Living in the wild

I was born in southern central Africa, Rhodesia at the time, later it became Zimbabwe. For the most part, I was a city boy, but I explored the surrounding bushveld and lakes and rivers all the time, enjoying the wild animals I came across in my wandering, elephants, giraffes, zebras, Cape buffalo, lions! I took the sightings for granted, it was just what my world was, and would always be. Boy, was I wrong. After a 15 year civil war, Rhodesia changed to Zimbabwe, and my world came to an end. I emigrated to California, to a small town in the San Francisco Bay Area, beautiful, exciting, but by no means Africa.Nothing can compare with Africa. If you love it, it seeps into your soul, and never leaves. I would go visit a couple of times in the next 25 years, taking my American wife with me to show her the place I came from and talk about , and she loved it too. But we couldn’t live there, we were Americans, and our lives were in California. So when we had to escape the built up disaster of the citified Bay Area, we moved just 4 hours away to the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. And as it turned out, the closest place we could find to Africa but still in California. It was warm and temperate, not freezing cold like Alaska, or the northern states or Canada. The next best thing, and we were happy.

The property we found was 6 acres, very rural, divided in two different landscapes. The 3 acre section we lived on was pasture, with some oak and pine and redwood trees, and crossing the creek which flowed into a fairly large mini lake stocked with big mouth bass and perch, which divided the property, it became wild and hilly, with large lichen boulders strewn all around, and covered with an oak and pine tree forest. Just perfect to explore and find wild animal dens inhabited by coyotes, foxes, hares, pine martins and mink, even Bob cats and mountain lion, as well as deer. It was perfect.

the main house was one level, which was what we wanted as we were getting up there in age and didn’t want to climb stairs, and behind it next to the creek was the small cottage that my parents would move into when they left Zimbabwe and joined us in California. That never happened, and instead my adult son moved in and my grandson was born there and was raised in a wild wonderland which he loved from the very beginning. He has become a mountain man, tracking the spoor of wild animals, setting traps to catch them, fishing in the pond, learning to shoot and handle firearms.

we built and housed chickens and ducks in a coop for eggs to eat and sell, and planted fruit trees for the fruit to eat and sell, trade or gift to our neighbors and friends. But soon the wild life had ideas of their own, and started to attack our flock of birds, and we were constantly fixing and reinforcing the coop to protect the birds. One day I entered the chicken coop to find a rattlesnake nesting inside the coop and eating the eggs, and even killed the rooster that was trying to defend his ladies. So we dispatch the snake!

another time, after a nearby forest fire had disturbed the wild life up hill from us, a brown bear appeared on the property, and ripped apart the food locker next to the coop and ate the chicken feed. Then he scared my son and grandson by walking up to them on another day, and eventually wandered off. He comes around the neighborhood about twice a year, just to say hi and eat black berries that are growing wild at the bottom of our pond near the road.

just last week a mountain lion killed a deer, and dragged it up a tree to store it and feast on the carcass for three days in a row. Our pond attracts beaver, musk rats, otter, all kinds of birds like geese and ducks, egrets, heron and the occasional swan. We have binoculars placed by the window to get a closer look when we see something Interesting.

last week 5 of our ducks were killed in their coop. And the tracks looked like either a raccoon or a possum, so we fixed the hole in the wire, and set traps all around the coop. The next morning we had caught a large bobcat, that had came back for more. Yesterday the last three survivors Were killed by something that was able to gain entrance to the duck coop. Last night my son was on patrol outside and saw the culprit trying get in again, and he shot it And stopped the attack. We had left the duck carcass in the coop to entice the predator. It was wounded, and ran off. My son followed it to the wood pile across the creek and found its den, shooting two more. They were either mink or pine martins. Thats who we’re responsible for killing all my ducks. As hard as we try, the battle will always go on.

‘This is definitely a wild country, and although there are no monkeys, baboons, hyenas, giraffes or all the other wild African animals, there are enough of our own to make for a wild mountain experience. I love it.

I don’t think I could ever live in a city again.