Tag Archives: Holy Mackerel

Holy Mackerel !

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Is that bird blue or What ?!? As The Director I’m always looking for things that are eye-catching, dazzling, stop you in your tracks beautiful, and as I was walking by the media center here at *The Institute I happened to look up at the several Jumbo-trons we have placed around the Great Hall. On the screen was an image with the most brilliant blue imaginable. Instead of changing to the next image the shot remained on the screen, flickering, casting its blue light across the room as it kept its place in the que of gallery images that are shown throughout the day.

We use the Image Selector, our patented, proprietary little black box that is in charge of picking the image for the day, the one that sits on the desk of the head of our Pick a Picture for the Blog Today department heads’ desk. We never realized that it had a predilection for the color blue, all shades of it actually, and when it came across this image of a Stellar’s Jay it just froze up. Stopped dead in its little electronic tracks. So far the image has been playing non-stop on the overheating Jumbo-trons for seven hours and twenty-eight minutes and shows no sign of stopping.

Unfortunately or not, depending on your tolerance for blue, we cannot shut down the Image Selector for various reasons (See http://www.bigshotsnow.com/first-light-3/ ) so we are patiently waiting for the algorithm that controls the color choice in an image to finally gets its fill of blue. If it doesn’t knock it off by tomorrow we’re going to try hitting it on its flat little top with a rubber hammer. Meanwhile if you like blue you’re in luck. Here’s a good example of it.

* 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.

Back In The Bushes

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Spring in Rocky Mountain National Park is usually a time when love is the center of attention. There is all that birds and bees stuff going on what with pairing up and nest-building and the place fairly reeks of love. For the Elk, love is for the Fall. Spring is for birthing babies. Elk mate and carry their young through the winter and in the Spring there is a frenzy of activity as the various pregnant cows decide important things. Like which clump of bushes to drop their calf’s in. It has to be far enough away from the main herd to keep busybodies away yet close enough to show off the little darlings after they arrive. Or what type of layette they will have to make their nursery complete, blue or pink, that kind of thing. One of the biggest decisions to make is which name to pick out if it is a bull calf.

Edith June and Loretta Clarisse are sisters and have always been fiercely competitive. They’ve been on the outs since last Fall when they found out they had both been with Big Daryl the herd bull. Big Daryl was one of the toughest, meanest, most belligerent bulls in the park which made him highly desirable of course, and the sisters both wanted to name their offspring some variation of Daryl, figuring this would give them an edge next Fall when the Rut, or mating season came around.

Edith June, the cow on the left, had made a grand announcement that not only was she carrying Daryl’s progeny but that she was carrying twins, both bull calves. She was going to name them Daryl, as in, this is my son Daryl and my other son Daryl. When Loretta Clarisse heard that gossip ripple though the herd she was incensed, not only incensed but furious, nearly out of her mind with anger and rage, her jealousy rampant, as she was only carrying  one calf and it was a cow. Holy Mackerel. Did the droppings ever hit the fan when she found herself bested by her sister. Not one to keep things to herself Loretta Clarisse cornered Edith June back in the bushes and made her feelings known.

Cows rarely get physical but when they do it is impressive to watch. Kind of like when two pretty, but shapely sisters fight over getting the same boyfriends name tattooed on their posteriors. There is head-butting, name calling, gnashing of teeth, baleful glaring, and hoof hitting. Hoof hitting is the one that causes damage. Their hooves are sharp and they hit with the full weight of their 450 lb. bodies, and cuts and getting an eye out are not uncommon.

Fortunately some of the older cows who have been through this many times before  waded in and broke them up before any real damage was done. Other than some bruised egos and a sharp pain in Edith June’s side from the exertion everything ended as well as could be expected. The older cows herded Loretta Clarisse to the other end of the meadow to cool down and Edith June’s friends commiserated with her, telling her how lucky she was to be having twins and how awful her sister was for being such a bitch. Cow elk use the word bitch having heard it from the many tourists that frequent the park so don’t be surprised if you hear them calling each other that if you visit. This is a good reason not to use vulgar language in front of our wild friends.

What you have just seen is not a rare occurrence here in Rocky Mountain National Park. Elk are a family and the family dynamics aren’t a lot different from that found in human families. One of the things to watch for as you view the Elk herd on your next visit is the sheer number of bull calves named Daryl. Elk are not very imaginative and tend to copy whatever the most popular cow does. So every bull calf born this year is likely to be named Daryl even if it’s father was actually named Steve. That’s just how things work here.

The Buffalo Whistle

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Many of you long time readers remember that *The Institute has its own fully domesticated herd of North American Buffalo. You can see them in the picture above coming in from The Institutes high country where they summer. These are Buffalo not bison which so many of those so-called naturalists keep insisting is their correct name. Those nattering nabobs of negativity constantly repeat this misnomer. They have even gotten it into some scientific writing, by having made up a scientific name for the animal. It is “Bison, bison” as if repeating it over and over makes it so. Look it up, they have even assigned a bunch of Italian words to its Scientific Classification. Like bringing Europe into this is going to make them right.

Remember when you were young and you went to the movies. What did every single Indian and a lot of white guys call these animals? That’s right Buffalo. Sometimes Tontonka but that a story for another time. Why would they lie? All through our history, our ancestors, who couldn’t all be lying, have used buffalo in song and story. “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, etc.” It’s buffalo, they’re called buffalo just deal with it. Wild Bill Hickok didn’t hunt bison. He was a buffalo hunter. He’d a probably shot you for calling him a bison hunter. They were touchy about things like that.

But we digress. This is just a small part of our bison Buffalo herd. We decided to bring them down from their high country pastures because of the storm brewing back there on the mountain behind them. We bring them in so they don’t get wet. They become irritable when they’re wet and even though we have them trained they become peckish and out of sorts when damp.

It also gives us a chance to trim their hooves, comb them out and remove as much tartar from their teeth as possible. That all works best when you have dry buffalo to work with. Each of the mature buffalo has its own monogrammed blanket which we put on them to ward off the chill. Woe betide the intern who places the wrong blanket on the wrong buffalo. You only do that once. That’s when we bring up the interns assistant to make the change from the wrong to the right buffalo. Sometimes we have to bring up several assistants in a row to get the job done. Cardinal Rule: Watch Which Blanket You Put On Each Buffalo.

We had a moving post card from one of our young readers concerning Buffalo. Here it is.

Dear Mr. The Director, Isn’t it hard to handle Buffalo when they’re alone? How do you do it with a whole big herd? Do they bite, or kick? I’ve seen stories about buffalo on TV and they make a lot of messes all the time. Who cleans that up? I think buffalo are neat and I would like to have one. Do you ever sell them? If so I know where Mommy’s credit cards are and I could send you the numbers. Would that be all right? Sincerely, Towanda Clarice Malachowski, from Green bay, Wis. P.S. If you send one don’t send it on the weekend, that’s when my dad’s home. I don’t think he likes buffalos. Love, Towanda.

Well Towanda, thank you for writing and liking buffalo as much as we do. We can answer your questions. It is hard to handle buffalo when they’re alone and it’s really hard when there’s a bunch of them, which we call a herd. They will bite and kick but only when you do something the buffalo doesn’t like, such as tightening the blankets straps to tight. If you get one, don’t do that. It makes them grumpy. Yes Towanda they do make messes but it depends on how much you feed them. If you get one we will send along a pamphlet to explain their care and feeding. As for who cleans all that up we have a new intern here that does that. Her name is Hane Fonda and you can write to her if you want. Just send your letters to Hanie the Scooper % of The Institute.

The big question you didn’t ask, Towanda, was how do we get them to come when we call them and behave when they get here. That’s our big secret about handling buffalo. And it involves a special invention that we created right here at The Institute. Our staff at our “Inventions Made To Order While You Wait department” made it just for handling buffalo. It’s ours and no one else can have it. It’s called the “Buffalo Whistle”. When we blow it our specially trained buffalo come running to be first in line to get out of the weather. And also to do other things like tricks and synchronized dancing. We have a great big special one that we mount on a half-track ( A great big truck thing that hauls guys to places where they can shoot other guys. Ask your Mommy about War,) and when we blow that one, you can hear it in Kansas, it’s really, really loud. If there are any buffalo out there they’ll hear it and come running for sure. If you get your very own buffalo, and you said you know where mommy’s credit cards were, we’ll send you your very own buffalo whistle with your name on it. It has a hole in the top for a chain so you can wear it around your neck. None of the other kids have one of those we’ll bet. You ‘ll be the most special kid in school. Just think of show and tell day when you get to show off your new pet. We’ll send you a phone number where one of our special friends in Mumbai will help you with mommy’s credit card numbers. Then just sit back and wait. Before you can say “Holy Mackerel! That’s a big buffalo” there’ll be one at your door. Thank you for writing Towanda and you might ask some of the other kids if they like buffalos too.

We here at The Institute love to receive mail from young or old so keep those cards and letters coming in. Email too. We like Emails. We’d like to stay and chat longer but we have to get down to supervise the tartar removal process. That’s a complex process that needs a lot of supervision. It takes several interns to hold the buffalo’s head while we drill and fill as our resident dentist likes to say. Stay tuned.

* 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.

High Desert Sunset

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We had a beautiful sunset this evening at The Institute and it got me thinking about other sunsets I’ve seen around the area. Like this one down in Arches National Park. Because we travel so much our schedule gets pretty darn hectic you know, what with having to look at stuff to see if it’s pretty enough to photograph, then get in a good spot so all the photographic bits are in the right places, finding the camera and getting it untangled from under the seat where it got kicked when we made a burger run and the lens hood got all cocked funny and you have to wrench it off so it sits right, then figuring out the settings and making adjustments to the camera, getting all cheesed off because the flash card wasn’t formatted and you have to stop and do that otherwise the sky comes out all maroon color, I mean it’s lucky we get a sunset picture taken at all.

Then of course there’s the timing of the shot. You got to get it just right otherwise it just looks like noon or 3 in the afternoon or 11:30 in the morning. Some photographers make a big hairy deal about getting to the picture site real early and getting all their gear sorted out and acting like they’re all professional and everything, but then by the time sunset hits they’re all whacked out, bored stupid, and taking a nap in the back seat and miss the whole deal. Other’s have been dawdling, stopping to read all the signs on the side of the road, checking their email, making calls, letting the dog out to do its business, watching other photographers to see what they’re shooting, eating the rest of the potato salad from lunch so it doesn’t go bad, and then they realize “Holy Mackerel it’s dark out, I’ve missed sunset”.

We at The Institute are trained professionals and don’t make dorky mistakes like that. We have it together. We instinctively know where the best shots are, exactly what time the sun will be perfect for setting, how to get all the stuff in the picture that makes it one of those that makes you go “Whoa, man, Look here, this is far out”. This is why we’re so freaking famous. If you check out the photo closely you’ll see that everything that is in it is supposed to be there. There’s ground and sky and rocks all over the place, mountains, bushes, everything you need. We pride ourselves on that. We don’t leave good stuff out. The timing in the shot is like super excellent for the right sunset spectacular lollapalooza look, because we got that stuff down cold and we even got the right kind of clouds in there. Have we got this nailed or what.

There’s some kind of rule or fact, or probably somebody just pulled it out of the back of their long johns, that you have to take like 12 billion and eight sunset photos to get one good one. We here at the Institute say BullPucky! our results are better than that. In fact we’ve gone out when the sun was going down and gotten hallway decent shots of sunset activity several nights in a row. We’re just that good. But then that’s just our and half the English-speaking people of the world’s opinion, so what do we know. Tomorrow when the sun goes down we’re going out and photograph it, I bet those shots will be good too.