Boxing

    Don't waste your money on toys for Grand Baby. He often is unimpressed by common baby toys. He prefers to entertain himself with things he finds around the house. 

Here he contemplates where next to look for entertainment.

  A cardboard box! What could be inside?

    A shiny red cup makes a good toy.

You know that feeling that you're being watched?

Cats like boxes too.

Bath Tub Baby

"Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing."

Eugene Ionesco

    Grand Baby came to visit tonight. The whirlpool tub was filled at a cozy temperature.  He splashed and played in the fragrances of flowers and dew. Afterward he was gently dried in towels as soft as a butterfly's wing. Eventually he was dressed in warm clothing, carried safely home and placed gently in his bed.

    Sweet dreams, Baby.

The Shotgun Versus the Binoculars

"I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them."

Roger Tory Peterson

    "Look at the photo I got today!" I practically shouted. I put this close-up on the big screen of our desktop for Honey Bunny, certain that he would be impressed at my skills as a nature photographer.

    The phone rang just then. It was Lovely Daughter. I couldn't get any verbal feedback from Honey about the photo so I glanced over at him. He was definitely not giving me a thumbs up. When my telephone conversation ended I got an earful.

    "You should have killed it! You are going to get hurt doing such things!" H.B. never shouts. But he was uncharacteristically loud. Very stern. I was disappointed. My most stalwart supporter was definitely in unsupportive mode.  

    This is a Redbelly Watersnake. She is not poisonous, but if I had crowded her too much she would have bitten me and sprayed me with a skunk like musk for me to bring home to my dog for sniffing. However, since I was using a telephoto lens I was never very close. My biggest concern was that she would retreat into her hollow log and I would not be able to take her portrait. Try telling this to Honey Bunny.

    While surfing for snakes on the internet I learned a fun fact. The Brown Watersnake, a relative of the the Redbellly, feeds on catfish and is sometimes observed with the bones of catfish sticking out of its body walls. The bones will fall out over time and no harm is done to the snake. 

    If you are interested in snakes Davidson College has a great herpetology web site. Just don't tell your Honey Bunny if you see one outdoors!

Mountain Man Scramble

   

   The morning of our last day in camp we had Mountain Man Scramble for breakfast. This appears to be a recipe designed to avoid waste. As such it includes all the leftovers from five days of camping. George prepared an excellent meal that combined sausage, bacon, roast pork, cheese, eggs, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions. When served with a hot cup of Cowboy Coffee on a cool morning outdoors it is an unbeatable meal.

    This will be my last blog about my trip to Montana so I am going to serve up a Mountain Man Scramble of photos.

   

    If you make the drive 10,000 feet up to Sawtelle Peak you can see this FAA equipment.

    I thought it just cried out to be painted to resemble a soccer ball. But since the FAA is not known for humor it will never look like this.

   

    One afternoon the wranglers saddled up and rode the horses so that we could get some action photos.

    Keith splashed across the stream for us. Some of you may notice he is using a bit-less bridle.

    Even though it was his day off one of the mules insisted on joining us.

    Craig packs a manny so that our equipment can be loaded onto mules. This is hard work as each manny  weighs as much as 100 lbs. He has to wrap them snugly with rope, and tying the knots is an art.

Leaving our first camp.

Pack mules, like people, have personalities. This one is reluctant.

This one, mischievous.

Mule Deer on Main St,  Ennis, Montana

    This photo was taken in Nevada City. While there is a Zang's Beer brewed in Colorado, I suspect this building was not native to the ghost town. It was probably used in one of the many movies filmed there.  Little Big Man, Lonesome Dove, Missouri Breaks, and Thousand Pieces of Gold were all filmed in Nevada City.

     TheNevada City Music Hall houses the largest public collection of automated music machines in North America. Many are in working order. They are decorated with ornate carvings. Some are beautiful.

   

Some are just plain creepy.

    I almost forgot that the same thing that makes a good HDR photo also makes a good black and white photo. This shot originally perplexed me because the fence in the foreground was new and it clashed with the old train. I wanted to keep the photo because I loved the landscape in the background. Thank goodness I finally remembered to convert to black and white. With the color removed the fence is not so jarring to the senses.

One more black and white from the ghost town.

Ending with a bit of humor and a nod to the Talking Heads.

"You may ask yourself, 'How do I work this?'"

    I hope you will save the address to my blog so you can visit again. Next time you can see the photo that had the unusual effect of making Honey Bunny raise his voice to me :(

    And remember, if you click on any of the photos they should "grow" to full screen for you.

We Interrupt This Program

    This photo was so much fun to take that I am interrupting the string of Montana blogs to show it to you.
    Honey Bunny was in the kitchen getting his afternoon coffee when he happened to glance out the window at the Chinese Plum tree. The raccoon saw him first and ducked his head. All Honey could tell was that there was an animal in the tree.  
    From my comfy chair on the back porch I heard, "Darling! Where are the binoculars?" We pulled the binoculars out from the cabinet and watched the young raccoon as he sat very still. He was perched on a limb that measured only one inch in diameter. A hurricane is approaching our state and we have a steady breeze moving the trees. In addition to this our dog came around to the front yard to see what we were doing. All this made for a very unpleasant afternoon for the raccoon.
    It is usual for us to have young raccoons and possums visit us in the late summer. This one would have been born this past spring. His mother would have shown him where to find food before he moved out of the home. Apparently she showed him our yard with our the bird feeder and fruit trees. When he climbs down from this tree he will travel head first, but will turn his back feet around so that his toes point up the tree.
    Surprisingly, our dog Kira did not detect his presence. She is always very aware and has an excellent nose. I have often seen her stand up on her back legs with her front legs on a tree trunk sniffing the air and barking. I am not sure why she did not pick up on the fact that we had a visitor in our yard. Perhaps the major change in the weather affects her sense of smell in some way.
    The Chinese believe that plums have many health benefits. In studies on rats they increased the rats' endurance while running. Tonight after dark this fellow will surely eat more plums, climb down from his perch, and run away! Without getting winded!

Ghost Town

    

    During my trip to Montana I was able to visit Nevada City, the site of a gold rush town from the 1860s. This was not the corny tourist attraction I feared. Rather it was a serious attempt by the Montana Heritage Commission to preserve buildings and history from that era.
    The town lent itself well to high dynamic range photography. HDR, in a nutshell, allows us to use software to bring out tones that we can't capture with "normal" photography. If the HDR software is used more aggressively it produces surreal photos like the top one.
    Photos that are "color-ie" or "textur-ie" work well in HDR, according to Ben Long. He teaches (on Lynda.com) that with HDR we make photos "crunchy." I can't think of any better way to describe it, so I am not going to argue with Mr. Long about his choice of words.
    These train cars are about as color-ie and textur-ie as it gets. I feel as if I could get a nice reddish-orange splinter just from looking at the photos.

    This house was built in 1873 by a rancher, gold miner and legislator named Stedman. Like many buildings in the town, it was moved to Nevada City from its original location by the state of Montana as part of the historical preservation effort.
    The trees are Cottonwood and have the most beautiful bark.

    One interesting story from Nevada City's history comes from a newspaper called the Montana Post. In 1864 the Post reported that three sisters with the last name of Canary were begging in the streets while their father gambled in the dance hall. The oldest sister was probably Martha Canary who grew up to be Calamity Jane.
    Calamity Jane was a fascinating person according to an article in Montana Outlaw by Hunter Rothwell. She could easily have an entire blog devoted to her story. Jane could ride, shoot, and drink whiskey by the age of thirteen. Three years after the newspaper reported her father's gambling escapades she was an orphan. With no one to care for her she tried her hand at a variety of jobs including stints as a dance-hall girl, ox team driver, army scout, and as a Pony Express rider.
    She also had many run-ins with the law. Drunk and disorderly conduct, shoplifting, and running through the streets naked while drunk were a few of her offenses.
    To be fair, Calamity Jane was also known for her kind heart. She helped many people and even volunteered to nurse small pox victims.
    Calamity Jane was so unique, even her boyfriend had a unique name, Arkansas Tom.

    Most of you probably already know this, but if you are viewing my blog on-line you can click on any of these photos to see them at full size.

Reflections

    Visiting Montana is like visiting another country. I say that as a compliment.
    The population density of my my home state is 196 inhabitants per square mile, which places us at 15th in the nation. In Montana the population density is 6.8 inhabitants per square mile, 48th in the nation. Or, to put it another way, there are 28 times as many people in a square mile here as compared to there.
    When you pick up my hometown paper and read the crime report you will see murders, rapes, and armed robberies. In the town of West Yellowstone, Montana you will read that "A camper reported that a bear was near them," and "Someone found a calico cat."
    Folks in West Yellowstone love to get out and enjoy their beautiful mountains. They especially enjoy camping. They enjoy it so much that they have a campground at their airport. One of our guides is so crazy about camping that as soon as he could shake himself loose from camping with us he was going to spend one week camping with his family in an area so remote it takes two days to get there.
    Speaking of the airport, it is so small there is only one airstrip for landing or taking off. While waiting for my flight out I counted my fellow passengers. They numbered 20 people and a dog.
    The TSA agents walk freely among the passengers in the airport's only waiting room. They make announcements in a friendly fashion unusual for members of their profession. "We'll start screening at ten past. Huckleberry jam and syrup are considered liquids and gels and must be transported as checked baggage, not as carry on." Upon this several passengers jumped up to return to the only check-in desk with their bags.
    The airport is only open from June through September. The rest of the year they are closed due to snow. This schedule is "approximate" according to their official web site. During the winter the airport is rented out to a company who tests snow and cold conditions on tires and other equipment.
    It snows a LOT in Montana. The beautiful meadow pictured above was covered in snow just two weeks before I arrived.........in July! Just over the state line at Sawtelle Peak, Idaho I saw a snow pole. These look  like a cross between a telephone pole and a large ruler. They are marked in feet so that one can tell how much snow is on the ground. The highest measurement on the pole? Eleven feet!
    I put together a little slide show with photos from my trip. You can see it on You Tube by clicking here.