Road Trip

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Dwight Lutsey

Every once in a while we take a chance here at The Institute and do something really nice for our employees. This year we shut The Institute down completely for the entire holiday season, banked the fires, put the computers in standby, turned off the electricity to the fence, turned our livestock loose to fend for themselves, gave all of our interns a bus ticket to the last place they remember being from and The Institute went into hibernation until the New Year’s bells rang.

Now we are ramping up again. Everyone is slowly trickling back from where ever they spent the holidays. Just yesterday the bright, shiny, baby blue bus that the Sheriff’s department uses to transport prisoners hither and yon, hither being County road 56G where they cheerfully spread blacktop for the entire fortnight of the holidays, and yon, back to the tent city up near the Soapstone Wildlife Preserve where they ate sagebrush and tried not to freeze to death, dropped off the interns and two of our PhD’s that had spent the Christmas holidays in the bosom of the Larimer County Work but not release program.

Fortunately our critical employees like our chef returned a day early to get the fires built back up again. Of course he returned because we kept the back seat out of his 1968 Buick Boattail Riviera as an incentive to come back. You can not find replacements for those anywhere, I don’t care if you look on Craigslist, eBay, AutoZone, or any junkyard from here to the Philippines, they’re just not available. It’s good to see that coal-black smoke roiling out of the commissaries chimneys again. It won’t be long before the scent of coal fires and Lamprey stew and frozen dinners will coat the buildings with a thin layer of grease again. I know some of our interns cannot wait. Which is good because they’ve already chewed so much bark off the aspen I don’t know what the elk are going to eat this winter,

Our Chief of Security was also an early returnee. She had to put new brushes in the generator that keeps the fence electrified and to test fire the AR-15’s that were stored in the gun locker. Plus she just likes shooting stuff and it’s difficult to find a place where you can discharge automatic weapons with impunity. Our med staff came back because there would be a lot of cases to treat amongst the returning interns due to their living rough as they call it. Rashes, bites, broken teeth, infected tattoos, malnutrition, loss of key parts of their bodies from unknown incidents, bruises from manacles and restraints, loss of body hair from attending New Year’s parties, colds, hypo and hyper thermia, hearing loss from listening to Mother’s and other loved ones telling them to get a real job, acute disorientation, many terrible nearly untreatable diseases from those who traveled outside the country to their home of origin, and sea sickness. Our med staff is ready, in fact some of them were walking around with their rubber gloves on already.

Our animals got time off also. The wolves went up to Yellowstone to visit friends, the grizzlies that watch the far-flung perimeter of The Institute had reservations at Sandals again this year. They just can’t get enough of the Turks and Caicos, Saint Lucia and Antigua. Our resident Elk herd made the short pilgrimage to Rocky Mountain National Park to see the in-laws. Our own Bighorn Sheep herd went to visit cousins and other extended family down in the Black Mountains near Kingman Arizona. They’re a little late checking in but they were sighted on Highway 34 near Allenspark just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park where they were going to stop for a night to see friends and drop off a few Desert Bighorns who wanted to see the park first hand, or hoof as it were.

It’s always a good feeling to get The Institute back up and running. Soon we’ll be having our meetings, setting agendas and summer trips schedules, putting the interns back to work with planting and watering and hoeing. They’ll be getting that lower 160 acres planted to Rutabagas again and be busy stirring up the carp ponds. Fresh fish again, they like that. We here at The Institute hope your holidays went well and you’re back in the grind with a fresh mind and rested feet. Drop us a line when you’re not busy. Let us know how your holidays went. We’ve already heard from Aunt Pheeb. Uncle Skid got out of Rikers in time to make it home for Christmas. She didn’t even know he was in New York, he had just gone out for cigarettes, but that’s a story for another time. Have a good New Year.

On Duty

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

This is a coyote pup. We didn’t get his name, we barely got this picture before he ducked down into the grass and was gone. Just to the right of this image is a large jumble of rocks all piled on top of each other. There are brambles and mountain mahogany and other plants growing all over and around them making an almost impenetrable barrier keeping everyone one out except Mom and the oldest of the pups.

At first glance this doesn’t look like prime coyote nesting area. Usually the dens are dug into a hillside on the many sunny-sided slopes throughout the park. Lately however there has been a change and now the coyotes have been denning in the roughest country they can find. The entrance to this den here in Brambleville is so cunningly hidden, that even though hours were spent here photographing this coyote family, we still could not make out where the actual entrance was.

The reason for this abrupt change in coyote behavior is not readily noticeable to the average observer. But then the average observer has probably not seen a wolf pack digging up a coyote den and methodically killing everything in it. I know, there’s going to be a collective gasp from the general population at the thought, but this is Nature, and it has different rules than we do. Even though coyotes are the “Hey! Can’t we all just get a long?” bunch in the canine family, wolves aren’t. They’re more the “Alright people listen up. We told you once this place ain’t big enough for the both of us, so here’s the deal. We ‘re going to hunt you down and wipe out every last one of you, no exceptions. The only exceptions are those of you that can get out of here before we get to you.” and that’s that.

But coyotes are not dummies. They’ve managed to survive every bit as long as the wolves and they are nothing if not adaptable. So they change where they put their dens, they teach the oldest pups to stand guard and they hunt and bring back food for their young by using a different path each time they leave and return and by being very careful.

This young coyote has been taught well and saw us as two-legged wolves and in moments was gone leaving behind nothing but a small bark of warning. The pups didn’t show themselves for twenty minutes or so but then Mom returned with takeout and after giving a little sound of all clear the pups came out and Mom divvied up the food and stood watch while the kids ate. She wasn’t worried about us but she never let up searching the surrounding area for the wolves. After everyone ate their fill she sent all but one down the coyote hole and left to hunt again. This time junior stood guard in a place where we couldn’t get a clear picture of him. But you knew he was on duty.

Flash Frozen

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

What we have here is a very strange and unusual sight. Many of you out there in reader land, not being buffalologists, do not know that there are several type’s of Buffalo in Yellowstone park. The Institute in its quest for knowledge and a new way to twist the facts for our own ends, have discovered a hither to unknown variety of buffalo which we have named bison bison congelata which loosely translated from the Latin means “one frozen ass buffalo”. We apologize for the rude language but the Latin’s were a crude people, not withstanding the fact that they could speak Latin, which now-a-days would make them really smart.

What makes these buffalo different from your run of mill buffalo that brings traffic to a stand still while they lay in the middle of the road chewing their cud like big fat lumps? Well for one, they’re cold-blooded. That’s right, just like a lizard, or a snake, which in certain light and after a quart of Everclear they have been mistaken for. We have had interns screaming “Snake, Snake!” when it’s only been one of these buffalo. But then we have had that same intern screaming “Buffalo, Buffalo!” when it has been a snake so take all that screaming with a grain of salt.

Scorpions are also cold-blooded creatures which will sting you stupid with their poisonous tail but so far our researchers have not ascertained whether this new breed of buffalo can sting with its tail or not. We know for sure that when they’re active they can flat stomp you into the ground then hook you if they see you twitching. But so far no stings.

This particular buffalo has been caught in the classic dilemma facing all cold-blooded creatures. When your blood runs cold natures’ defense is to get you somewhere warm, otherwise your blood congeals to the point of peanut butter and it can no longer flow through your body and keep you active. As the blood cools and congeals cold-blooded creatures begin to get muddled and forgetful, often misplacing things like their car keys or that Post it note telling them to get somewhere warm before it gets cold. Then they become completely immobile, literally freezing in place.

That’s what has happened here. This cold-blooded buffalo had been crossing the Gibbon river to get to the warming shed before the temperature dropped any further when he made the classic bovine mistake. He stopped to eat some of the grass there along the river bank. Stuck his big fat head right into a clump of buffalo grass. There you are, game over, the temp dropped and that was it. Dumb mistake, but remember the muddled part, which probably played a big part in its becoming Flash Frozen.

There’s no fixing it now. These guys weigh in at about 2000 lbs so you’re not going to be dragging it off somewhere. Plus you’d have to get in that water which right now is very cold and if you didn’t bring waders and a come-a-long you’re not going to get much done. However all is not lost here. Being a cold-blooded creature as soon as the sun comes out in the morning he’ll start to warm up, finish chewing that mouthful of grass and be on his way. That is if the wolves don’t find him during the night.

This is a worrisome thought for the buffalo as he is not dead, he is just temporarily frozen, he can hear, probably even see even if he can’t turn his head, so the night is long and filled with terrors if you’re a flash frozen buffalo. We had heard the pack howling earlier but it seemed a long way off. They probably won’t find him.

The Moral of this tale is, “Pay Attention. Keep an eye on the weather. Don’t lose the damn Post it. And don’t believe everything you read.”

Pancho And Lefty – Standoff At Cascade Creek

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

As the tale goes the Cascade Creek pack had killed a cow elk a couple of days ago. The carcass lay upon a gentle rise out in the meadow about 150 yards away from the highway. It had been worked over pretty good by the pack, plus a grizzly that came in and stripped a lot of the big bones that were still heavy with meat during the night. A four hundred pound elk doesn’t go very far when the big boys start feeding.

Soon the carcass had flattened out so that it was barely visible above the snow it lay upon. It looked as If there wouldn’t’ be anything left for the pack when they came back to feed later in the day. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t still sustenance to be had. There was marrow in the smaller bones that hadn’t been carried off yet. The hide could be licked and chewed on for the blood. There were still parts left to eat.

Pancho and Lefty were the first to arrive. As young bucks in the pack they were always hungry and wanted to get in there and get what they could before the Alpha and his mate showed up. There wouldn’t be much chance to eat once he arrived, he’d decide who ate and when, or even if, and his mate wasn’t any easier to get along with.

As luck would have it the Raven Clan had moved in and assumed control of the kill. They were pretty amped up as they had just driven a Golden Eagle off the carcass and they weren’t about to give up their prize without a battle.

However, impotence cures in such a situation can be administered to determine if the man has decreased DHEA levels. free samples of cialis Also known as wolfberry, goji berries tend to be reddish in color and are viagra buy no prescription respitecaresa.org a bit elongated. I do an extensive exam to determine the root of the amaranth and cheap viagra chafed it in a great and sanitary location. Male redundant prepuce is too long or tight underwear excessively stimulate the side effects of viagra glans penis can cause the premature ejaculation. At first glance you would believe that it would be a pretty unequal fight, what with the wolves being 100 lbs plus and the ravens weighing about three, three and a half tops, but size can fool you. Sure the wolves had pulled down a four hundred pound cow with very little trouble and they could easily snap a raven in two with those powerful jaws, but first they had to catch them. And the ravens had one point in their favor. Wolves cannot fly.

The ravens also had those long pointed beaks. They could peck at a massive bone until they cracked it to get at the marrow inside. It would not be too troublesome to take out a wolf’s eye if it came to that. So there you have it. The wolves surveyed the situation deciding on how much energy they wanted to spend evicting the squatters and the ravens knew that if they were tenacious enough they could pester the wolves into leaving. It was the standoff at the Cascade Creek kill.

Finally the wolves decided that there was enough left on the carcass that it would be worth the battle. They charged into the flock repeatedly, the ravens would lift up just out of muzzle range and settle back just as quickly once the wolf went after another bird. It looked like they could do this all day, but the wolves being wolves were still hungry and they didn’t let up. Finally the Ravens called a truce and moved back out of lunging range, content with nipping in and stealing little morsels that were dropped by the wolves. The wolves tolerated this until the Raven would get too confidant, then they would make short lunges to run it off.

The one-sided battle went on for several hours until the wolves had eaten their fill and wandered off to find a resting place to settle in and sleep off their meal. The Ravens knowing this would happen moved back in on the carcass and went to work. This was just a battle, the war would go on for as long as there were wolves and ravens. Right now it was mostly a draw.

Pancho and Lefty were lucky. They had the kill to themselves for much longer than usual and they did not waste the opportunity. They ate as much and as quickly as they could. The Alpha and the rest of the pack had slept in and didn’t get there until much later in the day. By then most of the drama was over. The carcass was just about picked clean and it was another day in Yellowstone.

Dog Days Of Summer

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

The dog days of summer are upon us, and no where is it more noticeable than in the hollows and valleys that crisscross Tower road in Yellowstone National Park. Dog days are the days of late summer usually between the last week of July until the middle of August, when the very air you breathe is hot, humid, and oppressive. It saps the vitality and enthusiasm for life right out of your body and leaves you just plain tired. And if the truth be known kind of cranky.

Actually up in Yellowstone, Dog days are a misnomer as there are very few dogs in the park, due to the fact that the wolves and bears like to eat them, so the bears fill in for them. This is Rosie. Rosie has been on display since early March, dutifully bringing out her twins, Virgil and Emma, so the tourists can see real live bears in the wild. The kids have been a handful and hardly notice the weather, Dog days or not, and fill up Rosie’s time with child management skills she has acquired over years and years of raising cubs.

Today’s a little different because she has just about reached her limit. Her teeth hurt, the bottom of her feet are sweating and she had decided to shave off her coat. She has sent the kids up a tree and told them it was quiet time and when they asked her when they could come back down she answered “Maybe in the Spring.” The oppressive air has weighed her down until she feels like she couldn’t move again in this lifetime. She’s been through this before but every year it gets a little tougher to deal with. This year has been particularly trying for some reason. Maybe its because she isn’t a spring chicken any more, or maybe it’s because it really is worse than usual. Anyway she needs to sit quietly, breath shallowly, and think about swimming across the Yellowstone river about a hundred times. Real slow. In fact she might just stop in the middle, it’s shallow there and take a nap. That would be good.

Bears, even Rosie, do not use calendars. They don’t know that there’s only a few more days maybe a long week or so and this will be all over. It will start to cool down, the trees will start to turn and they’ll have to get busy eating Miller Moths, grubs, grass and roadkill to fatten up. The mornings will be crisp and cool. An occasional early frost will rime the grass along the river banks and there’s the den to think about. Right now though that might as well be in the next century. It’s hot now. She may take a nap, and those kids better not come down if they know what’s good for them. Maybe it’ll be cooler tonight.

Move Along – Nothing To See Here

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

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.

Finalizing Our Report

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Dwight Lutsey

Over the last few days we have been sharing items from our semi-annual inspection report of Yellowstone National Park. Every year we have made the arduous journey from The Institute ~~compound~~, I mean campus, to our favorite national park to provide the public at large a comprehensive overview of the conditions and state of the various park elements. This year was no different. We worked hard to cover every line item on our report, no matter how small or large it appeared to be, we were up at the crack of noon, trudging into the park with all of gear, sometimes doing with only three or four cups of tea and a huge but hearty breakfast, to get everything done that we needed to do that day.

As noted in our opening post the park passed its inspection with flying colors, but as in every year we have produced this report, the park has been noticeably different each year. Some years, it is the year of the wolf, where you find yourself tripping over them as they scramble to be included in every picture. Some years It is the year of the bison where they deliberately have calves in plain sight, right in front of you, even though the park is rated G. Other years it is the year of the bear, that was this year with the bears so plentiful, some were being excluded from the many pictures taken because they weren’t deemed attractive enough by the more discerning viewer, who wanted only the most photogenic bears in their view finders. I know that seems unfair, but life is unfair, and often unkind.

This year the overall atmosphere of the park was, the year it rained forever. It rained everyday, sometimes three or four times at once. It was hard on our equipment, hard on our interns who had to sleep under the Mothership due to them smelling like the dumpster out behind our favorite Italian restaurant, hard on our ability to stay focused and get our work done. Hard to figure out a way of presenting this in a way that would engender sympathy for us doing a job that most folks would kill for, and whining about a little rain. Well quite a bit of rain actually, but even so.

But in many ways it was amazing. The weather in the park although volatile, is usually incredible. Bright blue skies, huge towering clouds, intense colors, incredible blooms of flowers everywhere you looked, everything approaching perfect nearly all the time. It was a welcome change to see the park under different conditions. To see magnificent storms blow up in moments and have rain so heavy you couldn’t make out the buffalo herd standing twenty-five yards out in the meadows. Normally placid rivers became raging torrents of water, filling their banks, turning small waterfalls into Niagara’s, then just as suddenly stopping, leaving only the sound of raindrops falling from the trees. Places where the mist and fog changed into some kind of fairyland where sound was muffled and huge pine trees would suddenly loom out of the mist as you walked through the woods. It was different but magnificent.

It seems there is change in the park, but then that’s not surprising, seeing as how there is change in the world every where we look. The image above, taken along the Firehole river as you traveled south towards Old Faithful, represents the endless changes in the conditions at the park this year. It is just clearing after a major downpour that had everyone pulling off the road as the windshield wipers couldn’t handle the amount of water falling. The sun is trying it hardest to break through the clouds, unsuccessfully this time, but long enough to get some of that late afternoon light to shine down on the herd as it grazed. The stark trees in the foreground add a melancholy look to the image but they are just symbols of the change happening every day here in the park. Tomorrow they’ll be gone but will be replaced by saplings that are sprouting around their roots. So will some of these buffalo grazing peacefully. Wolves, impossible winters, old age, all will take its toll but if you look closely you’ll see the bright orange of this years calves. They’ll be here next time, older, bigger, ready to take their place in the herd, filling in the spots that are vacant.

Although there has been a valiant attempt to show you the many different items on our inspection report we have been able to show you only a few of them. This is primarily due to space and time constraints, and partially due to the inability of The Director who will often start a project like this only to wander away and be found staring at a bug or something. Totally oblivious of his responsibilities as the chief creator of this report. But as in many other projects we have explored here at The Institute somehow it all gets done. You may be saying to yourselves ” Wait just a darn minute here. Does Yellowstone National Park really need to be inspected twice a year. Or are you just doing this because you get off on being up there, having fun, misplacing interns, watching animals, taking pictures, meeting new people, saying ‘Hey!” to those you already know, getting goose bumps while listening to the Lamar wolf pack howl. We want to know.” To that we can only answer “You figure it out, Einstein.”

Note : To those of you tuning in late the following posts will catch you up on preceding events. There is no extra charge for this service, it is included in the cost of admission. We know you don’t want to miss a minute of our fascinating but undocumented report.

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-words-out/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/yellowstone-passes-inspection/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/ghosts-in-the-darkness/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/you-dont-see-that-every-day/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/now-are-the-foxes/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/into-each-park-some-rain-must-fall/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/through-the-keyhole/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/reflectivity/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/resolvability/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/terminal-cuteness/