Monthly Archives: May 2014

Rock Art Redux

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RockArtRedux5729Ute Panel – Arches National Park

Way back in the winter of 2013 one of our field researches was trying to locate new and unusual features in one of our nation’s most celebrated National parks when he happened to stumble across this panel of really old Indian drawing. As you know The Institute is constantly sending out explorers, researchers, bill collectors, real estate agents, used car salesmen, pan handlers, reformed alcoholics, unreformed alcoholics, dentists, appliance repairmen, bible salesmen, airplane mechanics, mercenaries, ninjas, paranormal psychologists, dog groomers, and cable installers, anyone and anything we might make a buck on, to increase our revenue stream and to bring you new and interesting scientific discoveries.

What we’re really interested in here at The Institute is scientific material that we can exploit, because we live in an age where lots of people with money really like all this old stuff and will pay through the nose for any cool discoveries that they can vicariously partake of from the comfort of their barcoloungers. Besides this stuff really reads well on our grant proposals so we are in a much better position to get funded than say, some respectable stuffy old university or government program that has ethics and stuff and has to stick to the truth and facts to make ends meet. Unburdened by those sticky regulations we can easily produce really neat research that reads like a Indiana Jones novel and is difficult to refute without looking like an old stick in the mud professor or government stooge that has to do things correctly and is just mad  because our stuff gets published and made into movies. They’re always bellowing like a scalded hog when they find we’ve altered the facts to fit the story. Like anyone cares, except for some old academics and the scientific world at large. Last time I looked they weren’t making my Mercedes payments.

When our researcher discovered this panel of Ute Indian rock art he was overjoyed but excited because here was something he could really sink his teeth into. It was what they call a eureka moment in research-speak. A panel of historical value that he could claim discovery of because there was no one else there when he stumbled across it. The research was completed by some archaeologist a long time ago who had left a bronze plaque with his version of the events captured, and who probably didn’t know any more than he did about this thing, and besides he could make up a better story than that guy. And it photographed well.

What our researcher concluded was this was an event that took place sometime before 2013 and conclusively proved that the Utes had domesticated not only horses and dogs but the wily Desert Bighorn sheep as well. The activities shown in the artwork describe how the Utes, using nothing but their wits, horses, herding dogs, GPS, and BLM grazing permits would bunch up a herd of these Desert Bighorns and make them stand still for long periods of time. Why they did this is still up for debate (and the possibility of getting another grant to study the issue further) but it is likely they did it so the artist creating this image in stone, had time to work. They didn’t have digital cameras back then, this was the old days. They had to have everyone be very still so he didn’t screw up and draw it wrong.

The reason this post is called Rock Art Redux is our researcher found another panel, a previously secret undiscovered panel that nobody but us and now you, knows about, located a little further back on the cliff. Apparently someone, one of the sheep or dogs, moved. Maybe one of the Indians was goofing around and held his hand up with two fingers making the rabbit sign behind another guys head, who  knows, this was a long time ago. Someone’s always got to clown around when a picture is being taken. Anyway, they moved and the artist had to basically x everything out and start over. You don’t erase in rock art you just have to scratch it out and start over. Apparently those guys were real sticklers for accuracy.

The Institute doesn’t like to leave unanswered questions just lying about willy-nilly so we intend to study this problem more, at great length actually, or as long as we can milk the grant for our expenses, so you, our loyal readers get the real story or as close as we can get to it. Stay tuned.

A Different Kind Of Beauty

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DifferentBeauty6715

Burnt Trees Canyonlands

 

If you’re looking for the conventional kind of beauty where there are lush greens and large expanses of deep blue water, brilliantly colored flowers and pastoral scenes of tranquility, then the Southwest is not where you want to be looking.

Out here this country isn’t full of the lush greens, blue water, and pastoral scenes. Out here the scenery has to make do with a different palette, a more primal palette of stark colors, harsh light and hard defined shapes.

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Harsh conditions are the norm with the sun’s heat being the master designer of this landscape. The designs are usually simple, the elements few. This spare look can be too elemental for some, especially those used to the lushness of a water filled environment, but to others it is an incredibly rich environment with an endless variety of form, color and structure.

In the photo above fire had swept through this canyon, consuming the life of these trees but leaving their structure behind to show just how merciless this country can be, but also how beautiful it can be. Once you’re hooked by this landscape with all of its hard edges and simple yet gorgeous colors, you’re hooked for life. It is completely understandable how artists like Georgia O’ Keefe and Albert Lujan spent their entire lives trying to set down on canvas the mesmerizing scenes of this very different landscape.

This is Canyonlands.

Follow Up

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WL-GHOwls-FTC-cemetery-2014-05-17-3092-EditYoung Great Horned Owls

I have to make this quick as Brad and Angelina just called, they’ve got time off from the kids and want to hang out for a while. They’re sending Marine one, the chopper, not the jet to pick us up because the Obama’s want to visit the presidential yacht which they’ve never seen, the USS Sequoia, for the week. They (the Obama’s) may stop in to say hi but we won’t know til they show up. The yacht is over at Horsetooth reservoir for a shakedown cruise, it’s been in mothballs for a while since Carter sold it in ’77. The Pitt’s must have bought it or something, I don’t know, they’re always doing crazy stuff like that, so it’ll be fun, just laying in the sun, teaching Angelina how to cast for muskies, arm wrestling with Brad, you know, just fun stuff. Right now we’re busy sending them clearances so they can get through the Institute’s security. It’s tricky coordinating dropping the shields and clearing the buffalo off the LZ so they can land safely.

I have a few moments while the staff is finishing up packing and doing all the things that have to be done when the director leaves the Institute. We go to DefCon 3 while I’m out which is a hassle but it’s a good drill to keep everyone on their toes.

What I wanted to tell you was the two cemetery owls are out of the nest. I mentioned them in a post last week. That’s a big deal for young owls. Now they can’t go back in it again, They’re too big. Won’t fit. They still need mom to feed them though and will for several weeks yet. They won’t be able to fly for a little bit as those primary feathers have to grow out more. Things are changing fast in their lives.

Well, security just buzzed, they got Marine one on their radar so I have to go. I’ll try and check in when I can but you know those Pitts, they’re party animals. Oh, just got an IM saying Jagger might show up. Cool. Seeya.

Candy-Gram

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Candy-Gram3631Coyote Yellowstone River

Television has always had a larger than life effect on the animals in Yellowstone. KYEL, Yellowstone’s own closed circuit TV station has been available to the parks residents for many years now. Most animals had cable until satellite came in and now that seems to be the system of choice due to the park’s restrictions on running overhead wires.

The effects on the young animals of the park has been pronounced over the years. Many young Sandhill cranes learned to dance watching American Bandstand and young antelopes waited breathlessly for the Olympic track and field events, especially those featuring the sprinters. Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges was a favorite of all the young otters and of course all the young spike bulls never missed Mickey Mouse Club when Annette was on.

But TV had its dark side too. Things that were meant to be humorous were changed by certain individuals to fit their own purposes. We’re not mentioning any names here but they looked a lot like coyotes. Coyotes were drawn to the edgier, hipper, more intellectual type of humor like Saturday Night Live or SNL as we know it now. One of the skits that they particularly enjoyed was called ‘Land Shark” and featured a giant shark that used lots of different ploys to get young women to open their doors so he could eat them. While most viewers laughed at the absurdities of the situation the coyotes watched closely. They saw how they might turn this approach into a technique that would allow them to approach their intended meals in a way that would cut down on all that chasing and running and leaping to get fed. Using the right choice of words would have those ground squirrels walking right into their open jaws.

Here we see a coyote at the front door of a young well-fed ground squirrel calling “Candy-Gram” down her hallway, a favorite ploy of the Land Shark to get you to open your door. You and I laugh at the idea of this actually working but then we don’t take into account the natural dim-ness of a young well-fed ground squirrel. Sitting there on the couch, bloated and on a sugar high from eating all that grass, they are easily fooled and in this case the thought of someone actually sending her a candy-gram overcame her normal sense of caution. Too bad for her.

TV is a force for both good and evil. In this case it was, unfortunately, not used for good. The moral of this story then is, if you’re a young well fed ground squirrel and someone knocks on your door saying “Candy-Gram”, Don’t open the door. Nobody sends ground squirrels candy-grams. If you had watched SNL instead of 100 uses for fresh green grass shoots on Cooking For Rodents, you’d be safe and snug in your burrow right now.

Tall Grass

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TallGrass0293Bull moose Grand Teton National Park

Ever since the cutbacks and budgetary restraints lifted their ugly heads our national parks have begun falling into serious rack and ruin. They’ve cut back on rangers, cooks, bottle washers, ticket takers, guys who paint those yellow lines on the road, guys who stand there with those stop signs on poles so you don’t drive into a hole and break your rear axle and it costs you eleven hundred dollars to get it fixed, plus it made my dog throw up in the back seat and we had to have that smell in the car for the rest of the week, but that’s a selfish pet peeve of mine and not really germane to this topic, but back to the point, most importantly grounds keepers. Grounds keepers are the backbone of the unseen forces that keep out national parks at their very spiffiest. Without them, well, you have rack and ruin.

Here’s a perfect example. In the good old days when the national park service kept the bonfires burning with hundred-dollar bills you would have had groundskeepers out in droves, cutting the grass to it mandated length of 8mm in all of the forests and meadows, pulling up unsightly weeds and flowers that weren’t the correct hue, and generally keeping everything pristine. Now what do you have? Chaos that’s what.

There is grass growing wherever it darn well wants to, flinging itself skyward with an abandonment we haven’t seen since before we had National parks. Unkempt, these grasses and weeds are showing a total disregard for the viewing public, just ignoring the fact that as tourists we might like to see those animals we came here to see without the distractions of a natural environment in the way.

Look at the image above. Someone has taken a perfectly good moose and seemingly just flung it into the tall grass to fend for itself. Confused, probably dismayed, what does it do, it lays down. How are we as intruding taxpaying citizens, not to mention tourists, going to see what his knees look like in all that grass let alone his whole darn self. Why isn’t he standing up looking noble like we see him on all those post cards in the souvenir shops. You can’t even see his knees now due to all that natural grass growing willy-nilly all over the place. We have a right to see moose knees if we want to look at them. But can we? I think the image speaks for itself.

We need to get these politicians off their collective butts and out in the forests with some weed-whackers, that’s what I think. Lets get things back under control people. Lets get some money flowing again. Lets get those groundskeepers back to work. This is a shameful state of affairs and I for one am sick of it. Lets get that moose back on his feet so he can stand tall and proud once again.  And we can see its knees if we want to. It’s the American way.

Today We Are Brothers

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The Hunters7833Coyote and Badger hunting together Yellowstone

A long time ago before the first people came out of the ground to live on top of the earth, there were other people here that inhabited this place. They were animal people but people just the same. They had spirits and knew their place. They could not walk on two legs but then they weren’t supposed to because they were animals and each was made for the thing they would do best. They could talk and reason and they each had special powers that made them unique.

The coyote was the trickster, the song dog, the clever one and he was very good at telling stories and making the other animals like him. But he also did things that the other people didn’t like such as taking their food while they were laughing at his stories. He did not like to work and used his brain to make his way through life.

The badger was called the digger, and the fighter, for he was very fierce and very strong even if he was small. He thought of nothing but digging in the earth to find the little ones he liked to eat even if it took him all day. Sometimes he would dig and dig and the little ones would run away out of the back door of their homes. They had those doors just in case the badger would try and catch them. This would make the badger very angry and he would fight anyone who came near him. The other people left him alone and before long he became surly and didn’t care about anyone or anything but catching and eating the little ones.

The coyote had watched the badger for a long time. He saw how he would dig and how often the little ones would run away and the badger would go hungry. He thought he saw a way that he could benefit from the badgers efforts but it would require getting the badger to trust him and not fight him. He talked to the badger, but always from a safe distance, you could not trust the badger because he was always hungry and everything is a meal to the badger, even a coyote. He told him stories of other badgers who had friends that would help them hunt and these badgers were always full and satisfied and had time to find a mate and have families.

The badger slowly began to think about what the coyote was saying. It took him a while because his powers were digging and fighting, not thinking, Thinking was hard for him and usually just made him angrier. But soon he was thinking of a mate and having young badgers around him to show how to dig up and eat the little ones. He began to trust the coyote and asked how this could be possible.

The coyote who you can see, was very persuasive, told the badger of a plan where he, being very swift, would chase the little ones into their holes in the ground where the badger could dig them out. Then the coyote would quickly run to the back door and catch the little ones as they tried to run away. If the little ones saw the coyote sitting there as they tried to flee they would stop and go back down into their burrows where soon the badger, who had been using his great strength to dig, would find them and eat them. If the little ones didn’t see the coyote lurking near their back door and ran out into the meadow the coyote would quickly snatch them up and eat them.

As the badger took much longer to dig down and find the little ones, they had more opportunity to try and escape, and the coyote would have more opportunity to catch them with little or no effort. But the badger was also getting more little ones and thought that the coyotes plan was a very good one even though the coyote seemed to be getting the biggest share of the food. He was tricked into thinking this was a good plan by the artful story telling of the coyote.

So that is why even today, long after the original agreement between the badger and the coyote began, long after the first people came up into the sunshine to live on the top of the earth, you will sometimes see the badger and the coyote work together. Both seem well pleased with the bargain, although I think the coyote may be a little more pleased than the badger.

Did You See That !

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didyou seethat6142Sandhill Cranes Bosque del Apache

Whoa….Dude! Did you see that?

No Way

OMG Did he really….

That is not possible

WTF. What was he thinking?

He must have got into some bad grain.

You think !

I know that is going to hurt

HeySoos Christy, what do you think he’s going to say to her.

Too late, Oh man….

I cannot believe I just saw that.

Me neither

Wonder where he found that grain

I don’t know man but I want some.

Any of you guys get a picture of that?

That was totally awesome !

OK then, anyone want to get lunch?