We raise buffalo (okay, bison) as well as cattle so there is a constant concern about brucellosis. We have inoculated the buffalo and cattle with various vaccines, but they all have had some problems, from inducing spontaneous abortions to persistent serological responses making the tests to determine if an animal is infected return false positives. But now we are using a genetically engineered (gasp!) live-attenuated vaccine based on deletions of virulence
genes in B. abortus, B. suis and B. melitensis, which, though still in the testing stage, seems to provide high safety levels compared to the live-
attenuated vaccines we've been using. In inoculated animals, this vaccine produces significant symptom attenuation and increased production of T cells, pro-inflammatory cytokines (which initiate defenses against exogenous pathogens), and antibodies. So we'll see how it goes. (Did I have a role in developing it? Could be.... -- Did you really think I was wasting my turbo-supercharged brain and world-class medical research education on making baking-powder biscuits, refereeing my yard apes, horseback-riding, hiking, declaiming Tennyson's The Lotos-Eaters in grand, stentorian tones (well, as stentorian as I can manage) from mountain tops, bantering with cowboys, listening to old ranch hands who call me honey and darling yarning about their youthful exploits, swimming nude and dancing in my undies to the oldies? Well, I do all that, too.)
I mention this vaccine project because most people are totally human-focused and never consider the health of our fellow animals and their significance in maintaining a viable ecosystem. Brucellosis is a world-wide problem both in domestic and wild animals. Among other things, it causes placentitis, resulting in abortions and stillborns, thus reducing livestock productivity and ranch income. Calves who are born alive are very weak. There is no real cure for the disease so once it has been discovered in a herd the standard procedure is that all the animals must be culled and no uninfected animals allowed in that area for at least six months and preferably a year. Oh, and brucellosis can be transmitted to humans; when it is, it's called undulant fever. You don't want to get that. Most people who do, assuming they are not working with infected animals, acquire it by drinking unpasteurized milk. Drinking unpasteurized milk from uninfected animals is safe, but if it's not from your own cows, you are placing your health in the hands of an unknown supply chain. Dare I point out that a dairy with infected animals has an economic incentive to not report and not cull? It's not a big problem in advanced countries, but elsewhere it is a serious problem.
The midsummer sun, high in the north, shines warmth onto lake and forest from the early morning to the last gleams of its setting. It's time to bask in the sun like a cat, absorbing its delightful heat, then take a dip in the crystal clear waters of the lake. No one's around who's not your known friend, and if someone is who cares? Give them a wave and a smile.
Winter was so miserable and so long, I thought it would never end. But these days it's but a fading memory, best not brought to mind. Now it is high summer, mid-June, the best time of the year to my mind. No bitter north winds of winter, no gales, no blizzards, no 20 degrees below zero days, no stuck inside the house doing whatever you can to avoid cabin fever, no spring mud, slush and damp shadows. Now is the time of gentle zephyrs, brilliant sunshine, barn swallows, song sparrows, blue jays, finches, thrushes and wrens, all singing and soaring, wood doves cooing, and far above gliding hawks uttering the occasional long kreee and vultures even higher, circling, silent. And roses, roses, roses, as well as every other wild flower you can think of.
As the summer, comes on and lingers and I spend more and more time out of doors, my hair grows lighter and my skin darker. But I douse myself with SPF One Billion sun block anyway. And as each day passes, and each hour of each day, I wear less and less clothing. Do the deer and antelope wear clothes? Does the elk? Then why should I?
The yard apes and my mini-me clone, holy terrors one and all, skinny dip in exuberant innocence and freedom while, without seeming to, I keep a close eye on them, as do the dogs -- better guardians and life guards you could not find. The little squirts' whoops and hollers and watch this's and no fairs! and my turns! echo and tumble across the water to be lost in the trees. I want them to have a happy childhood, one they will always remember with fondness, a time of their lives they can treasure no matter what may befall them as adults. As long as they live, as long as this earth exists, this particular summer will never come again. They will never be this young again. All life belongs to them during these long summer days in a way it never will in times to come, if come it does. No one can steal or abuse your memories. I want their memories from the time I was able to help create them to be ones they will always return to with warmth and pleasure.
I have important things I want to write about -- important to me anyway -- but at this time of year, in this weather, who cares? I am immersed in the eternal now and nothing else matters. I am merely and happily just another animal luxuriating in being alive. And the kids are like the fawns born mere weeks ago who dash around in gleeful exuberance, with no thought of the coyote, bear, mountain lion, speeding car and trophy hunter waiting in their future. The past is gone, and perhaps never really was; maybe it was just a dream. And the future, if there is such a thing, does not exist and may never exist. But there is now. Now is forever.
I mentioned the USS Growler (SS-215) in an earlier post, remarking that I had a relative who served aboard her and perished when she was sunk by the Japanese. I didn't know anything about the Growler or my relative. I found out he was a Fireman First Class from Wolf Point, Montana, on the Ft. Peck Indian Reservation, although his Navy records say Vida. I also read about the Growler's war patrols and found this US Navy video about her. It was made in 1957 and consists of archival footage and recreated scenes. All the scenes at sea were obviously filmed at Lahaina Roads off Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. Good old Ward Bond, one of my favorite actors from the glory days of Hollywood, appears in it.
The opening scenes of the short film --it's about 20 minutes -- almost brought a tear to my eye because the way Bond interacted with his family was very much the way my dad interacted with us kids. Navy brats...ah.... You had to be one to understand. All the good-byes, the waving at dad's ship as it sails out of harbor, the scent of sea water, all the ships and activity, the smell of bunker fuel, diesel...whatever it was, looking so hard to try to see him one last time, wondering when -- or if -- you'll see him again.
Anyway, do take a look at the film, if you are interested.
I'm reading After London, or Wild England by Richard Jeffries. Published in 1885, it is one of the first post-apocalyptic novels. Some disaster wipes out almost all the human race and nature reclaims the land. The plot is not much, and sort of meanders, but the writing is delightful, the descriptions of plants and animals replacing and erasing the works of man are fascinating -- and accurate, as Jeffries was a naturalist in the grand English tradition of intelligent, keen-eyed hill walkers.
But it is obvious to me that Jeffries had no experience of a landscape with large grazers such as bison in it. He discusses water rats and moles and magpies, but doesn't mention deer, let alone elk, buffalo, horses and, curiously, cattle, pigs and sheep (at least not so far in my reading), of which there must have been many on farms in Britain then and would have easily gone feral. All these creatures radically alter the landscape by their browsing and grazing habits. Anyone who's tried to have a rose garden where deer abound knows this! If you want to grow anything deer like you need to have it behind a fence at least eight feet tall. And the larger herbivores change the landscape much more drastically. Much of the southwest, for example, was forested before overgrazing turned it into desert. That's also historically true of the middle east, goats and sheep being much more effective desertifiers than cattle.
In any case, should mankind perish utterly cattle would proliferate across the land, especially since no one would be castrating the bull calves. I've read that during the Civil War the cattle on the Texas ranches, being neglected as the men went off to fight, went feral and by the end of the war numbered some ten million. Just that quickly did their numbers come to rival those of the buffalo. Imagine how vast their numbers would grow if no men ever returned to round them up.
Wrangler roping a mustang from a herd rounded up on the prairie.
Of course, all those cattle destroyed the long-established southern California ecosystem as it was described by the chroniclers of the Gaspar de Portolá y Rovira expedition when they visited the area in 1769. In particular, what is now the Los Angeles basin was described in almost Edenic terms, riotous with lush plant life, wild roses in gorgeous bloom, marshes and rivulets, artisan springs and pools of clear water everywhere, with all sorts of game abounding, including lots of grizzly bears. Los Angeles still contains an echo of what once was in names like La Cienega (the swamp) and La Puente (the bridge). The last artisan spring, in Lacy Park in Pasadena, was capped in the 1940s.
According to Portolá's estimate, there were about 5,000 Indians living in the basin, probably what were later called by the Spanish Gabrielenos, after the San Gabriel mission where they were enslaved -- that is a carefully chosen word I use to describe their fate. Of course, the Gabrielenos became entirely extinct a long time ago. But if you make the easy hike up Mt. Hillyer in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles you can find bedrock mortars or metates used by Gabrieleno women to grind acorns with stone pestles or manos. Once the Spanish invaded the Los Angeles basin and subjugated the inhabitants, those who managed to escape fled into the recesses of the San Gabriels and used these natural metates to prepare food.
The acorn is highly nutritious, but requires preparation before it is edible. In this it is like the olive, which cannot be eaten raw from the tree, but must be processed first. When I used to hike the San Gabriels when I was a high school student at an LA gifted magnet, I would find vast heaps of acorns rotting away, far more than the wild life could consume. In the past, these were a bountiful harvest for the native inhabitants, each oak producing a crop every other year, but the volume was such that the Indians needed very little work to have a plentiful food supply year round, every year. They stored the excess in cone-like granaries, wooden structures raised off the ground that dried and preserved the acorns safe from deer and other pests until they were needed. Women would from time to time take some from these storage units, grind and soak them, then bake them into bread or boil them into mush, served with assorted berries and venison or other game.
I often made acorn bread when I lived in Los Angeles as a teen. It was very easy using a coffee grinder or blender to grind up the acorns. Then I would soak the grounds in water for about a day. The simplest way to emulate soaking them in a running stream as the Indians did was to place them in a porous sack -- I used muslin cloth I sewed into the shape I wanted, and hang them in a toilet reservoir tank. As the toilet was flushed during the day, it would wash away the toxins in the acorns and rinse them with fresh clean water. After 24 hours or so, the acorns were ready. I would dry them thoroughly, then place the grounds into a blender at highest speed until they had turned into a fine flour. This I would use just like any other flour, buckwheat or wheat or oat or barley...whatever...to make the most delicious bread, nutty in flavor and much more nutritious than bread made with wheat flour. I used to keep a stock of acorn flour on hand to mix a bit into just about everything -- pancakes, biscuits, bread, even tortillas. People often praised my cooking and wondered if I had a secret ingredient. Had I said yes and told the it was acorns, they would have been incredulous.
Well, I've drifted away from my musings on Jeffries' book. I guess I don't have much more to say about it, other than that it is interesting to me how often "after man" novels have become popular. It seems that there is a yearning, at least in certain segments of society, for an escape from civilization, from the dull routine, life by the clock, the repetitious drudgery, the stresses of being always crowded up against strangers, having to deal with them, rely on them, cater to them, hear their noise wherever you go. The rat race.
The historian Bernard de Voto once kept a list of all the white men who had run away to live with the Indians. He gave it up after it passed one thousand names. He also looked for Indians who had voluntarily run off to join the white world. He never found even one. Oh, and he never found a single white woman who had run off to join the Indians, but some who, once captured by Indians sometimes stayed when they could have escaped. That was uncommon but he did find a few examples. More usually, a white woman would make every effort to escape, and endure great hardships to return to her own people. But often once home again, either by making her escape or being returned in a prisoner exchange or by being ransomed, she had a difficult time re-adjusting to the norms of the white world, in large part because she would be viewed as tainted by her time spent with the Indians. Still, she would not run back to the red world.
I suppose the women behaved the way they did because they, not men, are the carriers and transmitters of their peoples' inherited way of life, their culture. The hand that rocks the cradle and all that. Whereas men...well, I don't really know. Certainly the Indian way offered men a life of adventure and leisure. They hunted big game, raided rival tribes to steal their horses and rape their women, make off with the prettier ones, in other words, a bit of the old loot and pillage now and again to liven life up. What man would not be attracted to that? But for women the life was much different, butchering the slain beasts and cooking them, making leather from their hides and sewing clothing, planting and tending the gardens if they were an agricultural or semi-agricultural tribe, otherwise going out and gathering grains and berries, tubers and herbs, acorns, then preparing them for cooking. And of course child-bearing and raising. In other words, work, work, work.
You would think that Indian women would have run away to the white world, but although they often married white men -- trappers, traders, scouts -- the white men stayed with the Indians so nothing really changed for the women. And if the Indian woman had fled to the white world, she would have found life as a white female to be one endless round of drudgery, too, so what would be the point? Of course, for white men, as well, life was an endless round of drudgery. No wonder so many young white men and boys dreamed of running off to live with the Indians and enjoy a Peter Pan existence, as they imagined, forever.
I found this cartoon booklet among the boxes of family memorabilia (okay, junk) I've been rooting through. It apparently belonged to my "other" grandfather. He flew cargo planes in the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, as I wrote in an earlier post.
Anyway, I thought I'd preserve this little bit of ephemera from that long-gone and long-forgotten episode in history. Here are some of the cartoons in the booklet:
And here's another little item I found. I thought it was an interesting bit of historical ephemera. My uncle, the one I have written about several times, who I've gone dancing with 'cause he really knows how to cut a rug when it's music he likes, and who served most of his navy career on destroyers, retiring as a master chief (E9), served, as I never knew till I found this letter, on the Montrose during the Viet Nam war. And how about that for a sentence, huh?
Anyway, behold! (and note his very nice cursive script; um, I think it's his, but maybe it's his mom's):
By the way, an absolutely excellent book about APAs is Away All Boats by Kenneth Dobson, who commanded one during World War II.
Here's another bit of historical flotsam I found, from a bubblehead relative, another one of my uncles. I knew I had some submariner relatives, one of whom served aboard the Growler during World War II and was lost when she was sunk by the Japanese, but this one I did not know about. I didn't even know the navy used submarines as troop transports. <
And here is a postcard from Lebanese International Airways from, it has to be the early to mid-1960s, because the Israelis destroyed LIA, a commando raid blowing up all their 990s in 1967 in retaliation for a Palestinian attack on an El Al airliner in Italy: you blow up one of ours, we blow up 10 of yours. Although I'm not sure that Lebanon had anything to do with the attack on the El Al plane, but what do I know? That was back in the days when Beruit was called the Paris of the Middle East, and nobody could have imagined what a shit show the whole region has devolved into since (and excuse my French!). Anyway, the reason the postcard is among the family ephemera is that one of my relatives, about whom I have written, flew 990s for LIA and was on the airfield when the Israeli commandos attacked and dashed out to try to stop them from blowing up his plane, but was tackled by his Lebanese co-pilot, thus having his life saved.
And for something completely different here's a button or whatever you would call it that my mother got when she was in high school -- she used to collect buttons and wear them on her jeans jacket, apparently it was a fad back then. This one looks like it's never been used. I asked her about it and she didn't remember it, she had collected so many, but thought she had probably gotten it as part of some Ford promotion and it was probably a duplicate. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that Ford would target high school students to sell cars to. What a wonderful world it must have been when a high school student could earn enough money after school and during summer vacation to buy a brand new Mustang. A vanished golden era.
This is the gas tank bag my dad had strapped to his BSA Thunderbolt that he rode all around Europe just before he reported to Pensacola to earn his golden wings and then sail off to fly Iron Hand missions over Haiphong during Linebacker II. He flew to England and bought his bike from Elite Motors, Tooting Broadway, London (can you not just love someplace called "Tooting Broadway? Honk! Honk!), and had a blast touring the Europe that was, maybe peak non-communist Europe, well recovered from World War II but not yet ruined by the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and all that has happened since.
Here's a photo of his BSA, or Beezer, as he calls it, parked by some chambre à louer or whatever, back when pop was just a smartass punk in a black leather jacket. Heh. He would object to that characterization, informing me that he had joined the Royal Automobile Club and was a member in good standing and had a metal roundel affixed to his motorcycle to prove it. So he could not possibly have been a punk, although he did admit to owning a custom-made Bates black leather jacket.
I went hiking up into the high country where the snow still lingers and came across this wreck. I found the identification plate or whatever it's called which told me it was, or once had been, a C-119, the flying boxcar, an Air Force workhorse of the early 1950s.
Those dogs, by the way, are border collies. I trained them myself. They are very quick learners and very smart. Together we are a great team, their keen sense of smell and hearing combined with my far-scanning eyes make it very unlikely any predator can surprise us. Were we hunting, no game could escape us. And, of course, they are superb cow dogs. But they were taking some time off from work to accompany me on my rambles.
I really am happy to be away from people and the obligation to deal with strangers and all manner of disagreeableness. Now that I am away from the teeming hordes, I see how ... -- well, never mind. I don't care. Why dwell on such things? I've escaped, that's all that matters.
I spent the night camped out on the mountain, sleeping soundly in my little backpacking tent and sleeping bag, the dogs curled up next to me. We kept each other toasty warm. In the morning, I made pan biscuits from scratch (I'd already mixed the flour and other ingredients and stored them in a baggie) baking them in a skillet over my campfire till they were crusty brown on the outside, light and chewy on the inside, fried a couple of eggs and some bacon -- the aroma made me famished -- and chowed down with a will. Then I washed it all down with campfire coffee -- tossing the fresh grounds into the coffee pot and adding an eggshell to mellow the brew. When it just began to boil, I took it off the flames, threw a dash of cold water in the pot to settle the grounds and poured a cup, steam rolling away in the brisk mountain morning air.
I added the leftover bacon grease to the dogs' kibble for an extra treat for them. Nom! Nom! Nom!
Descending by a different route, I came across a mountain lake. I thought I might take a swim, but the water was like liquid ice. I saw that it was stocked with trout, probably by the state Fish and Game department. They do it by helicopter. El jefe is a fisherman and I know that once he comes home he will love to hike up here and enjoy being the only angler, listening to the chatter of blue jays, wood doves and the wind soughing through the pines.
The day warmed as I descended and soon I was hot enough to take off my jacket, then, after a while, still hot, I unzipped the lower half of my pants and -- voila! -- I was wearing shorts.
I was not following any path, just making my own judgement as to how best to descend but basically following the lake outlet stream. Eventually it led to a canyon. That gave me pause. It was boulder-strewn and appeared to narrow. Could I make it through? I thought about back-tracking and trying to find another way down, but the only other way would be to climb back to where I had camped and then descend the way I had climbed up. I didn't think I would have enough daylight to do that, plus I didn't want to face that climb. So I entered the canyon. And it did narrow, and it was difficult. There was no wind and it grew hot so that I was sweating heavily. I took a break, unsnapping and dropping my backpack with a sigh of relief, then took a long drink of water from my canteen. My feet were tired and sore. I took off my boots and socks and inspected them. No blisters, thankfully. I fished an apple out of my backpack and ate it slowly, not because I was hungry so much as to give me an excuse to linger. I really didn't want to face having to boulder hop and wade down that canyon any more. But I had no choice. So, after a few minutes, I splashed water from the stream on my arms, legs and face to wash off the sweat and cool down. The water was cool, not cold, and when I stood in it with my naked feet, after a minute or so, it actually felt warm, or warmish.And that was good because not long after I resumed my plod, the canyon opened up and the stream broadened into a wide pool with no boulders to cross it on and it looked too deep to wade. I was going to have to swim it. I took off my clothes and bundled them into my backpack, along with my boots, taking out the big plastic trash bag I had brought along to cover the pack with should I have been caught in a thunderstorm. I put the pack inside the bag and tied it tightly closed, making sure to trap a lot of air inside. Then I gingerly stepped into the water, waiting a minute or two after each few steps to accustom myself to the water temperature, glad it was not icy cold like the lake had been; I doubted I could have survived trying to swim that. But this was okay, even pleasant, actually, in the close heat of the canyon. At the last before stepping off into the deep, I tied the backpack to my wrist with a nylon cord so I wouldn't lose it, and let it float free. It seemed water tight, bobbing high on the water.
So I swam and floated down the river, letting my backpack drift ahead of me on the gentle current, my dogs paddling beside me, heads held high. Being naked in this untouched wilderness canyon, feeling the sensuous caress of the water, I felt like Rima, the girl in W.H. Hudson's novel Green Mansions. What bliss! I rolled over on my back and watched the sky and the walls of the canyon drift by as I was carried along by the current. I completely lost my sense of self. Barn swallows zoomed low over the water, passing within inches of me, so close I could feel the wind of their passage. Their high-pitched chattering was the only sound, until, eventually, I heard a trickle of noise that grew to a mild tumbling rumble of water rushing over rocks, and I knew my Edenic drift was over. I pulled my backpack to me and pushed myself up over it to get a view of what was head.
The canyon was coming to an end and the stream spread out into a shallow bed in a sort of valley, more like what we called a flat, which is what it was. I waded out of the stream and stood in the hazy sunshine while I twisted my hair to wring the water out of it. In a few minutes I was dry, although my hair was still damp, but that was okay, it cooled me. I fetched my backpack out of the plastic bag. It was dry. No water had seeped in, as I had feared. I hesitated about putting my clothes back on, it felt so nice to be au naturel in nature. But clothing not only provides modesty, it protects against sunburn, insects, and helps prevent cuts and scrape in a tumble. So I donned them and, curiously, once I had done so, I felt chilly. So I zipped on the lower half of my pants and slipped into my windbreaker. I eased into my pack, glad for the extra warmth it provided to my back.
Looking around, I saw clouds beginning to drift down from the heights and I felt a fresh, cold breeze. I was still pretty high up, the weather was that changeable mountain weather and the day was getting on. I'd better get a move on and get off the mountain without delay. The flat was easy walking and when it ended there was a natural trail made by generations of wild creatures that I strode along as it wound down the mountain to the prairie where I'd left my truck. At the end of the trail, I hesitated, deciding which way to go: was my truck to the left or the right of where I'd come out? I looked at the surrounding mountains, looked behind me to see how the peak I'd descended from looked from here to compared to how it had looked from where I'd parked the truck. I felt stupid for not having memorized that view. The dogs looked up at me, expectant. Why was I hesitating? I looked down at them. Did they know where the truck was? On an impulse, I clapped my hands and cried, "Let's go!" and off they ran. To my left. I jogged along after them. What else could I do? In a few minutes I saw the light of the low sun reflected in a bright glint. Glass! I thought, it has to be sunlight reflecting off glass and the only glass anywhere around was the windshield and windows of my truck. It had to be. And in another few minutes I saw it. Oh, sweet relief. I hadn't allowed myself to worry that after climbing and descending the mountain I would get lost at the last minute. But I very well could have.
When I got to the truck, the dogs were lying in it's shade panting slightly. I got them some water which they slurped up and then offered them some kibble, but they weren't interested. I tossed my backpack in the back of the truck, the dogs jumping in after it, climbed into the cab, drank the leftover coffee in the thermos I'd left on the passenger seat, stone cold but delicious, fired that mother up and bounced and jolted down to the main dirt road and headed home. By ten, I was eating a late dinner of twice-baked potatoes and roast beef, home-made hot rolls and a garden-fresh salad of watercress, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery hearts, bell peppers and carrots laced with home-made french dressing -- civilization may have its discontents, but it also has its blessed contentments. Then I took a long bath and crawled into my bed. I glanced out the window at the full moon, bright and low to the south, rolled over and went to sleep.
The machines men are so intent on making have carried them very far from the old sweet things.” ― Sherwood Anderson
“Some men are daylight readers, who peruse the ambiguous wording of clouds or the individual letter shapes of wandering birds. Some, like myself, are librarians of the night, whose ephemeral documents consist of root-inscribed bones or whatever rustles in the thickets upon solitary walks.” ~ Loren Eiseley
When I look at the horror show that is this human urbanized life we live, this chimerical civilization, these meretricious modern times, I wonder why I participated in it for so long, believing in its values, succumbing to its ersatz allures.
It's baby antelope season!
“Nature is part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man. When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of our very flesh and bone, man becomes a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness and integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity.” ― Henry Beston
“The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.” ― Sir Arthur Eddington
“The universe looks more and more like a great thought rather than a great machine.” ― Sir James Jeans
Maybe it's just me, maybe my personality, or perhaps my northern European barbarian ancestors and northern American Indian ancestors calling to me from the ancient past that still exists somewhere in this quantum universe, but when I return from the hurley-burley of the human-centered world to Mother Earth as she was for all of time before this now, I feel a thankful relief, as if some great pressure pushing down on me has been lifted.
Although I've lived and worked in the world of men all my adult life, now that I am absolutely free of it, I am experiencing a peace of mind, a contentment and, dare I say it, a happiness I was missing. I did not know I was missing it. But now I do. And now I can't live without it. Plus now I have all day every day with the fruit of my loins and can watch them grow day by day, teach them, provide an adult example for them, play with them, and just know they are around and so am I. I can also be available to assist my parents should they need a bit of help, and I do enjoy interacting with them. I can also be of service to other relatives should the need arise. And I help out around the ranch as I am able to.
So I am busy and there are plenty of demands on my time. Each day flies by and before I know it I am closing curtains and turning on lights. And when it's time to go to bed just about as soon as my head hits the pillow I am asleep and don't wake till morning. Before, I often lay awake for hours, my mind racing, thinking about the day past, planning the day to come and the many days afterward, worrying about all sorts of things, often things I could do nothing about, or do nothing about until they actually transpired, if they ever did.
“It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the
sunshine; I am in it as the butterfly in the light-laden air. Nothing
has to come; it is now. Now is eternity; now is the immortal life.”
―
Richard Jefferies
“What is this thing called life? I believe That the earth and the stars too, and the whole glittering universe, and rocks on the mountains have life, Only we do not call it so--I speak of the life That oxidizes fats and proteins and carbo- Hydrates to live on, and from that chemical energy Makes pleasure and pain, wonder, love, adoration, hatred and terror: how do these things grow From a chemical reaction? I think they were here already, I think the rocks And the earth and the other planets, and the stars and the galaxies have their various consciousness, all things are conscious; But the nerves of an animal, the nerves and brain Bring it to focus; the nerves and brain are like a burning-glass To concentrate the heat and make it catch fire: It seems to us martyrs hotter than the blazing hearth From which it came. So we scream and laugh, clamorous animals Born howling to die groaning: the old stones in the dooryard Prefer silence; but those and all things have their own awareness, As the cells of a man have; they feel and feed and influence each other, each unto all, Like the cells of a man's body making one being, They make one being, one consciousness, one life, one God.” ― Robinson Jeffers
“I won’t see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. 'For the Heavenly Father desires that we should see,' says Ruysbroeck, 'and that is why He is ever saying to our inmost spirit one deep unfathomable word and nothing else.' But what is the word? Is this mystery or coyness? A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred, it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn’t make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn’t catch the consonant that shaped it into sense.” ― Annie Dillard
I still can't really grasp how large the ranch is, especially when considered with the tens of thousands of acres of BLM and state land we lease in addition to our own holdings, from foothills to snow-capped mountains to plains and prairie, fertile valleys to barren badlands. I could saddle my horse, load a pack horse with supplies, set out in whichever direction I felt like and pass out of sight of the workings of man, aside from the trail or abandoned wagon road I follow, in very short order and not see them again for weeks. And, should I choose, I could make my way cross-country, following no trail, though that can require serious concentration when the terrain gets rough or when it begins to climb. But if the elk and antelope can traverse the trackless wastes, so can a horse and rider. Were I a hunter, I would encounter enough game to keep me well fed, though I would be content with less bloody fare.
I have veered off a trail and ridden across a prairie and then begun an ascent of the foothills only to discover old blaze marks on trees, healed over by bark ages ago but still visible, telling me that the path I've chosen is a logical one selected by others long before me. So, reassured, I continue on, spotting other blaze marks as I keep to the natural trail. And should I climb above the tree line, there are old ducks (rocks stacked atop each other) showing the way to the pass, and a downward path to a lake or pond, damned by beavers once before they were hunted out by John Jacob Astor's men two hundred years ago, but now preserved by rock and tree falls and silt build-up. In some places, they (the beavers not Astor's men) are making a come-back and there are fresh beaver dams here and there.
Once, a cowpoke looking for strays that had gotten themselves into some very rugged country took a break in the shade of some rocks that formed a shelter from the weather and his glance by chance fell upon a pouch woven of fiber. Picking it up, he felt its heft and, opening it, discovered flints, knapping tools and arrowheads. Being of Indian stock himself, he replaced it where he found it, apologizing for disturbing the spirit who guarded it. Does that sound silly? It doesn't to me. Looking around, he saw a faded petroglyph. He touched it with his hand. Above him, he saw the rock was blackened by smoke. Some time later, taking a class in archaeology at the local community college, he mentioned to his instructor his find and together they went to the site, finding the remains of what appeared to be a single night's campfire, the pouch and the petroglyph. Carbon-dating revealed the site to be between 800 and 850 years old. Explaining it to me, after saying this, the cowboy paused, looked away, then said, "That's ten thousand full moons ago." Eight-hundred years doesn't seem so much. We think we can grasp it. But ten thousand full moons? Can you encompass that with your mind? Would the comparison have occurred to you? Do you even notice the moon? The man whose life and work is in nature as God created it does. The moon waxing and waning, season after season, over and over and over again...beyond what the mind can understand. And then there is a man, traveling alone perhaps, seeking shelter for the night. He makes a little fire. He eats. Maybe he watches the moon. He sleeps. In the morning he moves on, forgetting his knapping pouch. He never came back for it. Why not? It was valuable and necessary to survive. Did he make the petroglyph or was it there when he came? Did he put his hand out and touch it?
I could drive out some old rutted, abandoned road as far as my four-wheel drive would take me, park it, shrug into my frame pack, sling my rifle over my shoulder, and head for the high country, or maybe follow a stream as it meanders along, cutting canyons here and there, wading or boulder-hopping through their cool shadows, then emerging into bright sunshine, all the while keeping a wary eye out for bears. Where the land opens up, I may find myself passing through herds of antelope, elk or buffalo, flushing pheasant and grouse, and where marshes and ponds are, there are moose. And ducks and geese, herons and sometimes egrets and cranes. Of course, deer are everywhere. As are coyotes. Resting in the shade of a tree, I may hear the scream of a mountain lion. If it's close, it sends a jolt of fear through me and I feel for my Winchester, the touch of it reassuring. I thank again my grandfather for teaching me to shoot by tossing old tobacco cans into the air or side-arming them skittering along the ground, ordering me to "shoot the head off Prince Albert!" And by-and-by I could. Every time. My grandfather believed that a good hunter only needed to take three bullets with him: one might be a dud, and, were his game-shot somehow unlucky, he might need that third to finish off his quarry -- but shame to him if he did.
I could leave the truck I left behind unlocked, the ignition key in the glove compartment or dangling from the rear-view mirror. No one would come along. And if someone did, he would not bother anything. He might leave a note saying he'd passed by and to blow the horn if I needed him for anything. He'd write down the date, too, in case I came back a week later so I would know he was long gone. Being long gone is now all that I wish to be.
“In the world there is nothing to explain the world. Nothing to explain the necessity of life, nothing to explain the hunger of the elements to become life, nothing to explain why the stolid realm of rock and soil and mineral should diversify itself into beauty, terror, and uncertainty. To bring organic novelty into existence, to create pain, injustice, joy, demands more than we can discern in the nature that we analyze so completely.
Hope this won't be "last photo before she was eaten."
In the world there is nothing that is truly explanatory. It is as if matter dreamed and muttered in its sleep. But why, and for what reason it dreams, there is no evidence.” ~ Loren Eiseley
“Since the first human eye saw a leaf in Devonian sandstone and a puzzled finger reached
to touch it, sadness has lain over the heart of man. By this tenuous
thread of living protoplasm, stretching backward into time, we are
linked forever to lost beaches whose sands have long since hardened into
stone. The stars that caught our blind amphibian stare have shifted far
or vanished in their courses, but still that naked, glistening thread
winds onward. No one knows the secret of its beginning or its end. Its
forms are phantoms. The thread alone is real; the thread is life.” ― Loren Eiseley
“There are some delightful places in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We people who are attracted by the countryside cherish fond memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have become familiar sights and can touch our hearts like happy events. Sometimes indeed the memory goes back towards a forest glade, or a spot on a river bank or an orchard in blossom, glimpsed only once on a happy day, but preserved in our heart.” ― Guy de Maupassant “I will shed no more tears like a spoilt child. For whatever happens we have had what we have had. No one can take that from us. And I have been alive, who was never alive before.” ― Daphne du Maurier
The radio play Earth Abides, adapted from the novel of the same name by George R. Stewart, first broadcast over the CBS radio network's sustaining series Escape on November 5 and November 12, 1950. Worth a listen.
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I mention this vaccine project because most people are totally human-focused and never consider the health of our fellow animals and their significance in maintaining a viable ecosystem. Brucellosis is a world-wide problem both in domestic and wild animals. Among other things, it causes placentitis, resulting in abortions and stillborns, thus reducing livestock productivity and ranch income. Calves who are born alive are very weak. There is no real cure for the disease so once it has been discovered in a herd the standard procedure is that all the animals must be culled and no uninfected animals allowed in that area for at least six months and preferably a .png)
year. Oh, and brucellosis can be transmitted to humans; when it is, it's called undulant fever. You don't want to get that. Most people who do, assuming they are not working with infected animals, acquire it by drinking unpasteurized milk. Drinking unpasteurized milk from uninfected animals is safe, but if it's not from your own cows, you are placing your health in the hands of an unknown supply chain. Dare I point out that a dairy with infected animals has an economic incentive to not report and not cull? It's not a big problem in advanced countries, but elsewhere it is a serious problem. 
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