looking back on it this is a confusing sentence.) A grove. Fly? (It was a fly.) with long curved tail, red eyes, yellow stripe on tail. A grove. (Grove written twice, I must have been excited about it.) Crashing out at the end. (I decided to climb down a hill that turned very steep at the end which resulted in me jumping off into some thick bush and grass.) Wanting to poop but not wanting to desecrate the place. Also concerns about wiping.”
Prior to the previous note in my journal was this one: “Set a trap. Got me with the MTG music. (YouTube MTG Arena music)“.
The Lord Wombus is cunning. At the time of my move to Ubuyama I was attempting to escape the extremely powerful orbit of the planet Magic The Gathering that I had again fallen into. Magic The Gathering is a nerdy card game for nerds. It’s very fun though. The physical card game itself is dangerous, but mostly in that it compels me to play the virtual one, which goes by the name of Magic The Gathering: Arena. The Lord knew that I desired to free myself from this planet, yet we had some good fun in the narrow space between the boundaries of Magic’s snaring gravity and the liberating void beyond. It was dangerous, but would bring me some small thrill to even speak the relevant words (“Magic”, or “The Arena”, or “Mono red”), and I would at times turn to The Lord Wombus and say, “Something something Lizard Blades..” Or, “Something something Experimental Synthesizer..” Or, “Can I play Magic now?” And he would of course say no. But The Lord himself, he was allowed to play, having the rock solid self-control that you would expect of such a noble and lordly figure (there is no weakness in him), and was a fan of card games, and so for some time, before we saw that it was simply impossible, would dabble in it (I had a brief stint as his MTG coach), and so it could occasionally be heard, wafting over from his quarters, the sounds that have become ingrained in me. The sounds of the Arena. One day, and I believe by then we had already established that no Magic was to be had in any possible form, no reference of any kind and no utterance of any related words, I was lounging in my room, safely, with the laundry pole out on the stairs, and I heard something that stops me completely. It is a siren song, piercing down to the very depths of my soul. Its power is overwhelming, and almost automatically I surrender to it, and seek the source. It comes from Wombus’s lair, and so I enter. I see no Wombus – just an empty chair, and a computer in front of it. A familiar sight, a familiar glow. Beckoning. I step further in, and the screen comes into view. I look at it excitedly, anticipatingly. Before me is not the home page of Magic The Gathering: Arena, but instead a YouTube page, with the words “MTG Arena music” in the search bar. The MTG Arena main theme is playing, and I see now that I have been snared like a rat by the cheese. A rat in the full throws of a cheese-crazed mania. In both rage and shame I call out, “You bastard!” Gleeful cackles emanate from the royal poo-chamber below. The cackles of a Scrumpillion thrilled at his success. Only a mind so devious and intricate as his would devise such trivial mischief for his pooptime pleasure.
What I wrote the morning after my first solo camp experience: “I have returned. What did we learn? やっぱり (yappari, meaning, “As I thought”) it got cold. Had no rain cap. (For the tent.) But no rain until the morning. Lucky. Choosing the spot is very important. My spot was not very good. Not flat at all. And despite the thick grass, quite hard. I heard things. Soft squeaking. Thinking it was mice. And at one point something dashed right by the tent. Then there was the boar. Or boars. Hard to tell how close they got but the grunting was unmistakable. Was that 2, 3, 4 am? I was nervous, even scared. Imagined myself in the middle of a curious and aggressive pack, out prowling for the night. I thought about them coming right up to my exposed head and sniffing it, kicking it. (My head was not actually out of the tent but was bulging out of the side because the tent was so small, and so felt very exposed.) Thought about them trampling the tent. About what I should do if any of that happened. Was thinking I could run to that “tree.” Good thing it didn’t come to that because there was no climbing that thing. Went out of the tent headfirst to pee. Not a good way to greet any マムシ. (Mamushi are an aggressive venomous snake living in these parts. The internet says their strike range is about 30cm. We will not try and test this number.) Hungry last night, hungry this morning. Smiling after the first bird [chirps]. (Accidentally wrote chips.) I feel alone in the middle of human town. In that apartment in 大津 (Ozu), in the middle of human world, I was alone. In the middle of the woods, when I am actually more distanced from anyone, and there are simply less people around, I feel completely connected. Because I am. Connected to the source, connected to what I know, what we all know... What you have been doing here, is research. Research into alternate ways of living, research into meaning, research into loneliness; very core, very essential components of the human experience. This is some of the most important research you will ever do. I wonder if putting up boxes would lead owls to come to this area. (I had been wondering if there weren’t owls because there wasn’t anywhere for them to roost.) Last night there was a moment where I realized exactly what I was doing, and I felt deeply, wholly, completely free. And I also felt that I wanted to play guitar.”
Directly before that particularly lengthy summary I have the two short notes. “The unexamined life [is] not worth living.” Followed by, “Black t-shirt fashion. Only black t-shirts.“
The difference between hawks and eagles was not confusing enough, and so all-knowing ornithologists created the mighty hawk-eagle, and we all became confused again. The crow-raven is coming.
I found this action again by listening. I heard this call come in through the windows of my bird box. It was a totally new one to me, and that was rare, now that I’d been here for two or three weeks. I immediately grabbed the camera and raced outside. An incredible scene greeted me. I had learned soon after my move that birds are territorially aggressive and will attack other birds that fly up in their space. Aerial turf wars are very real in bird world. Once when Wombus and I had taken a trip into the big city (that is compared to Ubuyama), Aso, we watched a pair of crows kindly escort a buzzard out of their airspace. Birds have such nice manners. I also saw a Hiyodori attack and kill another Hiyodori.. but Hiyodori be crazy.
Actually I have a lot of love for this bird. These are the noisiest and most fidgety birds in Japan. At least in Kyushu.
There were few birds I could count on seeing every single day, and the Hiyodori was one of them. These fiesty buggers were out fighting, squeaking, chittering, swooping, diving, sailing, soaring, and wiggling in the trees and meadow just outside The Lord’s Manor, at almost all times of the day. I couldn’t spot it (although I tried), but I think they had a nest in one of the tall cedars right behind the house. When the other birds had cooled their jets, the Hiyodori jets were still running very, very hot. I witnessed the bird murder at the spot I had chosen for my first camping, in the woods back behind the house, following the sounds of aggravated chirping, the bird equivalent of screaming, and at first only saw a scuffle, and not in clear view. When I walked over to investigate, I thought everyone had flown off, and stood there longer only to play peek-a-boo with what I think was a baby Mejiro. It was a teeny-tiny and unusually curious little Mejiro (but I read that young birds are typically more curious and less shy), who was hanging around and maybe a bit startled by the murder, which had happened right behind me, and I only knew so because the victim then spasmed a death spasm, and I spun around to find, having been initially obscured by low hanging cedar branches, a Hiyodori that was perfectly intact, and with a neck at a ninety-degree angle. That took the Hiyodori from being in my regard the bird with extreme ADHD to the murderous bird with extreme ADHD. I went and searched about this, of course. Apparently male Hiyodori are extra wild during mating season.
For what reason this Hayabusa (the Peregrine Falcon) was divebombing a Kumataka (Mountain Hawk-Eagle) I do not know, but it was happening, and it was a sight to see. The bird equivalent of David and Goliath. This little divebomber was giving big mighty hawk-eagle a heck of a time and big mighty hawk-eagle wanted none of it. Probably the most memorable takeaway I have from this experience aside from just the general emotional imprint that was left on me from witnessing such a bird battle was that more birds than just owls can turn their heads 180 degrees around behind them. And you can in the same photo see why this would be useful. (In that first photo, the Kumataka has turned its head directly around to spot the diving Hayabusa.) I wish I would have recorded some of this scuffle, but I hadn’t learned about recording video yet – that would not come until Ryoka’s great wisdom (“You should take videos!”) and the Kogera.
Luckily my special friend waited to appear until after I was a cinematic master. One day, as I stood in the Lord’s kitchen preparing my daily oats, I for no particular reason glanced out of the sliding glass windows to the right of me. You are extremely unlikely to see anything of interest out of those windows, so thought I, until that day – because what I saw then took my breath away. Right behind the house, in full view, snuffling around the base of a tree, was a large, furry, Anaguma – AKA hole bear, AKA badger. Boom, right there, a freaking badger. This was a lot for me to process. I had not expected to see a badger, I had never seen a badger, I had forgotten all about badgers, and without warning, here was a badger. The all-knowing Kihara sensei had prepped me for this moment by having shown me a video of a badger that she recorded, a badger that frequented her yard, and so I could recognize it at once. Upon seeing the badger, I had two thoughts. 1. badger, 2. camera. This badger had to be digitally recorded in the annals of history. I ran upstairs and grabbed my camera, while briefly debating over whether to change the lens or not, as I had the super zoom lens on (a 400x, so actual photographers will laugh when I call that a super zoom, but still that’s a lotta’ zoom) and I knew the shots would be closeups, but I didn’t know how long I had with this badger (and who doesn’t love a good badger headshot, am i rite fellas) and so I just went with it. I tried to open the window, and the screen, as gingerly as possible. The window was the easy part; the screen was the real challenge. It wouldn’t slide easily and made way too much noise. The scuffling of the screen would have certainly scared away any bird, but this badger was not nearly so timid. Actually, it really did not seem to give a hootenanny. It looked up, which really means it was just looking out. I don’t think that badger could have looked up at me if it wanted to, not without sitting down at least. I at once stopped sliding the screen, holding my breath – and then it went right back to snuffling. I then had a full two minutes, maybe three, to photograph this lovely badger. I think I did pretty good.
As you can see, it was really liking that bark. In the first photo especially I think our little friend looks almost boar-like, and on showing this photo a few people did think it was a boar, with that bristly fur and long snout. Look closely and you can see a tick on the right ear. It really bothered me that our little friend was being parasitized, but you will be pleased to know that in a photo just a bit later, as it trotted off, there was no tick to be seen. I’m sure that it just felt bad about parasitizing such a lovely creature as this badger, and decided to renounce its bloodsucking ways, as we all eventually do, and definitely did not crawl deep into the ear canal. I’m sure that’s what happened.
The badger mulled around outside the back, enjoyed some stump gnawing and grass frolicking, then meandered off to a thick bush behind the neighbor’s house, and presumably went down the hill and into the forest. I do not let special first time forest creatures go so easily. I pursued this beast to see if I could get any more shots. I was doubtful as it now must have heard me, as stealthy as I was being (not stealthy), but I had to try anyway. I was right that I had alerted it, because after leaving the house, I spied it between a gap in houses, having upgraded from a meandering trundle to a brisk trot, as it trotted along the trail that led into the forest. The way that it trotted, combined with the look on its face, and the fact that it did not bother to look my way, made me feel very much that it was still totally unconcerned with my presence, and had only picked up the pace because it knew it was still probably the smart thing to do. Because, you know, “Humans.” I put that in quotes because I’m imagining the badger rolling its eyes and saying to itself then, as it heard the door opening, and the footsteps on the gravel, and the smell of my musty mountain man self filling its piggie snouter, “Human.” Or maybe it was more of an, “Oop, gotta go!” I adopted a similar air of nonchalance and walked through the gap in the houses onto the trail, looking to the right, and saw nothing. It had ducked off into a patch of thick, tall grass on the edge of the forest, and was safe in badger world again. I would see this badger again, a few more times, before I left. It made me quite happy knowing that I had a loveable creature like that hanging around.
I also saw a cat. Look at those eyes. This is a crazy-eyed killa.
All in all, out there in the Ubuyama wilderness.. there were some tough days, where I was feeling lonely, when the weather was crap and I couldn’t go out, and I was stuck inside. I think that was the second week. For the most part though, I really enjoyed staying at this cabin in the woods, and with my pal Scrumpillion. What I miss the most is how easy it was to make cool nature discoveries. Mostly insects. Never in my life has it been so easy to find insects to photograph. It became a routine with me, that sometime near late afternoon early evening, I would pop on the macro lens and the flash, step outside, and go a’hunting, and after ten, fifteen, twenty forays into the wild, I was still able to find something new, several things new, every single time. I didn’t have to drive anywhere, or make any plans, I just had to walk outside. Having nature so accessible, being right in it.. When I reflect on it, that’s what I miss the most. Going out for a walk and coming face to face with a deer, looking up from your oats and seeing a badger in the yard, having an owl hoot right outside your window, hearing a wild new bird call and wondering what it could possibly be, trying not to step on newts during your stroll through the forest, finding a crab in the middle of the woods.. it’s an exciting life.
It’s very interesting, loneliness. You would think that living with so few people around, spending so much time alone would make you lonely, but actually, even though I was much more removed from human contact during my stay in Ubuyama, I wasn’t lonely. My almost sole source of face-to-face social interaction was Scrumpillion, and that wasn’t much – but it was enough. I did not feel lonely at Ubuyama. It might sound crazy to say it, but the birds and the bugs, the boars and the badgers were my friends. It comforted me to know that they were around. Also the Australian. They sung to me and entertained me. They did tabata and watched meme compilations on 2x speed. Their existence alone was enough to satisfy me.
There is something certain about nature. Something secure in it. Humanity doesn’t have it. We’re anxious and existentialist. We have emotional baggage. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. We crave meaning. How tiring. I imagine that simply by not having thoughts an ant spends its entire life in some state of Zen. Honestly, that must be pretty nice. And then you get super strength and the ability to feel no pain. Sign me up.
Call it a wrap? We can call it a wrap. Let me do one more scan through the old notebooks.
I really wanted to see an owl. I really wanted to see an owl. A few days into my Ubuyama stay, I heard one hooting. I went back to that spot on many nights, and once on a day, scouring the area for whitewash (white streaks on the trunk of a tree), a sign that an owl is roosting there. Never any luck. And then, on my second to last night, an owl started hooting right outside of my window. There were several hoots. I threw on clothes and raced outside. But of course, the hooting stops, and there is no owl to be seen. These birds were messing with me man.
Before I was brave enough to do the solo camping, I had set the challenge for myself to walk through the woods alone at night. All the way through. There was a path behind The Lord’s estate, that cut through the woods and went down into civilization. (The center of town, which was a school, a post office, a local city hall, a small general store, and like six houses.) Walking it didn’t take long, only about ten minutes. In the dead of night though, the forest is the forest, and it doesn’t matter how far you are from civilization. As you soon as you’re out of range of the nearest home or human, you’re alone in the woods. That was really spooking me, and I wasn’t able to get very far from the house at all before I got the hibee jibees. It was bugging me that I would get so freaked out by these woods just because it was dark, when I had spent so much time in them during the day, and of course you know logically that there’s nothing out here that’s going to hurt you, right. But still I got the hibee jibees. All those horror movies did something to me. But one night, after chugging my red wine and working up a good buzz, I grabbed the trusty flashlight and out I went. I powered through, no fear. Alcohol is a helluva drug. And after that, I was never scared again. I was a man of the woods. Until I tried to sleep out there. I was a little scared again then.
One day, I “went for a jog”. I really meant to do that. I ended up on a four hour excursion deep into the woods. That just happens out there. And once I’m on the trail, I can’t give it up. It’s a little bit addicting that way. I took it all the way to a clearing of trees in the middle of a few sizeable hills, and exhausted, with no clear trail to follow, finally called it the end. Then I spotted the most magnificent tree ever. There are some trees that just hit you right. They are the kings and queens of the forest. Older, bigger, thicker, gnarled, shapely trees. They’ve got a story and some secrets. This was one of those trees. And it was growing right out of the side of the hill, the steepest hill, angled out at about forty-five degrees, so that it could spread its massive branches out into the open space away from the other trees, and become a lord. This tree was an absolute boss, and when I saw it I had an overwhelming urge to climb it. Along that forty-five degree angle of the trunk, not far up there was the first of many thick branches, and that extended out horizontally over the valley below. If there were any big cats around, it was pretty much the most perfect spot ever for a big cat to lay and survey its kingdom, as big cats are inclined to do. I pushed my way through the tough bush at the base of the hill, slipped and slid in the soft dirt while scaling it, and finally monkeyed my way up onto the trunk, where I then, extremely cautiously, scooted myself up to that branch. This was high enough up where if I fell I would almost 100% break something important to me, if not die, and without a phone, would have to crawl pathetically for too many hours to someone who could help, and that was on my mind. It was very slow scooting. But when I got up onto that branch, and layed across it, I felt exactly like a big jungle cat would, secure on their perch in a tall tree, and looking out over all. I stayed there for I don’t know how long, just enjoying that feeling, and it was an incredible one. I was hoping to see anything come down into the valley below, unaware of me, a deer or boar or bird, but nothing did. Then I stayed up there a little bit longer, after I had wanted to go back down, because I didn’t have the nerve yet to attempt the descent. That was much harder to do. I tried to reverse-scoot my way back down, until it got too steep, and then slid the rest of the way down, clamping the trunk with my thighs, and tearing up a good amount of skin in the process. So that gave me something to remember the trip by.
Other highlights.. James gave me his thick canvas jacket to wander around in. It was dark green and had some faux fur hood. That thing was tough and warm, an absolutely perfect adventurer jacket. I’m sure no Australian would be caught without one. Behind the house, in the meadow where I would watch birds and bug hunt, there was some dense, springy grass on the side of a slope, underneath a line of trees. One morning, after going out there to see what was up with the birdos, wrapped in the jacket, I threw up that faux fur hood, plopped down in the grass, and took a nap. That was awesome. And I see how cloaks were so useful. Basically a wearable blanket/sleeping bag. On another foray, I found a crab in the woods. Yes, in the middle of the woods, I found a crab. It was peeking out of some lush grass down in a ravine where a teeny tiny stream ran through. That was an incredible thing, that forest crab. When you think of creatures that you’d expect to find deep in the middle of the woods, does crab come to mind? Not for me. But there it was.
I also spent a rainy day following boar trails. I was prepared to come face-to-face with one or several boars at any time. I stumbled on a trail inadvertently, when I was looking for newts. There were these little black newts with red bellies everywhere. They were very cute, and they liked it moist. Then I found a mud trail and followed it. There was a lot of slipping and sliding. Those boars like it steep. Nothing really interesting happened here. I was on edge the whole time, wondering if and when I would find the boars. And what I would actually do when I did. I knew that they don’t like surprises, and basically any boar that saw me out there would have 100% been surprised. I guess the reason why boars are particularly dangerous is because their tusks are right at about the average adult’s thigh height, so when you get gored, you get gored in one of the worst possible places. My plan to avoid this goring was to attempt to scale something nearby. It was a flimsy plan. I was really able to experience the boar life, traipsing around out here, but I did a very poor job of following these trails. They were low, so I was squatting most of the time, and it often became incredibly steep, and with the mud I would completely obliterate their tracks, turning those parts of the trail from stairs to a pure mudslide. I’m sure they came through later and saw the carnage, and smelled the dirty human, and were like, wtf mate.
I think that about wraps it up – my time in the Ubuyama wilderness. Thank you to The Lord Scrumpillion Wombus for hosting me, and thank you to you for reading all the way to the end!
HAKUMUSU 