It can be a difficult topic for some and I certainly understand why. Let’s just get all the troubling names for it right up front. Dung, droppings, scat, piles, meadow muffins, do-do, leavings, poo, pies, all words that conjure images that are not very pretty. Still, finding animal droppings is part of how I search for experiences with them in the wild. It gives me specific clues into who has been around and some idea of what they’ve been up to. 
Some of the loveliest things grow from the ugliness of fertilizer, colorful flowers and a variety of interesting mushrooms for example. 
Sometimes it’s the surprising shapes of the droppings themselves that bring me a smile. 
Cow manure left behind on open rangeland often dries in interesting, even artistic shapes. I’ve seen droppings that are outright comical, some that resemble numbers, arrows that seem to point toward something specific, a question mark.
What I have come to appreciate is that animal scat shows me part of the animal’s story. It isn’t that I set out with the intent of looking for it, but when, let’s say, I happen upon a distinct pile left by a bear, I’m always curious, because through what is left, I get to witness some of the mystery of that animal’s day. Scat can give good information about where he’s been and what he’s been dining on. Has he eaten in the cranberry bogs, or has he been enjoying a variety of wild berries? Are there twists of plastic bag woven throughout the droppings, indicating he has been foraging in human garbage? Is there evidence that it was a mother and cubs that have moved through the hiking terrain I’m traveling? 
Coyote dung is particularly distinct and fascinating to me. Sometimes peppered with bits of bone, there is often nothing left behind except thick grayish fibers of undigested fur. I find them left in loops or w
avy piles, like fraying rope or coils of undyed wool that someone dropped on the trail.
When I see clusters of small pellets I recognize deer have moved through. When I find piles of larger grassy round stone shapes I know that I am in elk or possibly moose territory and it thrills me. The number and proximity of scat piles to each other can determine how popular an area is, how much it is frequented by a particular species of animal and how recently they may have passed through. Are the pellets dark and fresh or are they dried and beginning to disintegrate? 
Sometimes the decay process creates its own delicate artwork, growing a lovely coat of silver mold so that it looks like a soft clump of animal fur was left on the edge of the trail.
I recently found the perfectly dried exoskeleton of a bee laying in a cluster of either elk of moose droppings while hiking in a wilderness area not frequented by humans. The idea that I happened to look down at my feet at just the perfect moment, that my eyes were lucky enough to notice something so unique, overwhelmed me with gratitude. I took a photo of it and left the area with quiet reverence. That is how I feel about all of nature. Lucky to be an observer, grateful to occasionally witness some of this planet’s fleeting secrets. 
I don’t apologize for my curiosity of animal scat, or it’s surprises. It’s there I find some of the clues to the ever beckoning mystery, the intrigue of wild stories – the beauty in the dung heap.
Mossy whispers: Beauty can rise to the surface, even in the worst of things. Mystery is a challenge to the mind and a satisfaction to the spirit. The wild story is always there if you are curious enough to search for it. Give yourself a simple gift, consider following the clues for a while.
exture and color.
erfect artwork.
or the way the waves leave interesting patterns of shallow ridges across an expanse. I can find myself admiring a small pile of ropy kelp because in the ocean’s perfect placement it looks as if someone left a beautiful necklace coiled on the sand.
a huge lip of shelf fungus beaded with dew, clinging to a dead tree.
I might stop to admire a cluster of flocked white fungus clinging like furry shells to a rotting log or the way it stacks on an old stump like the colorful layered skirts of twirling Spanish dancers. 
. I often spend time observing things that would probably at the very least bore, if not outright disgust a lot of people, but the world of wild things is endlessly fascinating to me. Not just the large lovely features, plants and creatures but also the smaller, not-so-pretty realities, the life forms sharing our world that might be seen by some as unattractive.
ng that friends enjoy teasing me about. These slow movers come in a variety of colors, ranging from yellowish brown with no spots, to golds and tans, often covered by random patterns of black spots – like an over-ripe banana.
considered simultaneous hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female sexual organs. To call the slug “it”, seems impersonal, so for the purposes of my story, I will refer to the slug as “he”.
As he moved, more and more needles and bits of leaf matter began to get stuck in the slime he was leaving beneath his back end, clinging to him and dragging along behind him like an orange-green bouquet.
With his tail free of debris, he continued on his way, unburdened. At that point I decided that an hour and a half was long enough to hover over him so I thanked him for slowing me down for awhile, wished him a long life (slugs live about 7 years) and bid him farewell, noting that it is actually a very lovely world from a slug’s eye view.
Although electricity is available, it is costly and many people living above the valley have chosen to stay “off the grid” with the use of solar power, generators, composting toilets or outhouses. Once off the main highways or paved secondary roads, driving is generally slow on wash-boardy gravel, then degrading in jolts and jostles to narrow dirt roads that are full of deep ruts and pot-holes, often with home-made signs pointing the way. 
There is no cell service where we are, other than an iffy spot on a steep hilltop we have to hike to where sometimes we can get a single bar – but only if the cloud cover is just right, the wind isn’t blowing too hard and you have the ability to stand without moving even an inch. It is 30 miles from our property gate to the town of Tonasket but we are lucky to have a tiny general store nearby, open 7 days a week, run by a wonderful couple. “Nearby” is about 12 miles down the hill from us. The store in relation to our property is considered extremely close in terms of most parcels in the highlands.
where wild flowers bob in high breezy meadows, where open ponderosa forest gives way to dramatic granite cliffs that rise from the steep hillsides. It is dynamic terrain where sweeping bedrock domes, exposed by thousands of year’s erosion, hump up from the earth like the bald scalp of some buried giant. These are the vast expanses where elk, deer, black bear, moose, wolves, coyotes and even herds of wild horses roam, where lichen covered boulders lay everywhere in interesting jumbled piles providing protection for small mammals, lizards and snakes, and where old fallen trees, mummified in the dry heat, 
create beautiful gnarly sculptures in meadows, on rocky ledges and under stands of pine and tamarack.
There are hairy tufts of neon moss clinging to gray weathered wood and crisp black patches dried on the sunny rock faces where there is no shade. There are long brown strands of beard moss dripping from the lower branches of ponderosa, as if clumps of fur from some mammoth beast were left snagged on the bottom limbs as it meandered through the forest.
traveling in a single day from the cool damp-misty, to the jagged, dehydrated, dusty. As always, I return to the coast carrying a heart full of coarse-craggy, dry wind etched, wildflower nodding adoration.
when the light seems to take on richer hues as the sun sinks behind the trees in a blinding orange ball. Once again I am drawn to the darkening woodlands. 
t forest art. Thick slices of tangerine light climb branches like fire, then disappear. It is a time of day my camera rarely works well and I can’t explain it, almost as if the forest wants to keep those moments secret, allowing them to be experienced only by being present in them. 
I have often heard or read the phrase “He or she has a good relationship with the land.” 
A few warm days can mean the difference between naked budding limbs and branches filled with colorful blossoms, or between a nest with speckled eggs and the gaping yellow beaks that hatch from them, squalling for meals. They are months that begin in the boggy places with the pungent yellow, scoop-shaped blooms of skunk cabbage, also given the playful moniker “swamp lantern”. They are the months that fill the woodlands with the enchantment of white trilliums, fairy bells and tiny yellow wood violets hidden like shy kittens under the tree canopy. 
s impressive height and giant leaves make me think of things Jurassic. The huge, sweet smelling blossoms conjure images of something old fashioned, like crocheted hats or white lace doilies. Nature is marvelously artistic and inspiring. 
in tender awe and to cherish it in genuine friendship. 
brings a rollicking parade of colors that excite the senses like the surprise of a flock of wild macaws landing in the yard. 
The stunning blossoms of the Golden chain drip from 
branches like long dollops of honey or the painting of an exotic tree left in the rain – yellow streaks running down the canvas. Sometimes it reminds me of a delicate crocheted afagan artistically draped for show.
over metal.
There are also unpaved trails around Black Lake, a small freshwater lake at the southern end of the peninsula. These trails are well maintained, cleared through old logged forest, with several of them created specifically for mountain bikers, offering a variety of challenges.
road or a well worn path, but as frequently happens, somewhere along the hike some magical space snags my curious spirit and tugs me off the trail, begging to be explored. It might be an established animal trail weaving away through the huckleberry or sudden shafts of light illuminating a small clearing in the distance. It might be the way a perfect tumble of logs have fallen as mossy bridges across the bottom of a deep ferny gully, or the dark shapes of giant old stumps huddled in groups like families of black bears between the bars of trees. I can never resist the detour, the mystery. 