Tag Archives: puppies

Pardon Our Turkey

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That was the cry I heard as I sat up in The Directors chair in my office on the seventh turret in the fourth tower, the only tower that allows me to see both the sunrise and the sunset, sometimes simultaneously if the light is right, surveying the vast holdings that is The Institute. It is Thanksgiving morning and visions of fat roasting turkeys rotating slowly on the spits in our cavernous kitchen deep beneath the main keep, listening for the small explosions as the drippings fall into the embers. The smell coming up the spiral staircase causes a ravenous hunger to form in the most gentle of souls, all of this and more occupy my thoughts.

The gentle but suspicious lowing of the oxen in the kitchens’ holding pen adding their voices to the background of the holiday symphony slowly warming up. They are being fed as much as they can eat so they are properly ready for the holiday meals. Christmas is just around the corner and we’ll need three of them. The cook has chosen Lisa, Cranalby, and Lamont,  one for each of the walk-in fireplaces or ovens, the hoists to lift them up onto the spits already in place, oiled and ready, the chains hanging low enough that the kitchen urchins can reach them to begin slowly turning them from carcass to steamship rounds, and briskets, and steaks and huge piles of unnamed but tasty gibbets, but that was Christmas, six weeks away, today is Turkey. Yes, big turkeys. Lots of white meat, and extra legs for those that like them.

But then, there was that call coming from way down below, “Pardon our turkeys, pardon our turkeys”, the chant rolling up the tower walls into my reveries until, that’s it, enough, I had to deal with it. Sliding down the 140′ brass pole that provided a quick exit to the ground level I was brought up short by all the interns I had sent out to gather the turkeys that I had paid good money for, see http://www.bigshotsnow.com/i-got-the-info-you-got-the-bread/, wailing and gnashing their teeth, the youngest crying like they’d never murdered a bunch of turkeys before, the oldest carrying not only their hatchets but torches too. Yelling miserably “Pardon our Turkeys, pardon our turkeys” over and over. It was heart-rending. I was torn by the angst I heard in their voices. I don’t think they could have been more affected if I had announced we were going to boil up a mess of puppies. The cute kind, like Golden Retrievers or something.

So with the thought of hatchets and torches, and in the interest of keeping my staff happy I made a snap decision. Waving my arms in the air to calm them and get them to lower those hatchets I made a command decision. “OK, Ok,” I said in my most commanding voice. “As your Director and the leader of The Institute, I hereby issue the following decision. All Turkey’s brought in for the purpose of being our Thanksgiving Dinner shall heretofore be Pardoned, set free to roam The Institute’s grounds and not be considered for their edible qualities until next year, when all bets are off.” Cheers immediately broke out with loud cries of “Huzzah, huzzah!” and “Yes, Oh thank you Director!”  and even a few gobbles from the turkeys awaiting their fate.

“Turn them loose, turn them all loose.” I magnanimously said “All but Lennie the Terrible up there on the ridge. He is a rogue and a scoundrel, Bring him to me. He is a known felon who has committed grievous crimes against The Institute and must stand trial for his misdeeds at once. Take him to the kitchen I will convene court in a few moments. As for dinner we’ll be serving Cajun Lasagna in the main cafeteria.” The shock of having Lennie put on trial began to dissipate as they thought about the Cajun Lasagna, one of the all time staff favorites. Thoughts ran across their faces like a Times Square billboard. Lennie was a bastard. Nobody liked him much anyway and we got all the rest of the Turkeys pardoned. Ok cool, was the general consensus of the crowd.

All of the interns and other staff member who participated in the uprising were soon hanging around the cafeteria, their nostrils pressed against any crack in the buildings log walls, smelling the incredible scent of Cajun Lasagna, being careful not to stick their tongues on the metal trim around the windows, waiting anxiously for the dinner bell to ring.

As for me, I had the unpleasant duty to proceed with the trial of Lennie the Terrible. He was found guilty of course, the evidence being overwhelming and the sentence was carried out post-haste. We never like to see one of our prized bird friends lost but justice must be served, and Lennie will be remembered fondly at each future Thanksgiving dinner, but most especially at this one.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family and friends where ever they may be. You are in my thoughts and I love you all. A special thank you to all of our International readers out there. I know you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but I know you have a lot to be thankful for and I want to tell you I appreciate your visits and support. There is a bunch of Aussies out there that I want to give a shout out to. Thanks, mates, and many other nationalities that have been recently visiting the blog. Last year we had visitors from 66 countries and this year we’re ahead of that total. I wish there was room to list you all, but it would be like the roll call at the United Nations. Thank you one and all. And come visit again soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

The Rut

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Yesterday was the official opening of the Rut. As you know, the Rut is where the bulls gather cows together called a harem and battle each other for breeding rights. This goes on for weeks and is the highlight of the Elks life, both cows and bulls. There’s usually a big opening ceremony down on the Madison river with hor’s d’oeuvre, some wine, the boxed kind mostly, there’s a lot of elk here for the opening, and we still haven’t fully recovered from the recession, a big banner across the meadow saying “Welcome back Bulls! Get to it!”. The press is on hand to do a shoot of the prominent bulls, They want to feature who’s the biggest, the baddest, which bull is going to kick the most bull butt, who’s going to collect the most cows. There’s always a breakdown sheet on the individual bulls stats. Who fathered the most calves, what was the bull calf ratio to cow calves born, etc. It’s like Yellowstone does Vegas.

There’s actually a pari-mutuel betting window set up down near 7 mile bridge for those so inclined. Last year their crowd favorite was a bull named Edwin, normally a shy reclusive bull in the off-season but a holy terror during the rut. He’s been ranked 1st with a 71-3-1 record. This year the money’s on a new bull named Thug. ( see image above) There’s not much known about Thug other than the fact that he put his antlers through the door of a Prius and made the driver embarrass himself. The Park staff gave him a written warning, which Thug promptly ate, and told him if he did it again they’d saw his antlers off. That got his attention for a minute. That’s like a death sentence during the Rut. Thug listened but showed no emotion. You’ll hear comments like “Dead bull walking” when he goes by now. It didn’t seem to phase him however as he promptly flipped the hor’s d’oeuvre table over during the weigh-in just to rattle Edwin. This should be a Rut of the century coming up folks.

Normally The Director is on hand to oversee the festivities and act as an unofficial Master of Ceremonies. This year there was a problem getting away from The Institute which can’t really be told in complete detail, but it had to do with our on going Animal Modification program. This is one of our most secret programs, not because it’s illegal, but it is to protect our investment and to keep our procedures under lock and key until we can file the proper patent papers and get everything trademarked. We can’t take the risk of losing the T-Shirt sales and other merchandising items we have planned by letting someone beat us to the punch.

We can relate the situation that occurred without giving away the details on our gene sequencing procedures or our use of a reconstituted and safe red-dye #2, that it was our work with Wolverines that went all over wonky of a sudden yesterday and caused the cancellation of our trip. Our purpose is to modify the Wolverines behavior so they can be sold as house pets. There has been a lot of heat on the puppy-mills lately and we frankly see a huge decline in cute huggable puppies in the not too distant future. That’s where we feel we could really capitalize on our new, gentle, genetically modified and recolored wolverines. With our new breeding programs in place, normally wolverines who are so mean one of them has to die in the mating procedure, can now mate safely, actually enjoying the process rather than ripping each others appendages off. We think we have reduced wolverine meanness to a more manageable level. That’s good as that means baby wolverines by the boatload and that means big bucks.

Briefly, our problem happened as we were loading the research vehicles to leave for the opening ceremonies, one of the interns was throwing a dead moose into their confinement area, the wolverines not the interns confinement area, for their evening meal and did not close the door and activate the remote tracking weapons and all of the wolverines got out of their cage. These were the unmodified wolverines. This created a real bad situation right now, we mean an awful one, and anyone who was caught outside was immediate wolverine food. Fortunately The Director, who is lucky that way was climbing up on the roof of the Mothership, our primary research vessel, and was able to pull the ladder up where he was safe but trapped. Several hours later one of our slow thinking interns remembered the tranquilizer gun and was able to dart two of the guard wolverines that were securing the door of our shed containing our bite proof wolverine recovering proximity suits.

To make a long story longer we got the suits, we rounded up and caught the wolverines, which is a whole battle by itself, and much of what we can’t tell you about, and got the area secured again. By then it was too late to leave and we were all tired so we said to hell with it and went in and had pizza and watched “Yellowstone – Super Volcano – Will it Blow and kill Everything and Everybody All Over the Place ” on TV. For those of you who haven’t seen this documentary, apparently it will. So after some thought we decided to pass on the Rut this year and wait and see if Yellowstone is still there in the Spring. But if you’re not doing anything the Rut goes on for a while and you can take it in. Let us know how it goes.

Near-sighted Wolves

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As you can see by the above photo there is a new plague troubling our friends the wolves. It’s not just the Wyoming legislature or mean-spirited ranchers but a new disease called lupus prope aciei or Wolf Near-sightedness. It is a relatively new disease for these wolves, only having been discovered after researchers found them stumbling and bumping into things as the wolves tried to follow a scent trail on their hunt. The researchers had been following up reports of wolves with large swollen noses and bruises around their head and shoulders seen sitting listlessly along the roadside. They had taken to walking along the asphalt because of the lack of obstacles in their way, pathetically nose to tail, like tired circus elephants, sometimes the young pups even holding on to their parents tails with their mouths. If wolves could cry it would have been their Trail of Tears.

Just what is this affliction really though, you might ask. Well here you can see a prime example of this problem in action. The wolf in the foreground has just scented an elk or buffalo or a tourist with some pizza and is peering about myopically trying to locate its possible prey. See it squint its eyes, that’s not a Clint Eastwood imitation, no, that is lupus prope aciei  at work. That poor wolf can not see past the end of its own snout. The wolf in the background who is also afflicted is desperately trying to ascertain what it is it just stepped in.

The federal government sent in a canine Ophthalmologist to test the wolves hoping to discover the cause of the wolves ailments but due to over-zealousness in the doctor’s approach and his handling of the wolves he was never seen again. These are wolves. They’re near-sighted not domesticated. So as of right now we know little about the cause and/or treatment of this debilitating affliction other than don’t be grabbing no wolf by the nose to look in its eyes unless you get some type of formal agreement first. That, and wolves can’t digest badges and optical testing equipment. It’s not much but it’s a start.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, these wolves are now safe in a modified enclosure near Yellowstone National Park until they can be cured. All the rocks and other wolf-height lumpy obstacles are in the process of being wrapped in a protective foam covering and other taller impediments such as trees, large shrubbery, shovel handles, barrels to store wolf chow in, etc., are being modified with an application of foam Bollard covers, a technique borrowed from the maritime industry to keep large oil tankers from damaging those expensive metal posts on the docks they tie up at. This may safeguard our wolves for the time being but is not by any means a long-term solution.

One drawback to this approach is that it hasn’t been determined whether wolves like the taste of foam. If that turns out to be the case, that wolves do indeed like the taste of foam, perhaps a solution would be to spray the entire compound with an industrial strength product like Grannick’s Bitter Apple Spray, which is used to keep puppies from eating your credenza, and is available at fine pet stores nationwide. It’s just a thought.

But listen, a word of warning. If you should come across a wolf sitting forlornly along the roadside staring at his feet, don’t rush up to it and offer your condolences about its condition, Wolves don’t like that. Instead in a moderate tone say something like “Hey, dude, What’s up? You OK? Anything we can do for you?” Something like that. Do not and I repeat, Do not rush up and grab its snout and start looking into its eyes to see if it is near-sighted or not. I mean, this should go without saying but there are some of you out there that watch way too much TV and might be tempted to utilize the Disney approach and offer aid. Don’t do that. There are trained professionals on duty to handle situations like this. Call them. Let them do their jobs. Instead if you feel like you want to help, send cards, or donate those used eye glasses into the many drop-off boxes located throughout the area, or make a donation to the lupus prope aciei fund or simply drive on by. You can help more just by sending them your good thoughts.

Point Of View

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Point of view. Everyone’s got one. Some are political, some religious, some just opinionated, (you know who you are) and for some it is simply what the words say, a point of view. Where you look. Photographers share all those other points of view too, but sometimes they have an extra point of view. A way of looking that is unique and different and perhaps slightly skewed from the normal way of seeing.

This can be a blessing or a curse. The good part is you see things that are new and different that many others have missed. The bad part is this happens all the time, constantly, everywhere you look. If you go to a new place you can be overwhelmed with new sights  to the point where you don’t know where to look next but you have to shoot it. It’s a situation where no shots can be left behind.

Many of these different views require you to do strange but weird things to get the image. Such as lying flat on your slightly but manly rotund belly on the ground in the middle of the path, kind of like a beached whale, blocking everyone else’s movement while you futz around trying to get the shot just right. Normally most people are understanding of your behavior because they know this is a beautiful place and it’s obvious you’re trying to get the ultimate shot, but others are less caring and more than a little impatient with you. These are the ones who are most likely to step on the back of your head with nary an apology as they hurry to get their sightseeing done. I don’t like those people. They’re also very likely to step on your elbow so they can get into a better position to step on the back of your head. These people probably don’t like puppies either, or Jesus, or John Wayne, or even art, the bastards.

However the results of your efforts, if you persevere, are often marvelous to behold and almost worth the knot on the back of your head. This image of a section of the lower portion of Antelope canyon is the result of lying on the floor to get this angle. The result was it brought out a small amount of detail that was down close to the floor and was missed by almost everyone walking by. Those kind souls who waited patiently and didn’t step on me were rewarded with suddenly seeing a part of the canyon they would have missed. And now you, for whatever it’s worth, get to share it too. Thanks for waiting.

He Ain’t Heavy

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HeAintHeavy986Coyote Pups Yellowstone                   click to enlarge

He ain’t heavy, He’s my brother. The refrain from that song plays in my head every time I look at this picture. Spring in Yellowstone means family. The animal world has figured out how to make sure all the creatures get their young born at the best possible time to ensure their survival as individuals, and as a species. So when spring breaks get out-of-the-way because everything that’s going to have young ones is having them.

Besides being a good survival technique its good for photographers too. If you watch what’s going on and keep a sharp eye open you’ll soon be stumbling all over animal kids. You’ll be knee deep in coyote puppies, elk calves, BIghorn sheep lambs, Osprey chicks, antelope fawns, badger babies, every single specie that has two or more members of the opposite sex present will be having offspring.

These coyote pups were born in a small cave in a rock outcropping that was literally 3-4′ from one of the main roads in Yellowstone, not far from a major tourist lookout point at Gibbon Falls. Thousands of cars went by it every day. Thousands of cars wasn’t an exaggeration as the road past Gibbon Falls is a main portion of the loop road that rings the park. If you’re coming up from Old Faithful on the West side of the park you can’t get North to Mammoth or East over to the Hayden Valley without travelling on this road and passing by this family’s home. Within several feet of it actually.

It was amazing how few people saw these guys playing in their front yard, goofing off, waiting for mom to show up with lunch. Photographers saw them though. This coyote den wasn’t too far from a pullout and every day until mom finally got tired of the traffic and noise and moved everybody to a better neighborhood, the pullout would fill up with photographers vehicles and everyone would trudge up the road to set up for the days shoot.

Of course as soon as the tripods and long glass came out the cars going by would slow, their windows rolled down and the tourist’s lament would come forth, “Hey Whatcha lookin at?” Coyotes ” Those puppies?” Yep. “They look like dogs” No answer. “What are they doing?” Sleeping. “Sleeping? Do they do anything else?” No answer. “Have you seen any Elk?” No, we’re watching coyotes. “Well they ain’t doin nothing.” No answer. “Is this all you guys do all day?” Yep. And off they’d go in a flurry of squealing tires and loud music, a look of total disbelief on their face that grown people would spend the entire day watching sleeping puppies. Occasional there would be a brake light if somebody thought they’d seen an elk but mostly it was pedal to the metal to get to the next thing to see.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach to visiting the park. People experience life the way they want to. We can get all evangelistic about it and try to show them the error of their ways ( at least as we think it should be ) but when everything is said and done, if they’re happy so what. They’ll figure things out eventually. In the mean time I’m busy watching sleeping puppies.