Countdown - Going Home

      It’s over now. The world’s best family vet has come and gone. So has Missy’s last day with us. She and Grandma and I shared a shady spot in the back yard. We sat and talked with her and petted her as Gary shaved a little spot on her foreleg. Then he gave her a quick injection in that leg and in a few seconds she was gone. No fear, no pain, not even a little surprise. She just quietly died. He left, and we just stayed there with her for a while. I don’t think we knew anything else to do. We cried for a while together.
      Then we picked her up, so thin and bony, wasted by her illness. We carried her to the grave we had prepared for her out in the east pasture. It’s getting to be a little crowded back there, with Molly and Dinah and Cat and now Missy. Maybe that’s one way to grade the meaning in your life – the number of animals who loved you unconditionally and who you grieved over and buried in your pasture. We gently arranged her body on her bed – in the same position she used when she slept on it. We said a prayer.
       Then very slowly, very gently we covered her with the soil of home. We replaced the buffalo grass and blue grama and flax in a low mound that will slowly even out over the fall and winter. By next summer, it will be shortgrass prairie again and her body will return to the land she loved.     

     But her memory will live on. Her long, loping stride when she was in her prime. Her gentle dark brown eyes. Her love for a good ear rub. Her embarrassment at public displays of affection from cats. She was a kind, sweet, gentle soul who came into our lives and loved us unconditionally. She never judged us, always trusted us. She waited every day for just a little bit of our time – a run, a few throws of the tennis ball, her breakfast or dinner. She was meek and kind and humble. She was what we all wish we could be. She loved as we all wish we could love.
      And her spirit will live on. If you were to ask, “Do you think you’ll see her again?” I’d probably answer flippantly that no one as ornery and prideful and mean-spirited as I am should ever be allowed to sully the afterlife of a great dog like that. But what I’d really be thinking is that God would never have given us a dog like that if He thought that we’d only have a few years with her. What I know in my heart is that she’ll be there when we get there, and she’ll be strong and fast and full of life and happy to see us again.
      Most of the important things in life aren’t easy. Birth, death, love – all are hard, terribly hard sometimes. The very foundations of our lives are built of hard things, as they should be. Foundations, if they are to be foundations, must be hard to be strong. You blessed our lives in so many ways, old dog. God be with you ‘til we meet again. We love you.

-Grandpa

Countdown - Part 2

        Tuesday 9:00 AM – She’s happy today. She was up early and ready to be fed. She’s insistent about meals these days, not because she’s hungry but because she’s figured out that the pain pills come with the dog food. She keeps trying to move meal time up earlier and earlier. It’s not about the food, it’s about the pain.
       So we go outside and she totters around the north pasture a bit to take care of her business. She doesn’t like to walk outside much anymore because the footing is uneven and she stumbles and sometimes falls. She’s thin as a snake, weak and teetery. If she was bipedal, she’d be using a walker. But we go very slowly and she manages. She likes the concrete driveway – there’s nothing to trip over. I brush her and a cloud of hair goes sailing off into the breeze. She’s blowing her dry, brittle coat like crazy.    

      We come inside and I feed her – canned dog food now because her teeth are just about gone and she has a tumor about half the size of a tennis ball under her tongue. Her tongue lolls out to the side because it has nowhere else to go. It breaks my heart to watch her eat, but I hide the Tramadol inside a chunk of dog food and she gets it down. Within minutes she’s resting quietly. She’s an addict, the canine Judy Garland.      

     She watches from the office window as Grandma and Jora go for a run. Three years ago, she was there. Chasing a cottontail, following a fox track. Not now. She watches them disappear in the distance. Another heartbreak. So we sit together and talk about the old days when she felt good. She doesn’t feel good any more, except when she can sleep.
        Last night, Grandma laid down beside her on her bed and just snuggled her. She’s always trusted Grandma. She relaxed and fell asleep. I hope that’s the way it goes when the vet comes tomorrow afternoon. I had hoped she would pass that way on her own, maybe even go when we were at the cabin. But that’s not going to happen. She clings to life like she’s afraid to move on. Maybe we all do, to one degree or another, when the time comes.

-Grandpa

Countdown - Part 1

     If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that most of our posts are pretty upbeat in tone. We take a great deal of joy in being a family who loves wild things, wild places, and each other. Once in a while, though, a little sadness creeps in. That’s OK. Life is not, as Long Rifle’s daughter reminded me recently, “pink fluffy unicorns dancing on gumdrops” all the time. We’re losing a member of the crew right now, and it hurts - bad. Missy, the almost-15-year-old Labrador is dying.      

     Monday, 3:30 PM - She came to us in 2008, already a middle-aged dog. She was a project, a rescue dog from our friends at the W9. She was in pretty bad shape, and she’d been through a rough time. She was thin and ragged looking, with a dull brownish coat. She was afraid of pretty much everything, especially men. We weren’t real sure we had room in our life for a dog anymore, but we couldn’t say no. She came aboard a few days short of her 8th birthday.     

     She was Grandma’s dog from the start. They learned to go for a run together every morning. It wasn’t easy. Missy didn’t understand what was expected of her at first. We even had to call in

an expert to teach us to redirect her attention so she didn’t go

berserk every time she saw another dog or a person or a rabbit. But in time, she came around. As the weeks went by, she learned quickly. And she morphed into an amazing dog. The dull brown coat all blew out and she was as shiny and black as a piece of obsidian. And just about as hard – she had muscles on top of muscles everywhere, as she settled in to a high quality diet and daily exercise. At 75 pounds and 0 percent body fat, she could lope forever. And sometimes she did.

       It was easy to see from the beginning that she would never hunt. Her bloodline was great, but too much troubled water had passed under the bridge and she was terrified of any loud, sudden noise. Gunfire, fireworks, thunderstorms were her demons. So we put away the notion that we had a hunter and loved her for who she was – sweet, strong and happy. She fit in at our outfit like she’d been born here. That winter, when Grandma’s running moved indoors to the treadmill, Missy and I moved outdoors to the school section west of our place. She’d retrieve a tennis ball no matter how far I threw it, no matter how many times I threw it, no matter how deep it was buried in the snow. Lots of times, it was pitch dark when we’d go out in the morning and she’d disappear into the void in her perfect nighttime camo, then reappear spectral a few seconds later with the snowy tennis ball clutched in her mouth. We became buddies that winter. We’ll always be buddies.

-Grandpa

Never Fails

    Our family treasures our time in the outdoors. In the words of Frank Lloyd Wright, we “study nature, love nature, [we] stay close to nature. It never fails us.” In fact, my wife has spent most of her July at the cabin. Her father is convinced she may be going feral. She’s been up there with kids and she’s been up there with friends. She is taking advantage of nature’s gymnasium. She comes home rejuvenated and renewed after communing with God while watching the setting sun from a bench she discovered, tucked away up the road from the Cabin. And while she enjoys reading in the hammock, I find myself building an internal compass of the terrain.      

     After travelling with Grandpa, I discovered he knows every landmark in the great state of Wyoming and usually has a story associated with it. He gets great pleasure testing his progeny on both landmarks and stories. I’m still learning. This man has the best internal compass I’ve seen. He has crossed every inch of Wyoming territory, so when I brought up the idea of a Garmin Oregon 650 T GPS unit, I got the ever-so- clear Grandpa “eyebrow raise”. It is accompanied by the “what kind of bologna are you trying to feed me” look. However, he always follows up with the” I’ll hear ya out” smile and gives you a chance to explain your madness.
       The GPS has come in my rescue in a dicey situation or two. A couple years back, it was getting dark and I attempted to take a shortcut to the cabin. My internal compass was a little turned around and I found myself in unfamiliar territory. I pulled out the GPS and realized I wasn’t terribly far off, but off nonetheless. I followed the directions on my trusty Garmin and got back on track. Thinking my adventure was over; I turned off the electronic compass and went back to the internal. I found a solid trail and headed toward the cabin. Unfortunately, it was darker than an inside of a moose and I was off track yet again. I was getting to the point where I thought I may need to hunker down and build a fire, so I sat down and pulled out Garmin, just to see how far off I was. At first I thought it was lying to me as it showed me only about 300 yards away from the cabin. In a dark, heavily wooded area, 300 yards can seem like 300 miles. I headed east and heard a magical sound. My beautiful daughter was calling for her brother outside on the porch and I realized everything was going to be ok. Thank you, Garmin, for Bailout #1. Maybe a year later, I was trying to find my way to my opening morning hunting spot at 4:30 am in the pitch black. Moonlight and flashlight were not cutting it – the landmarks I was searching for were hidden in the darkness and I needed to be on the trail. I pulled out the GPS and it took me right to the sweet spot. Thank you, Garmin, for Bailout #2.        

      Technologic advances have their place and time and a GPS can be a helpful tool. Grandpa is slowly warming up to the idea, but I agree with his warning, “Make sure you know the land, my son.” I am grateful Grandpa sent me on walkabout more than a few times to learn the land. His patient teaching and guidance is the only true way to learn the landmarks I need to be familiar with. I need to know the subtle hills and clumps of trees, the old fences and rushing creeks. I want to know where Ole Luke and Grandpa Gus killed that cow elk or that bull moose. This, my friends, is institutional knowledge. I gotta tell ya, though; nature may never fail me, but every once in awhile my internal compass does. And that’s when Garmin sure comes in handy.

-Long Rifle

Thank you, Waite Phillips!

      Our family loves Boy Scouts. The program teaches the values that we strive live every day: honesty, hard work, love of the outdoors, loyalty, and duty to God and country. Every one of the boys in our family that’s old enough is a Boy or Cub Scout, and a fair few number of the parents are involved in Scouting. Last week, Apprentice-dad and I went down to New Mexico to experience the Philmont Scout Ranch.
        First off, a wee bit of history. At the age of 16, Waite Phillips (pronounced White) and his twin brother Wiate set out in 1899 from their small family farm in Iowa to explore the still-Wild West. Wiate Phillips unfortunately died in July of 1902 near Spokane, Washington. When Waite returned home, his two older brothers (who eventually went on and started Phillips Petroleum Company) sent Waite to college and gave him a job in their rapidly growing company. After selling his shares for the equivalent of over $50 million, he started his own extremely successful business and continued his love for the West.

      He bought the 300,000-acre UU ranch near Taos, New Mexico in 1922. Ultimately, he donated this property to the Boy Scouts of America on the condition that the ranch would make Scouting a family activity.
       So back to the present: my dad and I went down there last week so that my dad could have some training and I could have some fun. We left early one morning and made the drive to New Mexico. We listened to Harry Potter on CD all the way down, so it made for a pretty quick 9 hours in the car. When we got there, we got settled in our tent and explored the incredible Philmont property.
       Over the next couple of days I went rifle shooting, did archery, stamped belts, did some blacksmithing, and went horseback riding. My favorite activity was the horseback riding. My horse, Trigger, had anger management issues. Funnily enough, we got on mighty fine (Is that reflective of my personality?). But bottom line, it was great to be on a horse again. It had been awhile!

        On the third day, Dad and I went on a hike and then went into Taos. For those who’ve never been to Taos, imagine Jackson Hole built out of adobe bricks, with lots of Mexican restaurants and art galleries. I got my first real cowboy belt buckle there and then we went to eat. We went to this Mexican grill and it was amazing. We got stuffed jalapenos and green chili chimichangas and oh my, they were good. I also answered New Mexico’s state question: red or green? The answer, of course, is green.
      The next day, I went on an overnighter in some truly beautiful country. We hiked through fields of 6 ft. tall sunflowers, oak forests, and prairie than looks a lot like home. When we stopped for lunch, we each got a sealed bag filled with all sorts of snack food. And in that bag was the famous “Spam.” It was the first time I had the opportunity to try Spam, and I am proud to say I made about half way through the “block.”
       The rest of the overnighter was relatively uneventful. We played football in pouring rain, and swatted flies in return for homemade root beer in a cantina. The next morning, we woke up and hiked the mountain at a tremendous pace, only to stop at an outpost to play some baseball.
       After getting back, we went on a low ropes course. We then planned a skit for the night’s closing campfire. Our skit was a mix between the classics, a fire drill, and the girl scouts. It was a big hit among those who saw it.
       All in all, I had an awesome time in God’s country. We laughed and learned, we hiked and played. Thank you Philmont, and thank you, Waite Phillips!

-The Apprentice

Grandpa on the Trail - Part 2

       When we last heard from our aged correspondent, he had successfully negotiated his way down the long and dusty trail and through the ignominious squeeze chute. He had purchased staples for his journey (including the ever-present Coke Zero that fuels all things Grandpa) and moved on to the loading corral. He’s about to be loaded for shipment…

Photo courtesy of Emirates Airlines

    From the loading corral, we’re hustled (again amid the customary noises and smells of moving livestock in confined spaces) into the “bull-hauler”. Long, long ago the bull-hauler experience was much different. You dressed up for it. They fed and watered you well. They smiled at you. Now, not so much. Now they just run you down a long alley onto the bull-hauler with as many other critters as they can squeeze in there and shut the gate behind you. There used to be signs welcoming you. Now they should have signs like the ones that once graced the Coliseum – “abandon hope, all ye who enter here”. I have dozens of quaint and charming experiences traveling by bull-hauler. Like the sultry summer day when we paused briefly on the tarmac in Newark for two hours to allow some thunderstorms to pass, and shut off the engines to conserve fuel that might have been wasted in keeping the air conditioning on. The Angus bull next to me was soon bathed in perspiration, which he generously shared with me. Or the wonderful in-flight

Photo courtesy of The Ranger

entertainment provided by the vaca loca en route from Atlanta not long ago. She had self medicated with a mix of drugs and alcohol at the loading corral to ease her anxiety (a habit I may well adopt myself) and proceeded to bawl and puke her way up and down the center aisle of the bull-hauler as we flew the friendly skies across the American heartland.
        But the charm of the bull-hauler is all too soon behind us as we once again are herded through the long alley and out to our new home on the range. Sometimes it’s a familiar pasture where we know all the best places to feed, water and rest while we chew our cuds. Sometimes it’s to new and dangerous pastures where I go with a briefcase to places I probably should go with a shotgun. Usually, there’s way too many critters already on what little grass is out there. I mill around for a couple of days and sometimes get rimrocked in the concrete canyons of Washington, DC or bogged down in the creek crossings of Providence, RI. But never quite soon enough, I'm back on the bull- hauler and headed for the home place.
      And I guarantee you my friends, despite all the joy of travel, Judy Garland said it best. There is indeed no place like home.

-Grandpa

Grandpa on the Trail - Part 1

      For a guy who set out to experience life never more than 150 miles from Green River, WY I seem to have managed to become a pretty seasoned traveler. It wasn't something I set out to do. It just sort of happened. Like an earthquake or a head-on collision with a logging truck, it was just one of life’s happy little surprises. So, given my status as an accomplished road warrior, I approached my colleagues here at Three Elk Meadow about becoming the designated travel correspondent.
        I pitched them the opportunity to bless you readers with the glamour of exotic places, the excitement of adventure, the thrill of discovery. Quite honestly, they seemed a little slow to catch the vision. So, in the tradition of great travel writers, I've decided to bravely forge on. I can only assume that Rudyard Kipling and Alexis de Toqueville encountered nay-sayers in their time, but did they simply quit and go home? They did not, and neither shall I, dear readers, neither shall I.       

      My work gives me the opportunity to travel a lot. It’s very glamorous. One of the best parts is what I fondly refer to as “shipping time”. For bovine or ovine passengers, it usually happens only a couple of times in a lifetime. For me, it happens once a month. Usually, it starts at some unearthly hour of the morning, when (like the ovids and bovids) I'm awakened out of a peaceful sleep out here on the range and herded onto the trail. Regardless of what you may recall from watching Rawhide when you were a kid, life on the trail is not a leisurely stroll from San Antonio to

Abilene. Usually, I join the herd moving from Cheyenne to Denver before the sun is up, but they're already on a hard lope. The speed limit on this trail is 75, but the only time we see that is when we’re speeding up or slowing down – and we do that a lot. Various scenic wonders along the trail (like a Subaru pulled off on the shoulder or one-dimensional skunk on the center line) cause the herd to balk, mill aimlessly and eventually come to a complete halt for a while. But eventually we get it sorted out and are happily back at 90, making our way to the next stop in our ordeal, uh.. I mean adventure.      

With only a minimum of bawling, mooing and bleating we make our way to the “squeeze chute”. This is a relatively new part of the whole shipping experience, designed to remind us that we are indeed livestock, and that we will be handled as such. After checking our brands to make sure none of us are mavericks, and touching us in places that would in any other circumstances land them in jail, the brand inspectors herd us into the “loading corral”. I've found this is a good time to feed and water if I can. The options are few and expensive, but it may be the last chance for a while so I'm usually happy to pay 20 dollars for a Coke Zero and a bag of Fritos. Experience has taught me that this may be the culinary high point of the next 12 hours.

-Grandpa

Happy Birthday, Wyoming!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Wyoming,
Happy Birthday to you!

Are ya one, are ya two, are ya three, are ya four…

     So a few weeks ago, this awesome state turned 125 years old. In my last post, I rambled on about being a Wyomingite, so this time I’d like to get a little bit into the history of the place. In my quest for knowledge over the past week, I’ve learned a ton about our state, and I’d like to share a little bit with you now:

Wyoming officially became a state on July 10, 1890 as the 44th state in the Union. But there’s so much more history to it before. In fact, there’s many thousands of years of history before that, but I’d make you spend the rest of your day sitting there and reading it, so I’d rather not. Wyoming was defined by three totally different things: equality, the railroad, and mining. Let’s get started!

      First, equality. We were the first state to give women the vote! This was even before we became a state, in 1869, while we were still the Wyoming Territory. William Bright sponsored a bill to allow women to vote. Wyoming thought, “why not?” and passed it into law. The suffragist Susan B. Anthony traveled here by way of the newly completed Transcontinental Railroad to “the land of Freedom” in 1871, which I bet was pretty cool. The 19th Amendment gave the rest of the nation’s women the vote much later, in 1919.

Next, the railroad: a biggie. The Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869, was groundbreaking. It brought together the East and the West. New York to Sacramento, what used to be a grueling, perilous journey of six months by wagon, took now only a mere two weeks. Although, as Grandpa will talk about in his upcoming post, the grueling perilous journey of six months is still the same today with modern air travel. Many cities in Wyoming were founded because of it, including Green River, Rawlins, Laramie, and Cheyenne.

     Lastly, coal! We produce 40 percent of the nation’s supply of it. Long ago, although it seems weird, Wyoming was mostly underwater, and the bits that weren’t were tropical paradise. When all that stuff decomposed over millions of years, we gained tons of resources including coal and oil. Wyoming mining has transformed both us and the rest of the nation. You can’t swing a dead cat here and not hit some mine or other, usually coal. Grandpa spent some time down in the mines living in Green River way back when. Poor thing.

     So there we are. A few things that have transformed Wyoming from the wild west, vast and untamed, into the state it is today. I’m proud of all the work these people have put into it, and the great product it is today. And boy, is it great.

     There’s a lot to be proud of, too. Vast prairie without a sign of civilization for miles and miles. The Tetons, rocky spires shooting up from the ground against a fierce blue Wyoming sky. Yellowstone, the thundering of hundreds of hooves of buffalo like a thousand drums, geysers erupting on all sides. Tranquil streams, with brookies jumping and wildflowers on all fronts. Steamy forest ground, pine trees shooting up hundreds of feet in the air after a recent rainstorm high in the Wind Rivers. Miles of scorching red desert in south-central Wyoming. My favorite, a small, one-room log cabin, nestled in some trees in the Southwestern Wind River Range, a curl of smoke issuing from the chimney. Wyoming has it all, whether you’re a hunter, angler, hiker, explorer, or a combination of them all.

-The Ranger

Ham is Mighty Fine Bait

     Last week we went hiking up by The Cabin. It was a big adventure! We saw waterfalls, amazing wildflowers, bear sign and all kinds of wild things. We watched the sun make its way across the sky as we walked under the shadows of my mountains. We also found out something about ham.
      ApprenticeMom, Grandpa, Grandma, Smiles, Sparkles, and G-Man, and I got all ready for the hike the night before so we could just get up and go. But midway through the process of packing sandwiches, bug stuff, and breakfast burritos, I switched packs. I was in charge of the tackle…

      So we got up at the unearthly hour of 6:00 A.M (I am 13 so cut me some slack), and we left. We got to the trailhead and headed out on the 11-mile round-trip hike. After about mile half, the young kids got some low blood sugar, so we stopped and ate breakfast burritos. After that, it was a long hike but boy was it worth it.
       We got to the lake by lunchtime and immediately found a spot to plop the fishing lines in. Then I started going through my pack, and guess what I figured out: I had forgotten the lures in my other pack. So we decided that if we used the ham from the remains of our breakfast burritos, we might stand a chance. And it worked! We all caught some dang nice fish that tasted mighty fine.

So what can we learn from this experience?

1. When switching packs, remember to double check that you have everything.

2. G-Man and Sparkles are the toughest little monsters ever! They hiked their tails off and still had plenty of energy left at the end of the day.

3. Ham is mighty fine bait.

-The Apprentice

Crazier'n a Pet Coon

      Anyone who’s ever driven the lonely secondary highways and county roads of the sagebrush sea knows the Code of the West as it applies to found objects. If you find a tow strap or a crescent wrench lying in the middle of the road, it’s yours. There’s no point in trying to track down the owner. He or she might not have passed this way for weeks. They may never pass this way again. It’s yours – finders keepers. So it is with certain colorful turns of phrases, often comparative in nature, that you run into in the same western country.

      I was reminded of that recently when I was speaking to a group of folks in Rhode Island and I mentioned that there were a lot of micro-breweries in Colorado. But I didn’t say it that way precisely. I said, “You can’t swing a dead cat there and not hit a craft brewer.” There was a general chuckle and I realized that many of those good people had not heard that turn of phrase before. When someone asked me about it later, I said that I just picked it up somewhere. Like objects you find laying in the road, these metaphors and similes just seem to be part of life here in Wyoming.
Let me provide a few, with their generally accepted translations:

“Hotter’n a two-dollar pistol” – very hot
“Uglier’n nine miles of muddy road” – very ugly
“He looked like a heifer in a lightning storm” – he seemed startled
“They were like two badgers in a sack” – they couldn’t get along
“Wound up tighter’n an eight-day clock” – very anxious

       Some of these I’ve picked up like hay ropes and socket sets along the road of a life spent in Wyoming. But many of them I learned at an early age from my father and his sister. Both had colorful vocabularies, and both were bold in using them. I remember my dad remarking that a certain lady in our hometown, when viewed from the rear, “looked like two cub bears in a sack”. Aunt Carol, whenever someone appeared pale, would note that “His face looked like two sheep turds floating in a bowl of milk” or if it was raining hard, it was “raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock”. 

-Grandpa

The Ranger:

     

Grandpa has a lot of rather

interesting phrases. I’ve learned most of them over the years, and I still use some of them frequently. Most of them apply to things about living in Wyoming, and most of them have an ‘n or two. Here’s a couple of the ones mentioned above as well as a few more I've learned over the years, with my thoughts on them:

“Hotter’n a two-dollar pistol” – Can you get one at the dollar store?
“Uglier’n nine miles of muddy road” – That’s why we have four wheel drive right?
“He looked like a heifer in a lightning storm” – Have you ever seen a cow in a Wyoming monsoon?
“They were like two badgers in a sack” – Isn’t that animal abuse?
“Wound up tighter’n an eight-day clock” – It’s like that Beatles song, Eight Days a Week
“prettier’n a spotted colt” – We have a couple VERY pretty horses here in Wyoming
“busier’n a one-legged man in a kicking contest” – I guess it would be pretty hard
“colder’n a well diggers butt” – Actually, I happen to know that’s not QUITE the original way of saying it :)
“squealed like a pig under a gate” – What? We don’t even raise pigs?!
“howled like a cut cat” – Do cut cats howl? I haven’t seen one yet.
“crazier’n a pet coon” – Who even has a pet raccoon??

       So there we go. Try to imagine, if you will, some of these in real life. Or just don’t. It’s better that way. Most of these phrases have been edited slightly, because I think some kids are reading this hopefully. My great-grandpa and his sister were interesting, colorful people, to say the least.

-The Ranger

Mosquita-pocalypse

       A few weeks ago, I was at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and saw in the newspaper that it has been the fourth-wettest winter in Wyoming history. Then this past week, I attended a summer camp near Jackson Hole. We learned about many things focused around renewable energy. Beyond the awesomeness of the camp, one thing really stood out. The wetness caused a “mosquitoes apocalypse!” It got me thinking: “What do mosquitoes do in their lifetime BESIDES EATING 13 YEAR OLD BOYS?” Because honestly? It felt like the entire population of mosquitoes in the Rocky Mountains descended on our camp for an entire week.

      Mosquito eggs are scattered in stagnant water and mud. Once the eggs develop for a bit, they can stay alive for months in what is essentially a coma. Once the little monsters hatch, they grow and feed on algae and microbes. Then they go through metamorphosis and emerge as adults. They will lay eggs and live about two weeks, and then will be eaten by bats, birds, and fish. They also will ambush you on nice hikes.
      Their favorite ambush tactic is to wait while a group of kids comes around the backside of Wolf Hill. Then they come, and about 100 of them gather on your hat. I think the motive behind this is to hold you down while the other million or so swarm you. They force you to bushwhack (actually it's more like parkour with a backpack on in heavily wooded areas) down the ridge, while swatting yourself with anything bigger and harder than your hand.
       In short, mosquitoes are diabolical creatures that are necessary evils. They will eat you faster than I eat anything during elk season; they are most likely the cause of every sprained ankle ever sustained on a hike. But, they also are a major source of food for lots of different species. And if this holds true, then the fish I catch this summer are going to be the size of my Golden Retriever. So I probably wouldn’t be able to go fishing without them, but if I did, it would be a heck of a lot more pleasant!

-The Apprentice

I'm a Wyomingite

       In a small state in Midwestern United States, a herd of wild animals roam freely. They’re an odd bunch, they spend a lot of time outdoors, and many of them wear cowboy hats. There’s about 600 thousand of them, and they all get along rather peacefully. They call themselves “Wyomingites,” and I’m happy to be one of them. Most of all, I’m proud of my state.       

    There’s a lot to be proud of, too. Vast prairie without a sign of civilization for miles and miles. The Tetons, rocky spires shooting up from the ground against a fierce blue Wyoming sky. Yellowstone, the thundering of hundreds of hooves of buffalo like a thousand drums, geysers erupting on all sides. Tranquil streams, with brookies jumping and wildflowers on all fronts. Steamy forest ground, pine trees shooting up hundreds of feet in the air after a recent rainstorm high in the Wind Rivers. Miles of scorching red desert in south-central Wyoming. My favorite, a small, one-room log cabin, nestled in some trees in the Southwestern Wind River Range, a curl of smoke issuing from the chimney. Wyoming has it all, whether you’re a hunter, angler, hiker, explorer, or a combination of them all.

What does it mean to be a Wyomingite? What makes us special? I think it’s a respect of the land and the critters on it. Every single person of our sparse 600K population lives within only a few minutes of wild, untamed land and drop-dead gorgeous views on all fronts. The problem is, these things are disappearing – fast. Miles of open prairie are being replaced by nasty drilling rigs and barbed wire. We had better do something about it, or risk losing our livelihood, everything. To be a Wyomingite is to develop a deep love for the outdoors and everything that roams it. With those taken away, we are nothing. 

-The Ranger

Thanks, Clean Water Act!

      In 1997, we moved to a small town in central Maryland. No more unlikely pilgrims ever came to Keedysville, MD. It was the smallest town any of us had ever lived in – population about 500. But there were a ton of things that we loved about it. Like lightning bugs going off like tiny little flares in the backyard every evening. Like the smell of green and growing things all around you. Like the history of the United States literally right outside your door. Like the Potomac River.

      The locals say that before the Clean Water Act in 1972, the Potomac near Keedysville was pretty much just an open sewer. Industrial waste, municipal waste and pretty much every kind of filth you can imagine (and some you probably cannot) flowed into it from a thousand sources. If you had told someone you wanted to fish the Potomac, they would have thought you were crazy. There weren’t many fish in it anyway. But then, a miracle began to happen.

    The cities and businesses had to clean up their act – literally. And the more they did, the cleaner the river became. In a time when it seems that everyone is concerned about government over-regulation, it seems weird to say it but the big, bad government did something right - very right. Business didn’t do it – they squealed like a pig under a gate. Municipalities had to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance. But slowly, grudgingly they did it. And the river changed.
      By 1997, the Potomac was a different river. You could catch catfish – big catfish – in the river. You could canoe or kayak in the river – and lots of people did. You could even catch smallmouth bass in the river. But I never did. I was busy. I had to work. I had to catch a plane. In three years of living and working on the very banks of this great river, I never fished it once. What was I thinking?
      Eighteen years later, I was fishing that same river. The guy at the fly shop recommended some big, gaudy weighted streamers and a couple of foam poppers for topwater. I started with something simple – an olive woolly bugger, just to see if that would work. I’d never fished for smallmouth, so I had to start somewhere…
     Put it on the edge of the riffles… strip slowly…once…twice…BAM! Holy smokes! WOW! It’s jumping! It’s running! It’s nuts! When I finally brought him to hand, I found a smallmouth about 10 or 11 inches long. Not a giant, by any means, but talk about punching above your weight! That was awesome. Let him go gently…OK, a little farther up this time…just shy of the riffle…strip once…BAM! Again, the bantamweight champion of the universe nails my fly. And again, it fights like a fish three times its size. It was amazing. And it was amazing time after time after time.

     I don’t know how many fish I caught on the Potomac that day. A lot. None of them were over 14” long, but they fought like crazy every time. I had a fantastic day. I laughed and hooted and hollered and had the time of my life. All because we, the people of the United States of America were willing to exercise some measure of control over ourselves and quit dumping nasty stuff into one of America’s greatest rivers. Now, an old man from Wyoming can catch his first smallmouth bass there. A kid from Wyoming can catch his first shad there – if he can master the strip set. But maybe more importantly, a kid from Arlington, VA or Frederick, MD or Washington, DC can have the time of his or her life on their very own home water. Thanks, Clean Water Act. Ya done good.

-Grandpa

Wapiti

       Throughout the course of this blog, we have mentioned elk several times. They are our biggest source of wild game during the course of the year. Most of our family have mounts or pictures of elk in their houses (Or mounts AND pictures…because why choose one or the other, when you can decorate with both?).
       They are a special source of family bonding - whether it be on the hunt, over the table as we clean up the meat, or as we eat it (definitely a favorite part). They are amazing creatures that lead amazing lives!    

     Cervus elaphus, or the elk, has several sub-species. Here in Wyoming, we have the Rocky Mountain Elk. They range in just about every western state, and in Canada from Ontario to its West Coast. They have the biggest antlers of any elk sub-species. Full-grown bulls weigh about 700 pounds and are 5 feet tall at the shoulder. Cows grow to around 500 pounds and are 4-½ ft. from ground to shoulder.
         Calves are born in late May and early June. They start at around 30 pounds, regardless of gender, and have little white spots (They are so cute, the yuppie girls of the world would be on them like duck on a June bug). After around two weeks, the momma cow will take her young back to the herd of calves, cows, and yearling bulls (the older bulls live alone or in small bachelor groups). A bull will reach his prime around eight years old, this when he has the best chance in the Rut.
       We as hunters often talk about the Rut. It is mating season, and it is when the elk are the most excited. Bulls try attracting females by showing their bodies, antlers and emitting a very strong and musky smell (a welcome smell when we hunters catch a whiff after hiking 12 miles in a day). Sometimes (but very rarely), bulls will fight and lock horns over a cow. They do this so rarely because it costs enormous amounts of energy (you try pushing back a 700 pound animal made of pure muscle with your head), and often injures the contestants. But if the bull tries and perseveres, they get a bunch of lovely girlfriends.
       Elk are pretty darn cool! They live in some the harshest terrain in the world. They are magnificent animals. They are special to my family and many others. In short, they are awesome!!!

-The Apprentice

Sources
“Elk” National Park Service

“Elk Facts” Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
 Me

Sturnella neglecta

          As a Wyomingite, you sort of develop a deep love for anything related to the state. Whenever I’m out anywhere and I see good ol’ Steamboat, a buffalo, or an Indian paintbrush, I immediately think of Wyoming. The one that really truly has it for me, however, is the meadowlark. Yellow-bellied and with a V upon its neck, the mere sighting of a meadowlark is the coolest thing. Its clear, loud voice ringing out over a field on a glorious day with a deep blue sky brings a smile to my face and a feeling of happiness to be a Wyomingite. They stand for beauty, grace, and everything that this state believes in!

      The Western Meadowlark, or Sturnella neglecta, is an icterid bird, meaning one that lives in North or South America. They are rather small, only about 8 and a half inches long. Adults have a yellow chest and belly, with a distinctive V on their necks. Their backs are usually brown and spotted, sometimes with black streaks. Baby meadowlarks are ugly, developing their color weeks after they’re born. They spend most of their life in grasslands, prairies, or abandoned fields across western and central North America. In the winter, a great migration occurs, because interestingly, meadowlarks don’t do too well in -30° temperatures with winds blowing at approximately 5.3 billion mph and a blizzard, like the winters we get here. These guys fly hundreds of miles across the country to their winter homes in northern Mexico, but return in the spring.
         Meadowlarks are more than just a state bird. They are a symbol of everything Wyoming believes in, including defiance, grandeur, and beauty. When you look at one, you can see Wyoming, miles and miles of open plain…

-The Ranger

Drawing the Inside Straight

        I remember the first one I ever drew. It was a pink card – a “special permit” in the language of the day. The year was 1968, and I was 14 years old. My first “cow permit” and I was thrilled beyond words. There were no “limited quota” licenses then. For antelope, you had to show up at the Game and Fish Department “district office” and stand in line on the appointed day (actually you showed up after work the evening before the appointed day and camped out in a lawn chair all night to hold your place in line) to get your license. For deer, you just bought a license any time before you went hunting. And for elk, you bought a license that entitled you to hunt in what we’d now call a general license area. Then, if you wanted a “special permit” you filled out an application and sent it in to the Department. If you were successful, you might get to hunt in a premium area like Little Mountain or the Ferris Mountains. Or you might even be lucky enough to hunt a cow in the Giffy Butte country where we hunted.

      I got lucky. I scored a cow license in the area we’d hunted forever. It was the old man’s favorite area. He knew it like you might know your own back yard because it was his back yard. He had ridden horseback and walked every inch of it from timberline to sagebrush. But he wouldn’t be there. He died unexpectedly in the spring of ’67 and the last year had been hell for everyone involved. But the days and months had ticked by slowly and Old Luke was not going to let me fail on this one. My dad’s best friend, he became my life coach and my lifeline in those days. The paperwork was submitted, the drawing was held and on a glorious morning in July, that pink card arrived in PO Box 133.
       It sat on my dresser all summer, stuck in the frame of the mirror. I looked at it every day and thought about what it was going to be like to kill my first elk. Sometimes, I’d just sit and hold it and envision myself sneaking through the timber with Uncle Grant’s .270 over my shoulder. I shot the rifle over and over that summer after Uncle Alan took it to Salt Lake City and had a scope put on it to replace the old peep sight. Sometimes, I’d get the rifle out and just hold it and the cow permit together. Then my brain would cue the video again and I’d be back in the snowy timber of my imagination. The pink card, the Model 54 Winchester and I were a team. All we needed was a chance to play.
        Almost half a century has passed since that summer. But the magic is still there. The suspense, the anticipation, the video in my head – they’re all still there. I hope they always will be.

-Grandpa

The Draw

     A few excited weeks in May define a lot of things about the year in our family. The results of one small draw determines what we’ll eat for the following year, how we’ll spend our fall, and how many thousands of hours will be spent at the shooting range practicing

like crazy, cleaning and inspecting every square millimeter of our

rifles, and going over and over the terrain we’ll be facing in area (cough cough). A lot of work goes into it, and we get so much out of it!
        I always love the sound of a knocking on my front door, then grandpa comes in and says, “we’re going to apply for a big game tag!” It’s the best. Weeks go by. We’ve determined that the only reason we’re ever taught math in school is to calculate the odds of being successful. Finally, on a routine get-the-mail, a huge packet shows up, and in the top right corner, a big “Wyoming Game and Fish Department,” their logo, and below that, “Draw Results.” Opening it is almost as exciting as pulling the trigger…

-The Ranger

       To a large degree, our families’ year revolves around hunting season. It’s a time when we bond, go on death marches (Grandpa’s version of “elk hunting”), and get meat in the freezer (hopefully).

So as you can imagine, the lead up to - and the draw itself - is a mighty big deal. Our family always puts in for antelope (in area “up yonder”), deer (in area “cough, cough”) and elk (in area “y’know…that area...”).

         No matter where we are in the state of Wyoming, we all do the same thing on the morning the results are in. We wake up and get on the Game and Fish website, then celebrate, mourn, and exchange flurried emails about the results. From May on, (and sometimes before that) we dream of the wapiti jumping over the moon. And if we’re lucky, we get to enjoy recipes such as elk pot roast, deer cheese-steak sandwiches, and antelope Parmesan. And if we’re not - well, there’s always next year.

-The Apprentice

Results

      Grandpa is like a kid in a candy store when it comes to the big game draw. Starting in May, he is 100% in hunt mode until approximately January. May is a time of great excitement for our family. It usually consists of several emails back and forth between the Apprentice, Ranger, my brother-in-law and Grandpa. Then, if my dad has decided to hunt with us, he is right in the mix. If not, it is because he is cooking for an outfitter. The initial messages sent from Grandpa look much like this. “30 days until the deadline. Have you put in yet?” “29 days until the deadline. Have you put in yet?” I receive my daily reminders with

my morning alarm. We find it particularly humorous that he sends these to my wife. She works at the Game & Fish. I personally wait until the last day of the month. Not sure if that is superstition or the fact that I get paid on that day, but I have seemed to luck out more times than not, so I am sticking with it. However, I would be suprised if Grandpa wasn’t on the WGFD website at 12:01am on opening application day, asserting his position as the first resident to get his application in. He really is that hardcore when it comes to the draw. Needless to say, next to adding a new family member – hunting applications are the next big thing.

        Every year, I jump on social media a few weeks into June and make a wager with my wife as to how many posts we see praising the Game & Fish or cursing them. I know how it feels not to draw a tag for the 10th time in a row. I don’t care if the area has 2%

success. This could be the year! When WGFD announces the results, I know Wyomingites do their dang best to break the internet logging into the draw results. I am one of them. At 8 am, I pull up my computer, tablet, phone and anything else with Wifi and then discuss the draw for the rest of the week. Is it the excitiment of getting the big bull tag you have been waiting for? Is it finally drawing that area that has less than 2% odds? Maybe it is the anticipation that your hunt is now FINALLY in the planning stages. Either way, it is a birthday and Christmas all rolled up into one glorious event. It is the green light to talk about hunting non-stop until you bring home little white packages. Except, then you have to tell the story of the hunt…so, I guess it actually doesn’t stop there. The draw assures quality family time. It provides the hope of steaks, roasts and hamburgers. More than anything, it brings our family together. By the way, it’s 14 days until the deadline. Have you put in yet?

-Long Rifle

Spencer

        I should have done it years sooner. I just kept putting it off. I was too busy. I had family stuff to do. I had work stuff to do. I had church stuff to do. The bottom line was that I was an idiot. My good friend Kirk Deeter maintains that fishing is as much about the people we fish with as it is about anything else. He’s right, of course. And I was an idiot for waiting years to fish with my old friend Spencer.

       I don’t remember when I met him – back in the 1980’s sometime, I expect. I was just beginning to realized that I was getting bored with being a biologist and that I was getting interested in how fish and wildlife agencies work and how we could make them better. He was the big dog of that small group of folks who were convinced that we could use management science borrowed from the business world to make fish and wildlife agencies more effective. He was the reigning herd bull; I was a stupid little spike who bugled too loud, too high and too often. He probably should have put the run on me, but he didn't.
       Instead of running me off, he took me in. He taught me. He shared his wisdom, and not just about our work. I remember the time he told me that I was confusing my job with my life. I didn’t want to hear it, but he was right. He taught me to listen, to reflect and to capture other peoples’ thoughts without worrying about my own. We traveled a lot together in those days. We went to dozens of states to share what we knew. We were even hired by some big shots in DC to go to a small, teardrop shaped country off the southern tip of India to help them do some planning for their national parks. It was a hoot.
         But he never lost track of who he was, and he wasn’t about to let me do that either. He always had both feet planted solidly on the ground. So when he retired, we started a consulting company. We didn’t know very much about running a consulting company, but we figured it out. We worked with state and federal agencies, even some other outfits. We worked on salmon in Alaska, wolves in Utah, prairie dogs in Nebraska and a host of other gigs. We had a blast. We might have even done some good in a place or two. I hope so.
       But eventually, I moved on. The partners went their separate ways. And Spencer went to Casper. He and his wife wanted to be close to their family there. And he wanted to fish the North Platte. We fished it together with some friends not long after he moved there. He made the mistake of letting me row the drift boat. I doubt he’ll make that error again. But as always, he was kind and patient and he took my ineptitude with a laugh. That’s the way he is.
       That’s why I’ve long maintained that if God had given me an older brother, I’d want him to be like Spencer. And why I won’t wait so long for us to fish together again.

-Grandpa

Not for us Wyomingites

A few weeks ago, I traveled with Grandpa to Washington D.C. We had the best time, we saw and learned so much, and it made us really glad to live in such a great country! One of the days we were there towards the end of our visit, a buddy of ours, Joel, who lives in the D.C. area, invited us to go fly-fishing with him on the Potomac. We were to catch many different types of fish, including shad and catfish. Grandpa packed his fly rod for the two of us to split, and we were ready to go.
        Joel picked us up from our hotel north of D.C. in Maryland, ready to go with all sorts of fishing gear. From there it was about a twenty minute drive to a spot on the Potomac south of the city near Alexandria. We rented a small little rowboat, got our gear in order, tied a little black fly on the rods, made lunch, and set sail for deep waters towards the other side of the river.

      It was fun from the start. Grandpa and I were so used to mountain trout fly fishing, so Joel had to teach us the whole new way of doing it. Contrary to before, this new way of doing it involved throwing out the weighted line, letting the current take it out and under the water, then stripping it back in slowly. When a fish caught on, in order to set the hook, rather than pulling back on the pole with all your might, this new method was called “strip-setting.” You took grabbed some loose line and stripped it back like heck. This was really new for us Wyomingites, and it took a ton of getting used to. Right at the beginning, I felt a sharp tug. I did this crazy flailing thing with the pole that may have worked back home, but definitely not in Virginia, and the fish fell off. Grandpa took a gander at it and did much the same thing. Oh, dear.   

     I finally got the hang of it somewhat, and I almost brought a fish in, bringing it just feet from the boat. Joel brought in a nice shad, and people nearby seemed to be doing well. What matters was, though, is that we were having a blast and learning all kinds of cool new things. Soon, we realized that all of us were getting kind of hungry. At that precise moment, we also realized that nobody had brought the lunch along. Ai karumba. We went all the way back to shore and ate lunch. Others who were fishing only a bit downstream from us had brought in about a dozen shad and catfish, but we didn’t seem to be having as much luck. After lunch, Joel took off for the bank to try to do some river-side fishing, but no luck. Ah well. You can’t win every day I guess. 
         Grandpa and I traveled to the other side of the country to learn some cool things about our nation’s capital and to see and do some way awesome stuff. Little did we know, however, that we would get a taste of a very new and foreign type of fishing, and boy did we love it!

-The Ranger