I took this photo: Ew
A haiku.
I drink coffee for the cream. Decaf is just fine. Ask anyone, I don’t need the caffeine.
I took this photo in Bozeman, Montana. Kudos to ZCH for remembering the syllables.
I took this photo: some days you’re the spider
Life and death. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a grasshopper by the toe.
There are good days. There are bad days.
Some days you’re a black widow spider on top of your web. The world is at your feet, and it fears you.
Other days, you’re the grasshopper, caught by the most delicate thread and just by the toe. Yet, each time you hop away, you land in exactly the same place.
I took this photo on a day when I was perceived as the spider – though I felt like the grasshopper. Gratefully, those days are past.
I took this photo: After a good night’s sleep
Things that happen while you sleep.
Unless the weather was completely unbearable I left the tent door partially unzipped so I could sit up and look out. My theory was if a polar bear was calling, I wanted to see it before it pounced. Of course, zipped into my sleeping bag, I looked like a puffy seal and an easy snack for a bear (granted in the photo above, out of my sleeping bag, I look like a puffy upright seal).
Sometimes while I slept people would stop on the island. They would pull up their boat, walk to the tent, see me buried in my bag, and leave again. Occasionally, I awoke to a plate of donuts or fresh fish left by unknown visitors.
When you live alone in a tent on an Arctic Ocean island you might expect heightened senses and light sleep. Hearing a boat approaching the island or a bear approaching your tent would be a good survival skill.
I took this photo after a good night’s sleep. I crawled out of the tent to find that the Arctic Ocean had moved thousands of tons of ice into this massive wall less than a hundred yards from where I slept.
It’s amazing I survived at all.
[This is a scan from the original slide. From film. Some of you may remember that stuff.]
I took this photo: Can I keep it?
Honey! Look what I found. Can I keep it?
Long ago and far away in a land often forgotten, a biologist spent long days hiking. Uphill. Downhill. Cross slope. Through Ponderosa pines, over talus fields. Through native grasses, and evil invasive cheatgrass. Many miles were covered daily.
Every day was an adventure. Rattlesnakes, elk, buffalo, and pronghorn were regular companions, coyotes, badgers, bears, and bighorn sheep fond acquaintances. Mountain goats were a special treat.
Finding elk and mule deer antlers was common. Occasionally, a dead animal was found. Sometimes the animal was partially covered, cached by a bear or a mountain lion.
One day the biologist stumbled upon a skull. It was intact, and it was beautiful. The bone was bleached white, the teeth all in place, and the horns undamaged. It was a bighorn sheep skull. A ram. The full curl of the horns had heft and weight.
As biologists are wont to do, she collected the skull. Pulling the horns off the bony sheath allowed the skull to fit into her backpack. The horns though had to be carried by hand; they weighed a ton.
The biologist knew that possessing a bighorn ram skull was against the law. Undeterred, she packed the skull uphill, across the flat, down the slope, up the draw, finally arriving at her truck. A U.S. government issue pickup.
The skull, now unpacked from her backpack, rested neatly in the extended cab, under a blanket, where it spent the night. Ending her work day an hour after everyone else had its advantages.
Starting her work day an hour before everyone else also had its advantages. In the morning, the biologist parked her car next to the government truck and transferred the skull and the horns.
A long day of hiking passed slowly. The anticipation of setting the skull in its new home was a bit overwhelming. Finally, the work day ended, and the biologist drove home.
“Hi, honey! You’ll never guess what I found?”
“Hints? Wait. Where is it?”
“In the trunk of the car.”
“Take it back.”
“But…”
“No.”
“But…”
“Take it back.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“If it’s still in the trunk of your car, I know what it is. Without a plug, you’ll be arrested.”
“Who’s going to know?”
“I will. Take it back. ”
The next morning, the biologist, drove to work and, arriving an hour ahead of everyone else, moved the pieces, with great reluctance. She reassembled the skull, the jaw, and the beautiful full curl horns on a desk at the US Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge headquarters.
And acted as if nothing had ever happened.
It was just a skull. Imagine if I had roped a T. rex on the range and taken it home.
It followed me home. Can I keep it?
I took this photo: In Texas
Custom built crosses, all sizes
Custom Built Crosses. All Sizes. The Cross Guys.
If I lived in Texas I would be angry also.
I took this photo in Texas. I guess that’s all I have to say about that.
I took this photo: Fluidity, a mass in motion
Franklin’s gulls over the apparently misnamed Crow Lake.
You never really know what you’re going to get. Central South Dakota is not exactly a hotspot. I blew through it a few times on the interstate. If you can call five and a half hours blowing through. It was just a necessity of moving from point A to point B. They raised the speed limit to 80 recently. That helps.
For a month one autumn I drove around in circles in central South Dakota. I wasn’t lost or stuck. I was looking for migrating birds. I didn’t find what I was looking for. And that was a good thing. It seems I was the one who should have been migrating.
One evening there was a horde of Franklin’s gulls, on Crow Lake. Naturally. It was dusk, the light was beautiful. In my endless circling, I saw the flocks, pushed by the wind, accumulating in the southern bay. In the air and on the water, they were everywhere.
I took this photo for the light, the motion, and the fluidity of the scene. I returned at dawn, better prepared to photograph the migrating mass, but, in the air or on the water, there were no birds anywhere.