 |
The New Independent Home
by Michael Potts
from chapter 6 :
What the Woodrat Recommends |
Along with the redwood, the most intelligent of my surviving native neighbors is the woodrat, who recommends the following building practices for Caspar:
(1) Choose the south-facing slope above the flood plain and out of the way of rivulets that run downhill in big rains. Do not select a site without surveying it in the wettest part of winter, the windiest spring day, a foggy summer day, and the driest time in autumn. A spot below the brow of the hill and out of the northwesterlies is preferable; the riparian coppice along the creek is chancy to cross in winter even in the driest years, and most years knee-deep (to a human, to say nothing of a woodrat) from first storm until May.
(2) Build with local wood, in layers. The woodrat piles on twigs and sticks extra thick each fall; the heat generated by their internal composting keeps the carefully drained nest, lined with feathers and other found softnesses, cozy on even the coldest night. The entry to the home is through a vestibule similar to the mudroom found in New England homes, a sort of air-lock which keeps the weather outside.
(3) Learn to live with the outdoor wet, carrying on life in the rain as in sunshine.
Larger species, fox, coyote, puma, and bear, are so rare that we may only speculate how they live deep in the small remaining stands of ancestral forest. If brown bears still survive there, do they hibernate? In winter there are whole weeks at a time when I would if I could.
Hummingbirds recommend migration, and follow their own advice.
|
|
