Immature Bald Eagle and Ravens – Elk Cracass – Yellowstone National Park
The Cascade wolf pack dropped a cow elk out on the meadow floor last night. The herd was hurrying to cross the open space under the light of a full moon, nervous as they sunk to their knees in the snow because they knew they were vulnerable out here. The young cow wasn’t paying close enough attention and had gotten too far out from the herd and the pack made quick work of her. The snow wasn’t all that deep but it was deep enough to hinder her flight. They fed for a while then headed back to the den area with the promise that they’d be back in the morning to make a proper job of it.
But secrets don’t keep long amongst the neighbors when it’s cold and blustery and everybody’s got to eat. As always the first to visit the carcass are the Ravens. They have a sixth sense about the dead and dying so they are on the scene almost as soon as it happens. Even with their terrible sharp bills they have a tough time cracking into the frozen hide and unless the wolves left them a good entry point they don’t make much progress getting started.
It takes a real powerhouse to get the ball rolling and an immature Bald Eagle can easily do it. With its formidable hooked beak and powerful muscles in its neck and legs, all it needs to do is get settled by sinking its long talons into the carcass and using the leverage of its body to start slicing open the hide as if it were a surgeon wielding his scalpel. In just moments it has opened up a sizable fissure in the hide and can commence feeding.
This comes as both good news and bad news for the ravens. The good news being now they can start feeding. The bad news however, is the eagle doesn’t like to share. It won’t allow any other bird to join in until it is has fed until it can hardly hop. Ravens are incredibly intelligent creatures while the eagle has the IQ of a four slice toaster. As eagles get along perfectly well with the intellect nature has given them, they’re just not in the same league as the ravens when it comes to subterfuge. Consequently the ravens have to come up with a good plan to outsmart and drive the eagle off if they want to eat before the wolves come back. They can’t physically attack the eagle with brute strength as they’re about 1/5th the size of the eagle, and if the eagle ever gets a talon into one of the ravens it’s all over for the raven. But as a mob they can use their avian cunning to confront the eagle by mock challenging it face to face while the others sneak in and grab its tail feathers or its primary feathers and try and jerk them out. Or use their own sharp bills to strike the eagle anywhere it’s undefended. This makes the eagle absolutely nuts. The eagle will swirl and turn and lash out in an attempt to the grab a raven but they’re just too nimble and before long the eagle is driven to a frenzy and takes off. The ravens prevail.
Having vanquished the eagle they feed as quickly as possibly keeping a keen eye out for the wolves. Even tho a lot of crows are called a “Murder” of crows they’re still a mob and they act like one, using the strength of numbers to get their way. This strategy doesn’t work with the wolves. They will eat ravens as well as elk if they can catch them and often they do.
Noted Mule Driver Lee Bailey performing with Mr. Jackson
Many of you are no doubt familiar with the Lipizzaner breed of Leaping horses made famous by the Spanish riding school from Vienna, Austria. They’re the big white horses that stand on their back feet and jump around while a Spanish guy tries to stay on its back. They leap and perform circus-like tricks all the while holding their heads in the air all snooty-like. Apparently being European does that to livestock, the putting on of airs and so on.
It is said that the Spanish riding school decided to come to America and put on demonstrations of how they can jump around and amaze people who aren’t used to that sort of thing. Americans had already decided early on that they didn’t need their animals jumping around and acting hoity-toity when they could be pulling a plow or a wagon, or carrying people normal-like without all that standing on their hind legs. After all we are first and foremost a serious hard working people here and need our animals to be likewise.
Having said that, while the Lipizzaner’s were on tour they gave a performance in the Cimarron National Grasslands near Elkhart, Kansas where most of the grasslands are located. The flattest, grassiest parts anyway, and as it happens there was a mule team made up of natural, all American, not snooty, mules passing through and saw them performing. Now mules are competitive by nature and after watching these jumping around horses for awhile formed the opinion that Lipizzaner’s were just silly. Why do all that when it was not only unnecessary but you didn’t get anything extra for it. Mules are practical creatures, you want them to stand on their hind feet and jump around you got to give them something for it. None of this “Good boy” “Nice Jump”, or I guess it would be “Buen Chico” and “Buen Salto” them being Spanish and all, for American mules. You better come up with a bunch of extra hay or one big bucket of oats for them if you want them to do anything fancy.
But, and it was a big one, they felt like those transient, immigrant-like horses were trying to intimidate them. Who did they think they were coming over here with all those airs. After all they put their shoes on their hooves the same as anybody else. They decided that if a mere horse could do that stuff a mule could do it much better. So they began working out when they weren’t hauling freight or tourists down the Grand Canyon, where by the way it was important that they didn’t do any of that standing up or jumping around stuff on that narrow Bright Angel trail, until they too could do all that jumping and leaping and carrying on. They just didn’t brag about it, or go looking for Spanish guys to ride them.
They saved those talents for when it was important and necessary like when they had to go up a hill. Many times it was easier and more efficient to stand up on their back feet and hop up the incline. They didn’t have so many feet to keep track of and it made the trip more interesting. With their powerful hind legs made up of natural grass fed mule muscle they could leap 8-10′ at a time making short work of any hill climbing. It was refreshing for the riders too.
Also mules love to polka. They will often break into a lively oberek or a shoddish or any of the more polka-like dances. If you watch mule trains for any length of time you will occasionally see a mule suddenly break into a polka and whirl about, jump, leap, backup, and try to catch their own tails, scattering riders and belongings all about the prairie. Which is why experienced riders try to keep their mules engaged and occupied with more mundane trail activities, like pulling heavy wagons, or talking to them about how soap is made.
Although jumping mules are not as common as they once were they are still found in the Cimarron grasslands where they first saw the Lipizzaner’s performing. It takes an extremely experienced mule rider to transverse the rolling grasslands where at any moment their steed may revert back to its origins of being America’s Jumping Mules and perform at will.
A section of the Santa Fe trail runs through the Cimarron National Grasslands near Elkhart Kansas, a large expanse of semi-desert land covered with sand sagebrush, cactus, and various flowering plants. The Cimarron river flows alongside the trail and during the summer months is usually dry. Huge old cottonwoods line the bank and provide some much needed shade to travelers passing through. The land is mainly flat with gently rolling hills and bluffs that line the valley. This is the old prairie in all its glory. History can be felt here as you travel the same trail that countless travelers have traveled before you, mountain men, settlers, wagon trains, Indian hunters and warriors, cowboys driving cattle, every memory of the old west has seen this trail and made their own journeys along it.
In early June of this year five historical reenactors riding mules and horses recreated a portion of that journey. They made the journey along the same route traveled by countless journeyers before them. Carrying their own food and water and camping in primitive camps they experienced the same brutal heat with temperatures reaching way into the high 90’s and a 13-15 mph wind that sometimes felt like the inside of a convection oven during the day, and dropping back into the 60’s at night, a blessed relief after the heat of the day. Riding the original trail, seeking water wherever it was available for their stock, climbing the bluffs to look over the endless sea of prairie grass, they felt the history of this famous byway. The discomforts all part of the journey.
David L Hollingsworth and Dwight Lutsey Circa 1964 Agana Guam Naval Hospital
It’s Memorial day again, May 25th, 2020 and as I do every Memorial day I repost this tribute to my late friend David L Hollingsworth. Another year has gone by and unlike my other memories which have started to fade away this was one has stayed crystal clear. This year especially, when we’ve been forced to isolate ourselves from our regular daily life, I’ve had plenty to think about, health, love, my family, life in general, all the mistakes I’ve made, all the current and previous tragedies, the good things that have happened, the list goes on, but the thing is I’ve had the privilege of thinking and doing those things, my friend David has not. Apparently it is something that happens to those of us that get older, the clarity of revisiting those times when we were most alive, I’m pushing hard on 76, and although I have memories aplenty this is the one that stands out for me. Especially today when we are tasked with remembering our friends and loved ones that have fallen. I know that this post is beginning to resemble a book but I don’t care. David and his life was and is worth all the words in the world. If you have time, read the whole thing, if you don’t, take a moment to say thanks to those we left behind. They deserve it. If this post resonates for you and you think of someone who has a similar loss, pass it on so they know they are not alone. Send it to anyone who might be thinking that the world has changed enough that these things no longer matter, they do. They do.
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May 25 2019, Once I realized that every Memorial day I get older, I realized that my memories, once so startling clear and precise, were beginning to fade a little around the edges. There are things that cannot be lost, this memory among them. It is self explanatory as you read through it. This day in which we are supposed to remember the friends lost and the circumstances that resulted in their loss, now used as an excuse to go camping or have a barbeque in the back yard, remains a special spot in our hearts to those who have lost someone because of our service to our country. As I age I find myself moved to tears more often and especially on this day when I think back on our good times and bad together as we made our way through our part of the war I have made a solemn vow to David L Hollingsworth and my self to never let his and our memories of that long ago time fade. If you have someone like that in your life you know what I mean. So today, Memorial Day, and for every Memorial day to come as long as I’m here, I will post this memorial to my long gone friend. Here’s to you Dave. I still miss you.
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Every Memorial day I am brought back with startling clarity to that time when I was in the service. I was in the Navy. A lot of that time is just a blur of places, travel, events, people. But some parts of it are etched so deeply into my soul that I can instantly bring back every moment, every sound, every smell and I am transported back there. Completely. I can feel that hot sun, smell the salt in the breeze off the ocean and feel the presence of the best friend I have ever had. His name was David L Hollingsworth and that’s what everyone called him. David L Hollingsworth. It wasn’t required. It just happened naturally. When you saw him it was perfectly normal to say “Hey, David L Hollingsworth, What’s happening”. Even some of the officers did it and they didn’t like anybody, especially enlisted men.
We were stationed on Guam in the Mariana Islands, part of the Trust Territory and overseen by the US government. The Mariana’s trench, the deepest place in the Pacific ocean, was just past the reef and it was always a test of will power to swim out over it knowing there were miles of water between you and the ocean’s floor. The time was 1963 through 1965. The war was Viet Nam.
David and I were Hospital Corpsmen in the Navy. We both went in as “kiddie cruisers”. That was when you went into the service the day after you were 17 and got out the day before you were 21, and we were stationed at Agana Naval Hospital there on Guam. It was also the home of Anderson Air Force base where many of the B-52’s that flew into Viet Nam were kept. I had just turned 19 when this picture was taken, so was David, still teenagers. Our peers were juniors in high school when we joined. We were attached to the psych unit of the hospital there and it was the place where many of those servicemen from the entire Southeast Asian theater, but mainly from Viet Nam, who had mental problems, or had physical injuries that affected their brains, or had fallen prey to the drugs that were so prevalent in Viet Nam, were brought to for treatment and care.
Our friendship started because of the way our names were spelled. His last name started with ‘H’ and mine with ‘L’ and the Navy would assign you to the various schools or duty stations by the first letter of your last name. All the ‘A’ through ‘G’s, were a group, all the ‘H through ‘O’s were a group and so on. Both of us being in the ‘H’ through ‘O’ group, we were sent to the various schools and Duty Stations together until we finally wound up on the island in 1963.
Being on Guam was very much like that opening line “In A tale of Two Cities”.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way –”
Living on an island in the South Pacific is not the Paradise everyone thinks it is. Yes it is beautiful, yes you are disconnected from everyday life, yes it is the getaway that you want, but only for a short time. After a while reality sets in. The constant heat, humidity, the unrelenting trade winds that drive you crazy. The boredom, the smallness of the island. You could ride a bike around it in a couple of hours. The tedious yet dangerous aspect of the work, all combined to make it a place you wanted to be away from. And right now. It was why we put in for every opportunity to get off the island, whether it was for extra duty, or leave, or any excuse you could think of, you wanted to be gone.
We all handled our time there in different ways. I bitched. I bitched about it constantly. I know it’s not the most flattering way to describe yourself but it is accurate. I hated it there. I couldn’t wait for any opportunity to leave and pulled every string I could to make it happen. I also spent my time thinking about the future, how long did I have before I could get off this rock, what I was missing by being there, everything I could do to make my stay there more miserable, I did. David on the other hand lived in the moment. He took each day as a new one, bright with promise. There was always something that made the day exciting, fulfilling, adventuresome. It didn’t matter that it was Guam, why sweat it, we were alive. A lot of guys weren’t. He was the most serene person I have ever known. I used to call him Buddha because of it. That and his round, bowling ball shaped head.
It was due to him that I was able to finish my time there and finally leave and come home. Come back to the world we called it. Every time I felt like I was going to lose it he was there and in a few simple sentences would talk me down and I was good for another little while. He never needed that. He was a rock. He could find something new and interesting to do when all the rest of us just saw the endless days on the calendar with the x’s marked through showing how long we’d been there and how long we had to go. David didn’t have a calendar, he didn’t care. “Let’s go diving”, he’d say. Or “lets get a beer”. We were lucky, we got out of there, we made it through, we lived, and we returned to the world. We stayed in touch.
I remember the first night I got the phone call. It was 3 in the morning. I was asleep with my wife. He was crying so hard that I couldn’t understand him. He had just recently gotten married to the love of his life, they were starting a family. He had finally finished jumping through all the hoops to become a doctor and had just joined a prestigious practice where he was an oncology resident. His life was pointed forward in the best way it could be, And he was dying. Dying from Hodgkin’s. It was the first of many late night calls. Nights were hard for him. I used to wake up in the middle of the night thinking I heard the phone ring. Sometimes I would lay awake waiting because I knew he was going to call.
We talked of many things. In the beginning it was usually about treatment. Then when it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be any treatment that would work we talked of other things. We talked about our time together on Guam, and the liberty we pulled. The women we knew. We remembered his visit to the house when I was first starting out with my family and he wanted to see my son. “So I can remember him like this when he is a man” he’d said. And we talked about the one thing that we’d never talked about when we were together and that was the future. David’s whole life philosophy was, if you’re not happy with your self or your life now, what’s going to make it better in the future.
I won’t go into those discussions because even now nearly 30 years later, they’re too personal and too difficult to set down on paper. For someone who was able to handle every difficulty life threw at him by being able to be positive in the present, the future was the one thing that terrified him the most. Not for himself so much but for the ones he would leave behind. It seemed like our late night calls went on forever and his dying lasted an eternity but they were really very short. He died in just a few months.
I was asked to be a pallbearer and we flew out to California for the funeral. Of course the airline lost my luggage and I showed up in jeans and a leather jacket to perform my duties. It seemed like everyone in the world was there. David made friends by the busload. All the doctors he worked with, some of the team from our service days, personal friends of the family, he had a big send off. He was just 41. One of the guys asked why I hadn’t worn a suit and I told him the airline lost my luggage. He said ” Oh, I thought you were just making a statement” which I probably would have if I’d thought of it. Dave would have thought it was cool.
So Memorial day for me is a sad kind of day. I think about all the guys that didn’t make it. Those that I knew and those that I didn’t. When you see a lot of death at a young age it changes how you think about it. You get callous. That changes as you get older though. The callouses rub off. Now I have to be careful how I think about those things because all the emotions I didn’t have or hid, as a young man, I have in spades now. It doesn’t take a whole lot to bring me to my knees. One of the hardest things for me is realizing that my best friend in the world didn’t have a future and if anyone on this earth deserved one it was him.
Usually you think of Memorial day as one in which we remember the ones who fell in the war, serving our country, and that is a big part of it for me too, but also as one who spent the most formative years of my young adult life in the service, in a place where nothing was permanent, where when you said good-by to someone you meant it, it was the relationships, the friendships that were formed and carried forward for the rest of my life that are the most memorable. David didn’t die in the war like so many others we knew, but it was where we met. And our bonds were forged during that time when people we knew were fighting and dying, and dealing with it was the basis of our friendship. I know it played a crucial part in who I became and who David became. It made us brothers. And when he died it didn’t matter that we didn’t share blood. The grief was the same. Every Memorial day I remember and so far the memory has never faded, we were brothers, once and forever.
Rest in Peace David L Hollingsworth. I could use your friendship again. I miss you.
It’s Spring again and everything has been just as crazy up in Yellowstone National Park as it has been down here what with the threat of various virus’s and other problems such as layoff’s, furloughing, high unemployment amongst the animals that are the heart of Yellowstone. It has been a troublesome Spring. Every year when it gets close to the park reopening the National Park Service instructs the Federal Fish and Wildlife department to inventory, catalog, determine specie fitness and check each animal prior to opening the park for this years visitors. The animals need to ready for the long days of being on display and performing whatever their particulars species activities require.
As you might imagine this is a very large undertaking due to the size of the wildlife population that normally resides in the park. Just inventorying the Yellow-rumped warblers takes forever and they’re only one species out of 300 that call the park home. The initial groups brought in for re-indoctrination of park guidelines and requirements are of course, those species that are large enough to be problematic regarding interaction with the tourists, who as you would expect, have paid a large sum of money to view the wildlife and be entertained. They have high expectations due to being cooped up for the last several months with nothing to do but watch Nature programs on TV. Fortunately there are activities that the largest animals can participate in, such as Buffalo Soccer which is perfectly suited to the buffalos mentality and physique, and is a huge favorite of the foreign visitors to the park. You can expect to hear Gooooooal ! all thru the Hayden valley once the games start.
Other large animals that can require management due to their propensity for violence and misbehavior are the hooved ungulates, such as the Rocky Mountain Elk, who have a huge representation in the park. Mostly they are not considered to be a problem early on as they just eat and grow antlers until Fall approaches. Then they shed their antlers and begin to get all chesty as the “Rut” gets nearer. That’s where they get to choose as many cows as they can get their hooves on. Then it’s “Katy Bar the door!” as all hell breaks loose when these big boys battle to decide who the bull duck in the pond is going to be and who gets to keep all those cows they claimed. When this is happening no one can get near them without something terrible happening, as these 1200 lbs. love buckets care for only one thing and that is mating. The last thing on their minds is being sociable with tourists regardless of what those folks saw on TV. These animals are not here to be your new best friends.
To try and keep the damage down to a manageable level the Fish and Game department is trying something new this year. Yoga. One of the senior officials in the department was informed by his wife that Yoga is good for managing stress and anxiety, something these bulls have plenty of as they wait for the velvet to fall off their antlers, so why don’t you try Yoga to see if it doesn’t do the trick for settling these boys down. There have been several articles in Cosmo, Elle and Vogue that stated this was the new best thing to do and since this dialogue took place over a pitcher of Margaritas, there you have it. Yoga in the park and attendance is mandatory. The young fellow above is in his new favorite pose, Upward Facing Bull and as you can see by the sheer bliss settling over his face it appears to be working. Lets’ see how this all holds up in September when the Rut is starting. They may have to give Cosmos a call and get a retraction.
Crow rider impressing the 7th cavalry with his riding skill
The parade of the troopers showed their massed formation with each cavalry member dressed in their best uniforms, and carrying their newest weapons and using their military bearing to its best advantage. They wanted to appear to be invincible to the tribes who didn’t utilize this type of concentrated warfare.
There were times before the situation between the tribes and the whites became too adversarial that the two soon to be warring parties had contact. When this happened it was an occasion for them to impress each other with their strength and abilities, and especially their power.
The Indians on the other hand fought a more individual style of warfare with warriors banding together in large or small groups, but with each individual having his own style of riding and fighting, and they used their body paint as both a protection and a warning to all seeing them how powerful they were. Taunting their enemies with war cries and declarations of their strength and bravery were common even if they didn’t understand each other’s language.
The rider above is showing his prowess by his horsemanship and daring with his riding skill while calling out his challenge to the troopers watching him. “Do you see me? I am not afraid of your bullets. I welcome meeting you in Battle”. There was no fighting this day but it wasn’t long before each side would test their style of combat for better or worse.
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