Monthly Archives: August 2020

Dancing In The Dust

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Buffalo – Yellowstone National Park – Click for larger view

It’s summer and the the young buffalo are feeling itchy and out of sorts. Something’s coming up, they can feel it but don’t know what it is. All they know is they have to run around, and buck, and spin, and fall to their knees. Pushing their snouts in to the fresh dirt they’ve stirred up, and using their horns to tear up the ground is also on tap. If one of their herd mates is close by they might try and goad them into a sparring match but nothing too serious. The time for the real fighting is still a couple of months away. It’s the prelude to the Rut and these first timers are just at the mercy of their hormones.

The Rut is the breeding season for the buffalo and it is the largest event in their lives. The urge to breed is totally consuming and will occupy their time with fighting, chasing willing and unwilling cows, bellowing, kicking up dirt and dust and generally being swept up in the compulsive nature of their lives. This young buffalo used an old wallow as the center point of his frustration and danced and ran in circles around it and thru it and put on a spectacle that lasted until it was exhausted and finally collapsed to rest. To the observer it was dancing in the dust and for a large animal it was surprisingly graceful.

Do You See Them !

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Young Warriors – Battle of the Little Bighorn

In the excitement of battle, the dust swirls up obscuring visibility, the sounds of the fighting seem to come from every direction, the eagerness on the part of these young men to enter the action, all play into the frenzy of making war. These young warriors are desperate to join the others and the fighting and are terrified they won’t get to take part in it before its over. The possibility to leave their youth behind and enter manhood as a respected battle proven warrior is their single driving force. This is their chance to make a name for themselves and gain honor by engaging the enemy. If they can only find them.

The battle is spread over a large area and the different engagements that make it up are constantly moving as fortunes shift and events unfold. It can be confusing trying to enter the action especially if your desire is to get up close to the enemy so you can fight them face to face, thereby winning much honor and the right to boast of your prowess to anyone who will listen. To be taken seriously as warriors not just untested young men. A very important thing to young men trying to move up in the warrior society. Every opportunity missed is an obstacle to their advancement.

As destiny would have it these young men barely out of their childhood will find the battle, and will find out what their future holds. Only the gods of war know what that future is.

End of a Long Day

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Jesse – Robidoux Camp

Back in the day when free range mountain men traveled the vast open spaces and deep into the tall snow covered mountains things were not always glamourous. In fact it was a far cry from glamourous despite what the movies show.

It was often beyond cold or blisteringly hot. It was unbelievably difficult to get around and often just plain dangerous. One had to be constantly aware on a level we virtually never experience today. To stay alive took an enormous amount of effort and if you were out on the trail the way you kept safe was to stay awake and as alert as if your life depended on it, because it did.

There was a certain amount of safety in being a part of a group as there were more eyes to keep watch and you could post a guard at night so you could get some rest. Maybe. Because as you know if you’ve ever spent a night in the wilderness with nothing more than a campfire to keep the terrors at bay, there are things that go bump in the night and do not have your best interests at heart.

You could be weary and tired beyond reckoning but you still had your job to do and you did it because you had no other choice. This was your life and even at the end of a long day you wouldn’t trade it for any other.

Quarantined

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Ground Squirrel – Sand Creek – Colorado

Everybody’s had it tough with this Covid-19 stuff. The Quarantine, the mask, which I’ve taken off for this shot at home, the social distancing that doesn’t seem to extend to red-tailed hawks by the way, they don’t have any problem just blowing right in and trying to snatch my butt off this rock. No 6′ distancing then. Where are the social distancing rangers when you need them, not here that’s for sure.

Let’s just talk about this quarantine, lock-down, self imposed isolation, whatever you want to call it. I know it affects everybody and nobody likes to be forced to do something they don’t want to even if it is for the greater good. But people have got houses, huge freaking houses, or apartments, or big fat wall tents to get locked down in for their isolation. What have I got, this big stupid rock that’s what. I said big stupid rock but I didn’t mean the rock was big, like in huge. No, it’s a small tiny little rock in the scheme of things. A phone booth of a house and that’s making it seem bigger than it is. I’m supposed to wash my paws, I don’t even have running water. I got to wait until it rains.

You can’t see it from where you are but across the way there, over a bit to the left, there’s a regular condo of burrows in a hillside and little caves and places to sit out in the sun and have grass tea and talk to each other that’s just filled with ground squirrels who had the good fortune to get locked down together. There’s even a ground squirrel cheerleading academy over there. Can I get there from here? Nooooo. Not for a couple of more weeks and that’s only if we don’t get a second wave because some yoyo won’t wear his mask, and if that red-tail quits building its nest over on the tree line.

So yeah, I’m getting fed up with this whole thing. I saw on the net that there is this heavy duty metal sort of a hazmat suit with a built in mask made just for ground squirrels that you can order. So just as soon as my stimulus check comes in I’m ordering one. Then I’m heading across the meadow to ground squirrel heaven. Don’t try and stop me, I’m serious. I’m going. I’ve had it with this rock. Stay tuned for further details.

The More Things Change…

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Camp Life – Crow Fair – 2015

There is an old phrase we hear every so often that says “The More things change, the more they stay the same.”

The idea being that in a situation where there appears to be a drastic change many of the underlying fundamentals are still the same.

In days long past a warrior would tie his favorite war pony to the front of his lodge as a sign of his original worth both monetarily and as a symbol of his value as a warrior. In our current time the same thing occurs but the form is different. The intent and perception remains the same.

Again in many ways the culture and tradition is preserved just presented in a new way bringing truth to the old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same.