Monthly Archives: August 2015

Anasazi Garden

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When many people think of the desert the first image that comes to mind is the Great Sahara desert, or perhaps the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, or the Great Sand Dunes of the Southwestern United states, or even your back yard if you don’t water it. A place barren and inhospitable to life. A place where nothing grows and you dare not venture far from water lest you perish. Which is a pretty easy thing to do if you’re standing out there in the noon day sun with no hat, which we would hasten to add you shouldn’t do, even if you are English and that comes natural to you. We’ve noticed that whenever we’re trapped in the desert and near death we always have a vision of Joe Cocker in his bright red English soldiers jacket singing “With a Little Help From My Friends” marching on before us. This always saves us and we make it back to civilization in one piece, thirsty but alive, but then we’re experts and trained for this kind of thing. But that’s just us, your mileage may vary.

But if you are somewhere like Johns canyon, Utah and its early morning you’ll see something entirely different. A desert garden literally brimming with life. It may be different than what you’re used to thinking of how a garden should be, but then you’re in a different place than you would normally be. As you journey through the canyons you will see small gardens tucked away in every nook and cranny, one after the other until you realize that this is a veritable oasis in the middle of a desolate land.

We are always struck by how similar in feel these desert gardens are to Japanese gardens, which couldn’t be more opposite in nature. The Japanese garden being lush and green with carefully manicured plants, with small trickling streams feeding into water-lily filled ponds, compared to this dry desert garden with its carefully chosen plants, tucked in amongst the boulders, placed just so to take advantage of what ever moisture may be sent its way. The color palette of this garden with its earth tones and giant boulders selected for their color and texture and positioned to fill the space but not overwhelm it is the same in feel if not color, as you find in the perfect temple gardens of Kyoto.

Sometimes we think, that is the experts in our botanical department who are paid to think about these things, think, that there must have been an early visitation to this land by wandering Samurai gardeners who traveled the world spreading their knowledge of how to make a perfect garden where one couldn’t possibly be, teaching people like the Anasazi how to have beauty in their lives in an inhospitable place. A group of Ninja gardening warriors, as it were, dedicated to creating beauty in even the most unreceptive, belligerent landscapes. Or not. But it’s as good a reason as any for the gardens being there.

Our First-strike gardeners here at *The Institute’s World-wide Center for Horticultural Research and truck farm have been collecting gardens just like this one and transporting them root and twig, back to our Botanical center completely intact, where our own hybrid gardeners keep and protect them for posterity. We have gardens similar in size and scope to this one that we have found throughout the world and brought back here to the Institute for safe keeping and our own personal viewing pleasure. Sometimes we let the public view them but not very often. You actually have to have some kind of pull to get in. If you’re interested write us and include your bio and an 11,000 word essay on why we should even let you in the front door and we’ll get back to you if you qualify. Thank you in advance for your interest.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Itchy, OMG Yes

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Many of you know by now that the Rut is coming up fast. We’ve got about 6-8 weeks before all hell breaks loose. For those of you new to the sport, the rut is when the bull elk go forth and begin to collect cow elk for the purpose of passing on their genetic fluids with the idea being that they will be improving the herd and the species in general. Think of it as being like Fight Game with elk sex involved. This may not be for the squeamish. But it is Nature so you’ll just have to deal with it. That or stay out of elk country for the next 2½ – 3 months, because it’ll be happening where ever elk congregate.

What you may not know is that The Institute backs several of these young bulls in the upcoming events. We stable them at our Spring training camp at Rocky Mountain National Park so it’s easy for us to keep an eye on them. We sponsor them, provide them with equipment and training, meds (but not steroid’s, none of our bulls have ever tested positive for steroids) bandages and wraps, unguents that help with velvet removal, antler polishing supplies, promote them both locally and nationally and try and position them so they move up through the ranks. Several of our better known fighters have been featured in the preliminaries at various MMA events and we hope to get one of our up and comers featured in an early ESPN covered fight mid-September. We need to cross our antlers on that one but it looks possible.

We stopped by the bull pen the other day to see how everyone was faring and found them in the usual state they’re in this time of year. Everyone is grazing like crazy trying to put on weight. They’re doing the calisthenics necessary for rapid antler growth, and they’re checking out their competition daily. Some of these guys have known each other since grade school but this will be their first real fight and the stakes are high. Not only do you get bragging rights for being the bull of the hour but the chicks, man, the chicks. They are foxes, stone cold foxes. These are the choice cows of the herd and they know it, they only join harems where the bull is Numero Uno. So the incentive is very high.

Right now though everyone is in a heightened state of awareness, full of self-doubt and insecurities and worried about how they’re going to perform.  Besides that those velvet covered antlers are itchy, like really itchy, like drive you bat-crap crazy itchy. That’s where we can help by providing that special proprietary, patent applied for, unguent developed in our labs here at The Institute. It takes the itch right out of those antlers and lets these guys get some sleep and yet enhances their strength and vitality through the proper use of chemicals. it helps them put on weight and develop incredible muscle tone and gives them that little extra edge of madness they need to really go out there and kick elk butt. It’s our job to buck them up, give them the support they need, convince them that they’re the best, and we take that very seriously.

The young bull pictured above, Twitchy, was very glad to see us. Nearly in tears in fact. He needed the unguent bad and could barely stop himself from scratching his antlers down to a nub. Of course we provided it to him, for a slight increase over our normal cut of the gate but then unguent doesn’t grow on trees you know. We’ve got expenses too.

Otherwise the prospects look pretty good for this season. There’s some big bulls out there and a lot of them got their cans kicked last year so they didn’t get a chance to spend any quality time with the ladies so they’re pumped. It won’t be long before the preliminaries start with the bulls matching up, shoving and pushing, seeing who looks weak and who they have to watch out for. This looks like a promising Rut. Now if we can just get some of those heavy-duty agents in here so we can sign some of these guys we’ll be set.

CrowHeart Butte

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As you drive up that magical highway, highway 287 which runs from Port Arthur, Texas to Choteau, Montana, you will find many amazing and curious things. As the song said “You can’t get to heaven on 287, but you can get as far, as you can get by car.” Along the way there are landmarks and geological features and places where famous and infamous events took place and this is one of them.

This is Crowheart Butte, a place famous for a huge battle that took place here in 1866. The event took place, but exactly how it played out, is still open to discussion. There are several versions of the story but the one that has the most legs is this one I’ve passed on below.

Crowheart Butte is located on the Wind River Reservation somewhat East of Dubois, Wyoming. It is the home of the Shoshone tribe but this wasn’t always the case. In 1866 the Shoshone considered the entire Wind River area their own hunting grounds and vigorously defended it from any incursions by other tribes. The Crow who chose to also hunt here disputed that fact and lay challenge to the Shoshone that they would hunt here as they pleased and the conflict took shape. There were several tribes involved, The Shoshone, the Bannock and the Crow. The Shoshone and Bannock were allied against the Crow. The battle commenced and lasted for five days during which there was great loss of life on both sides.

The chief of the Shoshone, Chief Washakie, challenged the chief of the Crow, Chief Big Robber, to a duel to the death to reduce any further loss of life on either side. The chiefs would fight on the top of the Butte and whoever was the victor would decide who the valley belonged to and the other would leave to hunt there no more forever.

The one who was victorious would cut the heart out of the other and eat it as a symbol of his strength and power. Chief Washakie was the ultimate winner and defeating Chief Big Robber did cut his heart out. This is where the stories differ. Some say he did indeed eat his opponents heart and others say that he impaled it on his lance and brought if back to prove his victory. Supposedly when asked about the incident later in his life he replied “One does reckless things when you are young.” Regardless of the ending of the story regarding what was done to Chief Big Robber’s heart, the Shoshone were now the owners of the valley which later became the Wind River reservation as it is known today.

Because he was so impressed with his enemies fighting abilities, Chief Washakie chose to give Chief Big Robbers tribal name, the Crow, to the butte and the small town that grew up near there. Crowheart butte is visible from miles away and is the prominent feature in the area. It can be seen clearly from highway 287 as you travel from amazing place to another.

Move Along – Nothing To See Here

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Lots of times you’re in the heat of the action and you look up and there is something so different from what you are presently doing that you have to stop and just stare at it. Such was the case this September afternoon on the Madison river in Yellowstone National Park.

We had been shooting Otters as they swam back and forth in the river, hunting, catching big fat trout, there are many big fat trout in the Madison river, the young otters playing, bickering amongst themselves, making up, otters can’t stay mad for very long and generally just displaying all the behavior that makes otters, otters.

There are many animals in the park and usually everyone is focused on the big exciting ones. The grizzlies, wolves, bull elk fighting and they tend to lose sight of some of the more elusive, but equaling exciting species like the otters. And when you do see them it is normally just a glimpse as they flash by, barely giving you time to lift your camera for a grab shot. Which is why when you get to spend some quality time with them it is very special indeed.

But this day was different, the otters decided to stay around and hunt the area known as the log jam, a wide place in the river that catches all the logs and trees floating downstream and once one log is caught it catches another and so on until you have a large collection of logs and other debris stretching halfway across the river. Trout love log jams, there’s shade, plenty to eat, and places to hide when they need to. Otters love log jams for exactly the same reasons.

 Unbelievably we had the opportunity to stay with this family of otters for several hours, moving with them as they traveled up and down the river. Around noon they’d eaten enough, fooled around enough and it was time for a nap. They climbed in the middle of a particularly dense group of logs and became invisible once they were asleep. It was a cloudless day and the sun had been very hot making the noon-day light very contrasty, washing out the color of the water, even washing out the color of the dark reddish-brown of the otter’s fur. This made for poor shooting so looking for a shady spot to wait out our sleeping subjects we found a large pine to sit under and wait for their reemergence.

Whenever you set up your equipment, which consists of a large camera and telephoto lens on a big tripod you become a subject of interest for those passing by, an indicator that something important must be going on. “What do you see?” is the first question, then “What’s out there? I don’t see anything?”  or ” What a ya just sitting there for?” You try and answer their questions, explaining that there were otters here just a little while ago and they’re gone now but soon you get tired of answering the questions and dealing with their irritation that they missed something cool and somehow it’s your fault, and you begin giving short answers like “Nothing.” or “Scenery.” They hate that answer, the scenery one, because you have robbed them of seeing something really cool, like a wolf crossing the river, or an osprey in the act of catching a fish, and therefore have tricked them into stopping and wasted their time when you were only looking at scenery.

Sometimes, if you are a grumpy photographer and they are particularly obnoxious you reply with something like “Oh, you should have been here a few minutes ago. A mountain lion was crossing the river with a wolf pup in her mouth and an eagle swooped down and stole it from her. There was a hell of a fight.” We always throw “the hell of a fight” in there as that makes them really mad that they missed it. However if we’re feeling in a really peckish mood we often just say “Move along people. Nothing to see here.” this in a curt voice that doesn’t leave much room for other conversation.

In the mean time, while we have been feverishly shooting the otter family in this bad light, disgusted that we have to settle for what we know are going to be marginal shots that will be hell to deal with in Photoshop, yet ecstatic that we’ve had this time with these otters, you need a moment of decompression time to process all that you’ve seen. You need to find that shady spot and take in what else is going on around you. The spot we picked to wait for the otters just happened to be near a bend in the river where some large pines blocked the sun. The shadows and dappled sunshine produced this intense area of bright emerald light on the river’s surface in the midst’s of the deep shadows. The illumination of the trees reflected in the water produced a calming almost zen-like experience. It put everything back into perspective and perversely made us wish for the otters to take a little longer nap.

It wasn’t long before a new group of those visitors wanting to you to do their work for them by finding the next cool sight came up and the questions began again. The answer this time to “What do you see?” was “Nothing much, just some scenery.” It wasn’t long before we were alone again just watching the river.

Quiet Conversation

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It’s Monday morning for the McCullough Peaks wild horses. The sun hasn’t been up that long. It’s quiet around the waterhole. Soon the days activities begin in earnest, but right now it’s quiet. The air has that crisp tang that only occurs in the morning when it’s calm and the slight breeze off the snow-covered peaks barely stirs the grass. The pond is still and glassy as a mirror. Clouds can be seen passing across its surface and for once there is no dust in the air. That comes later when everyone begins the frantic pursuit of daily life in one of the West’s last wild horse herds.

Right at this moment though there is time for some quiet conversation. Blood feuds between the stallions will be formally commenced as soon as everyone has had that first drink of cold water and the various protagonists look across the herd to see where the competition is. The mares will gather together to bicker and keep watch over the foals so they don’t get trampled in the ensuing melee and the first feeding of the day for the youngster’s gets underway. Everyday is a battle for the herd and everyone in it and it starts again in a moment. Right now though there is blessed calm, a rare event. Time for a few brief moments of reflection, quiet exchanges of whatever needs to be said and to take in the surroundings. Another day begins.

Gambolers Anonymous

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*The Institute, as you know by now, is constantly on the lookout for marginal or non-existent problems that we can blow up into some big hairy deal and maybe capitalize on it for fame or fortune. Well, we feel like we hit the motherlode with this one. To our knowledge, which is considerable as we’ve got some pretty smart cookies up here, we have never run across this devastating problem affecting young Mountain Goat lambs before. An exhaustive search of Scientific journals, including National Geographic, Science, Nature and *The Star newspaper have not turned up one word about this incredible, debilitating disease that has slipped through the net of those who profess to be naturalists. It hasn’t even been on Fox news.

It’s called “Gamboling”, at least it is since we named it that, and it appears to affect only the very young. This is what makes it so heart-breaking. To be struck down with this debilitating disease so early in life is something we can hardly bear to think about. Unless we can turn it into a cause of course, and make some money off of it, which is pretty likely as you know how everybody loves cute little lambs. They’re almost as good as puppies or even kittens. We figure we got a good shot at hitting it big as America is primed right now, stoked actually, to give and give big, due to all the problems facing our world. I mean if a leaf falls off a tree in Bangladesh we’re right there with a pot full of money to say we’re sorry, let us help. They ought to really buy into a bunch of lambs dying of too much fun. I know it brings a tear to my eye.

Gamboling is rampant throughout the herd leaving virtually no lamb untouched. It’s symptoms are manifested by an uncontrollable urge in these lambs to run or jump about playfully, or to frolic, frisk, cavort, skip, dance, romp, prance, leap, hop, jump, spring, bound, bounce and lots of other words that mean the same thing. On the surface this appears to be appealing, cute even, a pleasure for all who witness it, but underneath that innocent appearing fun lies a sinister and we believe life-threatening danger for those afflicted.

Using scientific logic, which we have so much of, it runs out of our ears, we have deduced that there are no cavorting, leaping frivolous behaving old Mountain goats, or even middle-aged ones, and come to think of it even young adult ones, that we can only conclude that those gamboling lambs simply do not make it into the next step in their growth pattern. They just mysteriously croak off or something. Go ahead, look to your heart’s content but you won’t find an adult Mountain goat fooling around like that. They just don’t do it. They might walk around briskly, leap carefully from one precipice to another, but gamboling, no, doesn’t happen. It’s as if the only ones who make it to adulthood are non-gambolers.

There are quite a few unanswered questions regarding the transformation or lack of it, of the lambs from lambhood to adulthood once they have contracted the dreaded gamboling disease. We have looked far and wide for carcasses, or as they’re known in zoologists or Mammologist circles, dead baby lambs, and have never found a one. Do the adults, in a fit of shame and remorse having produced these freaks of nature, eat them? Do giant raptors from another time swoop down and carry them off? Does one of the adults, sick to death of all that screwing around, take them out behind a boulder and smack the living Gamboling out of them? Is this all a load of crap?

That ‘s why the researchers here at The Institute have applied for a federal grant to study this problem. In the mean time while we’re waiting to see if we scored big on this one or not, and finally gotten one of those big old free money deals, we are duty bound to help these poor defenseless lambs. Consequently we have started a 12 step program we call “Gambolers Anonymous” (Hi, I’m Billy and I’m a Gamboler. Hi Billy.) that will hopefully help those afflicted lambs break this vicious chain of events and live to be a staid old boring Mountain Goat that we all know and love.

You can help too. Instead of just sitting there like a big lump, jump up, find your wallet and simply send in as much money as possible, preferably in large unmarked bills, or Krugerrands, yes Krugerrands would be much better, to The Institute and we’ll get right to work solving this problem and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that all that old unused money you have laying about will be put to good work. And…. untold numbers of cute little lambs will have the chance to reach adulthood. That ought to make you feel good. And as always, thank you for your support.

* Although they did have a fascinating interview with the person whose Grandmother had Bigfoot’s baby.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Temporary Tattoos

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It is now the accepted thing to permanently decorate your skin with a design etched into its surface with ink. These are called “tats”  or “Ink” or even “Tattoos” by those who aren’t quite with it. That would be anyone over 60 or someone raised by weasels deep in the forest. The design can be anything, from tiny little flowers and butterflies placed delicately on one’s ankle to raging south sea islander markings that cover half of one’s body. There is a trend towards getting words in Asian languages that say things like peace and tranquility in Kanji symbols. There was a story where one hapless soul wanted to get the symbol for love placed on a prominent portion of his body and when he had the resulting tattoo translated later found that it actually said “Hotel Bicycle”.

There was also a well-endowed lady who thought it would be cute as well as necessary to identify her prized possessions by placing the words “Left” and “Right” on them, of course the labels got placed on the opposite ones but apparently her need for attention got answered as she spends most of her time now explaining the situation.
What separates a spammer from a regular marketer is the way that they acquire mail addresses to mail to and how they send the mails. 

Nature has been creating tattoos for a very long time, but hers are usually temporary and transitory. Using dappled sunlight filtered through the canopy of the trees above she places the delicate tracery of leaves on a set of boulders. The stream sends its flow over the rocks surface in a vain attempt to wash them away but it is a futile gesture. Later when she is bored with her work or turns her attention to other pursuit’s the design will fade and be gone. Since there is a lot of ‘skin’ for her to work on there will be never be a shortage of new work for us to see and wonder at.

This design appeared at a small creek that found its way down the mountain next to Old Fall River Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. You can see it and many more like it anytime the sun is out.