So it’s time for some reflections on winter here in Montana. It’s a far cry from the winters I have known

* the dryness of it. I was struck by the first snowfall, and my wonder hasn’t stopped. No snowballs to be made here, at least until today’s wet snowfall. When you go to shovel, you’re not actually sure there’s something on the shovel. It’s light, airy, and, as the air continues to dry after the storm, the moisture is sucked out of the snow on the ground. As I leave home early in the morning before the sun is up, the headlights catch a million individual diamonds on the roadside.
Of course, it’s not for nothing that there’s a huge market for skin cream and hair conditioner here.
But, unless the wind is up, there’s not much of a sense of being cold in this wonderful dry air. I’ll set out on the porch of a morning, having a cup of coffee, and it’s only 30 degrees. Other than the coffee chilling pretty fast you wouldn’t know it.

* the sun. For years after I got out of college, I remembered March as gray and rainy, even on days when the sun came out, they were just doing it to trick you. Here, there are few days when we don’t have that brilliant huge blue sky. The color is so intense in that cold dry air…I know, I know, I’m still colorblind, but it’s damn blue to me, perhaps just not the same blue you would see. And the sun is warm at this altitude: 5200 feet at home, 6800 feet at work. A day outside and sunscreen is an essential.

* the stars. The nights are nearly as brilliant as the days. At the house, once the Christmas lights were taken down in the neighborhood(and trust me when I say that no expense is spared for the holidays. My neighbors were done out in red green and white, with a professional Christmas decorating company crane truck doing the installation) about the only lights around are from the towers a mile away in a pasture down the road for a local radio station. I’ve seen as many, even more stars, but certainly not from home. What a treat to step outside at night, listen to the coyotes across the road- and they are noisy- and see this incredible array

* and the views. I live in very flat bottom land. There are mountains to the northeast and southwest, and hills to the south, east and north. I can watch the weather move across the valley. Tonight, the tops of the Bridger Mountains are lost in the snow. When it clears, I see the snowy peaks. The day before yesterday, the snow was only at the higher elevations. It looked as if someone had snapped a chalkline against the hills, and frosted everything above the line.

* finally, the length of it. At the solstice, it was dark when I left home and dark when I returned. I relished the lengthening days, then this bizarre early time change plunged me back into morning darkness. It’s still dark when I feed the horses and run Bubba before I leave for work. The evenings are long now, working up to those luxuriously abundant hours of daylight in June. I enjoyed a few evenings out in the field, with Bubba at my feet and May hanging over my shoulder, before winter set back in, but we could have snow irregularly until June.

We had about two weeks of temperatures climbing into the 50s, and, I confess, I was really enjoying it. Things were starting to dry out, namely the three inch deep mud in May’s paddock in the back yard, and I was picking up rocks, cleaning up old hay, rigging some electric fence (with a solar charger, if you please) and generally pretty excited about what the spring would hold Now we’re back in the thick of it. But I’ve gone back to school, after a fashion at least. I’m taking a six week class in pasture management, taught by a young woman who’s incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic. First class was last week. For my homework I’ve been mapping my property: fence types, soil types, locations of wells, drainage ditch, septic system, and documenting my vision for the rancho. So, of course, I’ve developed a mission statement-can’t just make this simple, can I? And of course, goals and objectives. Some of you remember the painful process of developing our goals and objectives for Newport’s comprehensive plan. To think that I’m doing this for fun! I overcame the desire to go home and rip everything out of the yard after the first class. I love the class approach: looking at each parcel as part of a landscape and an ecosystem rather than an isolated spot. So I know you want to know what I’m thinking: it includes improving the pastures with warm and cool season grasses, getting rid of my own personal noxious weeds, getting rid of as much lawn as possible (I’m getting too old to spend much of my time mowing!), using native species only, creating some shelter belts that will encourage birds. Lots to learn. The average precipitation per year in RI is 45″. Here, it’s 14″. So my new term is xeriscape. Check it out.

Oh, I do have another new venture. I’d missed my days singing with the Island Music Experiment, and mentioned it to one of the women I worked with. Well, she schlepped me off to a rehearsal of the Bridger Mountain Harmony, our local chapter of the Sweet Adelines International. Yes, for all of you who’ve belted out “Heart” from Damn Yankees with me, I’m finally singing barbershop. Here’s the tricky part: they get all gussied up for their concerts, so I have to wear some sort of a one-piece undergarment (I think the whole chorus gets catheterized before concerts), and sequined pants and tops, not to mention makeup and false eyelashes for the shows. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s the price I have to pay for getting to practice with them. I’ll be missing the regional competition, and a trip to Boise, in order to be at Sarah’s graduation. But we have a concert in Ennis the end of the month, and they promise they’ll help me with the false eyelashes. Yuck.

And were you wondering if there were two horses in the picture at the top of this entry?

Here’s Ms. Kate, just before dawn in the snow today. Kate is a 9 year old mustang, taken off the range by the Bureau of Land Management when she was a year old. She was injured getting loaded on the trailer that day, and never treated by her new owner. They rode her for about 5 years, but her knee injury became more and more of a problem, so, for the last three years, she’s been turned out to pasture. She was advertised in the paper: free horse to a good home. The wranglers at the ranch picked her up to see if they could use her for pony rides. She can’t flex her knee, so trips a lot on rocky terrain, which is all we have in Big Sky, so they didn’t feel she could safely transport kids. May’s behavior with the young men was pretty vulgar, and one of the boys was going to hurt the others, so she’d been cooped up and I was looking for a companion for her. Just in time! Kate moved in Saturday, and is taking no guff from May, who’s used to bullying the other mares she’s been turned out with. I’m convinced we can get that knee fixed up, and am looking for a kiddie saddle so that my friend Andra’s grandkids can go for some rides around the yard. And now the boys are interested in both of the girls. Welcome home, Katie.

The ranch opened for guests on December 12. Alas, at that time, we had shockingly little snow, so had to ferry them down to West Yellowstone for the skiing they’d come so far to enjoy. Don’t infer from that the kind of winter you all are enjoying in the east. We’ve had plenty of cold. One morning, I left home with the temps a balmy 1 degree, and got to work where it was -16. We’ve had some occasional mild spells, with temps actually creeping up into the 40s. But things should be back to normal, this week, with temps by Thursday down around 5 in Bozeman days, and below zero at night. It’s a little colder in Big Sky.

I’ve enjoyed some wonderful visits from my family these past few weeks.

Benjamin flew into Billings on December 26 after enjoying Christmas with his dad’s family in Newport. I was able to wangle a few days off during his stay. We had a lovely hike (on snowshoes) in Cottonwood Canyon, only about four miles from my house, after an abortive attempt to access another trail that was off an unplowed road. He’d experimented with the Toyota on unplowed roads the day before, and found it not to be an all terrain vehicle, even with snowtires. We drove a mile down an unplowed road, got to a hill where he advised that discretion required our turning back. Since turning was not an option (river on one side, trees and a hill on the other), we backed a mile out again, and found a lovely spot that actually had a plowed out road and parking area. I look forward to heading back there with the horse in the spring/summer. We made our ritual visit to the Museum of the Rockies, always one of our favorite spots in Montana, and also went on the wonderful sleighride dinner at Lone Mountain Ranch. We went with Dan and Andra Spurr for a wonderful dinner at the Willow Creek Cafe, 30 or so miles west, known for its desserts, so plan on a visit there when you come out.

Unfortunately for Benj, he was flying on blackout dates, because he had to be back in classes by the 4th, and it was way cheaper for him to fly into Billings, 2 and 1/2 hours east. We spent a fair amount of time in the car on his way in and way out, but got to see some of the areas along the highway burned by the Derby fire last summer. That fire burned something like 260,000 acres. That, for all you inquiring minds, is something like 40% of the size of the entire state of RI.

Unfortunately, Benj had not brought his camera charger, and my camera batteries went dead during our hike. So all I have to show for his visit is the photo of him arriving and a lot of pleasant memories. He did tell me that one of the internships he’s considering for the summer is one in solar physics at MSU in Billings. Since one of my tenants has moved out and the other leaves at the end of January, I have a bedroom and an entire separate kitchen for him, and of course, the pleasure of Bubba’s company. I hope he drives cross-country if he decides to come. It was such a great education for me to see this country unfold before me. He’s a taller and more mature man than the one I left last January, and I am so pleased that he is truly taking full advantage of the opportunities before him at Middlebury. He is planning to spend half of his junior year in France, studying at Poitiers. I’m trying to reach the Alliance Francaise here in Bozeman to brush up on my French in anticipation of a visit!

Sarah and her friend, Sean, arrived two days after Benj left. Timing is everything. I was being sent on a snowcoach tour into the park. As my job requires that I acquaint guests with these possibilities, it was important for me to experience it, and there was space for Sarah and Sean on the snowcoach. We all got skis from the rental shop and headed off into the park. Aside from the fact that I’d not had skis on for a number of years and my facility was pretty pathetic, it was a gorgeous day, if pretty chilly, about 10-15 degrees. As much as I adore that park in the summer, it’s even more magnificent, I think, in the winter. We took the snowcoach to the Upper Geyser Basin and skiied a few miles to Biscuit Basin after watching the mandatory eruption of Old Faithful.

Sean had never been to Yellowstone before. So far, after four days here, he’s all ready to move to Montana.

The kids and I had so many wonderful times in Yellowstone when they were younger. I’m so pleased to be able to have them in my backyard again.

Sarah and Sean fly out on Thursday morning, then there’s plenty of room for guests. It sounds like you’ll have to come out here if any of you plan to ski this winter.

I continue to be impressed by the enthusiasm for learning and listening here in Bozeman. Ellen Goodman, a long time writer for the Boston Globe and now syndicated columnist, whose work I particularly enjoy, is speaking here in Bozeman on the 12th. I sent Sarah to get tickets for me the day they went on sale, as I was at work. She arrived to find out that all the tickets had sold within 15 minutes of their going on sale. My loss, but an interesting comment on this community. It turns out Ellen Goodman’s coming to Bozeman has everything to do with her daughter, Katie living here. Katie is a principal in a local theatre company, and one of the founders of Broad Comedy. Yes, it is a bunch of women, who have apparently performed in Boston, and they are reputed to be outrageously funny. I’m heading to see them on February 1.

Back to the compost pile. It’s in the 30s today, a good day for outdoor work. I wish you all a year in which we find peace, and enjoy good health.

But I’m also working in Big Sky. I started work about a month ago as a reservations person at Lone Mountain Ranch, a guest ranch in Big Sky. Homesteaded in the nineteenth century, the ranch began to be developed as a guest destination in the 20s. Not much happened in Big Sky until a partnership involving Chet Huntley began a ski resort development in the 60s, and acquired massive amounts of land, including the ranch. They began the development of the Big Sky ski resort, one of the largest on the continent. With it, of course came Mondo Condo. And now, Big Sky is becoming the home of the private enclaves: super inflated real estate values, a private club called the Yellowstone Club, with astronomic initiation fees and even bigger prices to own a home in the “club”.

In the 1970s, the Huntley group sould off the ranch to the Schaap family, who had previously run a motel and ski touring business in West Yellowstone. They developed the ranch into a first class low key resort. Some of their guests, returning year after year, have done so for 10, 15 18, 20 years or more. In the winter, more than 80 kilometers of cross country ski trails are groomed. They run a marvelous sleighride dinner, taking guests by horse drawn sleigh to a kerosene lantern-lit cabin, where a prime rib dinner is served up, along with entertainment by one of three different Montana cowboy singers.

Guests are housed in charming simple cabins with a western motif. There are a couple of newer lodge type buildings, but the majority of folks want to be in the cozy little cabins. There’s an inviting saloon and dining room, and a great outdoor shop.

In the summer, they offer, in addition to the usual fare of riding, an Orvis fishing program, and a terrific naturalist program, with guided hikes of the ranch, the Gallatin National Forst and Yellowstone.

We are between seasons now, and the winter skiing guests begin to arrive in two weeks. So we’re engaged in the bustle of getting things going.

I leave the house in the morning before the sun is up.I confess that I’m already counting the days til the solstice, in anticipation of the days getting longer. I drive about ten miles down a back road from the house to get out to Montana Highway 191, often known as the highway of death. Of course, this is not the road we usually think of as a highway. It’s two lanes, and winds its sinuous way through a deep canyon, alongside the Gallatin River, which crosses under the road three times in the 20 or so miles. There is a fair amount of traffic, largely due to the pace of development in Big Sky; contractors, supplies, etc. Like so many communities, its cost of living does not permit most workers to live there, unless their employers provide housing. Everyone’s in a hurry to get to work or get home, and there have been about 9 fatalities on this thirty mile stretch in 2006.

As I am getting to the canyon, the day is lightening, but it will be some time before the sun actually makes it over the hills and lights the canyon. The last three days, the morning temperatures have been below zero (yes, fahrenheit, not centigrade), and there has been what I still call sea smoke rising off the river. The rocks in the river are covered with snow, and ice is starting to extend out from them.

The canyon opens up as we get about six miles north of Big Sky. I turn west off the Highway, and often encounter mountain sheep close to the intersection. They come down a pretty sheer hill to lick at the road salt. The road weaves through the first of several series of condos and retail centers, but I very shortly get the stunning view of Lone Peak.

We had a bit of an Indian summer last week. The ski areas were originally going to open Thanksgiving Day. But that snow you saw from Thanksgiving Day in Bozeman-well, it missed the mountains entirely. I drove home Monday in a blinding storm, and, as you can see, we’ve started to get some snow in the hills. By the way, people ski down that peak. I will not be one of those people.

I look out my office windown and have a pretty lovely view as well. Notwithstanding the Mondo Condo style of Big Sky, the ranch is tucked into a little valley, and the development is invisible unless you climb up into the hills. I did enough walking right after I got there to see the less appealing views; now I’m trying to confine myself to the appealing ones. They have snowmaking equipment, and, while we wait for Nature’s Own, they are making snow so that the horse drawn sleigh can actually be on the snow for the first sleighride dinner on the 2nd. I’ll start bringing the snowshoes to work next week and snowshoeing during my lunch break. They offer free ski instruction to employees. My cross country skiing is all self-taught or improvised. I’m told, by folks who’d taken lessons after years of backyard skiing, that it will open up a new world for me, so I’ll take advantage of this opportunity ASAP.

Maybelline has her winter coat on, since Sunday when they promised a dip in the temperature below zero. The high for today was about 12 and it s not expected to be quite that tropical tomorrow. Even Bubba is finding it too cold to stay out for too long, and high winds are forecast for the morrow. But a warming trend is in the offing, with temperatures as high as 25 by Sunday.

So, greetings, on this Thanksgiving Day, 2006, from sunny Montana, from Bubba and me.

I had a whirlwind trip back to New England in mid October. Welcomed at the airport by my dear friend, Maggie, who was willing to stay up late and come to Green at some outrageous hour when my flight was more than two hours late. I spent a couple of days in the barn at our old home, sorting through memories and deciding what would actually come with me. I have enjoyed the emancipation from possessions during the ten months in the van, and was torn when faced with all the many things I have accumulated over the years: did I want them? Did I need them? Do I still need to enjoy the satisfaction of doing without them and thus making some sort of a statement-for me, no one else was listening? I tried to take a relatively minimalist approach, but the stuff is all still there waiting for me. It’s really only the books and pictures that are calling my name.

I drove up to Vermont and spent some time with Benjamin, who seems totally happy in his environment at Middlebury. I had an opportunity to spend a little time with his friends, who are bright, down to earth, funny and just nice people. I’m thrilled to see him independent and happy with the choices he has made. He is looking into spending a semester in France next year, studying at the Universite de Poitiers. I’m wildly impressed that he has the facility in French to undertake that.

I visited with my brother and his wife on my way to Middlebury, and spent an hour or so having coffee and chatting with my father’s sister, my aunt Pearl, on the way back. I’ve never gone to great lengths to stay connected, and my efforts, when I made them, were usually much resented by some of the members of my immediate family. The knowledge of the great distance I’m placing between myself and the familiar seems to make me need those connections in a way I’ve never seen.

Back to Newport, and a whirlwind of saying hi and bye, a walk on the trails at the Sanctuary, a ride in the woods in Tiverton, and back on the plane to Jackson, Wyoming. I returned to a snowy evening and morning, and headed back up to Bozeman.

Sarah came out to join me on October 21 and I spent a week exploring the area with her. Of course, much of my agenda with both the kids is about enchanting them with the area, with the hope/belief that they would love living out here. I think that’s true, Bozeman is a youthful, active, unstressful community, and many of the things that each of them enjoys, they will find here. But it’s probably about my selfish desire to have my cake and eat it. I’ve wanted for years to be here, but it’s often painful and lonely without the people I love here, even though it has many moments of pleasure. I’d love to be closer to them. That hasn’t existed since they went off to college, but I preserved the illusion of it while I was in familiar territory.

Sarah and I spent two heavenly days at Chico Hot Springs, a wonderful little hotel about twenty-five miles north of Gardiner, MT and Yellowstone National Park. Chico almost looks more like a small New England resort than a western one, neat clapboard buildings painted white, although they do have the traditional log guest cabins. It’s comfortable and informal. We celebrated Sarah’s birthday with an exquisite dinner, followed by a relaxing evening in the pools. The big pool, open to the sky, is only about 96 degrees. Next to it, and covered by a roof but still open to the air is the warmer “therapeutic “pool- well, it was all therapy for me, the bath lover in withdrawal. The warm pool was about 110. The air was about 35. Ahhhhh-priceless. Our second day there, we indulged in massages, and Andra Spurr joined us for dinner and a soak. Andra tells me about the pocket vacation- we’ll leave Bozeman early in the morning, go to Chico’s $8.95 all you can eat breakfast, soak in the pools, and be back in Bozeman by 2PM. I could be a regular!

Sarah had an opportunity to visit the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner, where I volunteered an afternoon a week during the summer. She did some research on her coyotes, found a wealth of information in this incredible resource. We drove into the park and went for a hike in the hills above Mammoth Hot Springs, tracked some coyotes, watched a herd of elk go up the hill above us, and saw not a soul on the trail. It was lovely.

Unexpectedly, things came together and on November 3, I became a homeowner. I wasn’t planning to move right in, but things continued to be unexpected. So here I am at the Rancho del Eiris. The house was built in 1988. The folks who built it either had an odd sense of humor or an odd sense of design. The good news is that it’s structurally sound. The house is in some very flat bottom land, all old hay fields as far as I can gather. It’s a fairly high water table and the folks who built it wanted a full basement. So they built the basement at ground level, and then went up, mounding the earth around the basement. In a perfectly flat plain, there stands Bubba Mountain.

Hmmm, not a lot to recommend it from a design standpoint, huh? This is the north side of the house and the entrance to the illegal apartment in the basement. I inherited two tenants with the house. One is a young guy who is a farrier and hunt outfitter, he’s currently in Alaska for a few weeks, and is moving down to Cody, WY after Christmas. He has the two mules and two horses in the snowy Thanksgiving scene at the top of the page. The other is the sister of the girl who sold me the house. She has a sweet dog, reminiscent of Honey, whom she leaves outside about 18 hours a day regardless of weather, and who has bonded with Bubba and me. She is looking for a place with a friend, and is having problems finding a place that will take dogs. I have offered the obvious solution to that particular problem: You go, the dog stays.

The couple selling the house were trying to market it as a three bedroom house. Unfortunately a couple of those bedrooms are in the basement and have those little teensy-tinsy windows at the top of the foundation. Not a huge draw for the average family.

Here’s the south side of the house. Marginally better. But, as you can gather, the view is from Maybelline’s soon to be new home. And the window on the right is the “Master Bedroom” (for a rather small master, sized 8x10), so I will look out my bedroom window and see the charming Ms. May.

The wonderful part is that I have seven acres. About four are in pasture, fenced , grassy, ready for Ms. May and a saner companion that I hope to find in the spring. There are apparently some interesting features in the pastures. My neighbor tells me that there is a large hole that once contained the front half of an airplane fuselage, and may still, she wasn’t sure. Immediately to the south of the house, and next to the little pole structure that will be May’s home, is an area about 150x250 that the owners had cleared for an arena; they both ride rodeo. Unfortunately, they cleared it, and then did nothing else, so it is now home to 3/4 acre of noxious weeks. These are a BIG deal around here, so much so that you are required, in some of these counties, to have certified weed-free hay before you can take your stock into the National Forests. I’ve been to the Ag. Extension Office to pick up materials that will let me identify them, but am mostly identifying them now by the burrs in Bubba’s coat. My spraying is cut out for me in the spring, fortunately, one of my favorite jobs in the Sanctuary was spraying the poison ivy, so I’m looking forward to this new task.

One of the highlights of the place is the irrigation ditch that runs between the house and the road. Well’, they call it a ditch, I call it a creek.

Needless to say, Bubba is thrilled.

My stuff arrived a few days before I closed.We had momentary drama, as I asked the realtor to convince the sellers that I could move the stuff in so as not to have to move it again. They were reluctant. It appears that they had been given a rather inflated idea of what the house was worth initially well in excess of $150,000 over what I paid according to my neighbors. They had bought a place about 60 miles southwest of here, and were heavily in debt and under the gun. The realtor recommended, given the condition of the market nationally, that they take my offer and run. They did but weren’t happy about it, and their unhappiness is focused on me as the problem, he tells me. They finally agreed, provided all funds were held in the escrow account of the Title company. So my stuff got into the house, under the watchful eye of the realtor, as I was at work. The boys did not unload the plywood on which my mattress would sit, so there followed another couple of weeks on an air mattress on the floor until I could hie myself to Home Depot and get the job done. And one of the boxes, containing the cushions that would go back in the RoadTrek once I brought my futon mattress into my new digs, also contained some very interesting lacy iridescent blue thong underwear. I’ve changed my lifestyle but not that much. I suspect someone had temporarily unpacked some of my stuff en route… But the rest is here. I’m only wishing for a couple of things, most notably a painting of Hanging Rock that the Board at the Norman Bird Sanctuary gave me when I left my position there, one of the images that is in my heart and that I’d love to have on my walls. I’ll see if the kids can bring it out.

So the pictures are on the walls, the rugs on the floors, the mattress actually on the bed, and I’m starting to feel at home. More to the point, the windows, all of which will need to be replaced, are plasticked, wonderful stuff (I did pack the hair dryer for this important task!), the wood stove should be installed this week, and about half a cord is so far stacked on the porch, with the rest to be done this holiday weekend. I’ll shovel snow, continue to figure out which kitchen cabinet should hold what, and get ready for the holidays with a playing of Benj’s cd of Dominic the Christmas Donkey (followed by the Hamster dance, always a favorite in our house).

Oh, by the way, even before my inherited tenants move on at the end of the year, there is at least one guest room available. You may have to sleep on the air mattress, but I can vouch for it, the only hard part, for those of us whose joints are starting to age, is getting up off the mattress from the floor. I’m working on a real bed before the kids come for their visits in a month.

Well, we’re ready for this holiday. Bubba’s out hunting for our turkey.

Enjoy your turkeys and embrace your loved ones, and join me in a prayer for peace in the face of this horrific worldwide violence in which our country has so much responsibility. You are all in my heart, and I’ll look forward to your saddling up and riding out to the Rancho.

With my apologies to Melissa, the last two weeks were about mental pictures I wanted to capture, so I left the camera at home and wandered.
*A bull elk standing in the clearing opposite the camper at 6:30 in the morning. As the sun began to rise, he stood motionless in the grassy strip, listening to the still of the dawn. A scent must have caught his attention. He lifted his head and repeatedly bugled: a challenge to competitors? A siren song to nearby cows? Or just the powerful message in his genes?
*A close encounter with a porcupine during one of our pre-dawn strolls. Apparently the population of these thorny little guys was decimated by the 1988 fires and the population has been slow to recover. He was trying to hide from us under a speed limit sign in the campground. Bubba was entranced, but held at a distance.
*An otter frolicking and fishing on the lake shore. It’s hard not to anthropomorphize these little guys. They appear to delight in play.
*The harlequin ducks back at LeHardy Rapids, along with the dippers, wonderful little birds. They are pretty drab in their appearance, but great to watch, enthusiastically bobbing their heads, their whole bodies under the water looking for a tasty treat.
* Our favorite little grizzly, a frequent visitor to my campsite during these summer months. She was one of the two subadults booted out by Mom during my early days in the park. This little blonde female was showing the signs of becoming a problem bear. For no apparent reason she developed a fascination with sewer hoses on campers, and repeatedly broke into them. The Park Service began to keep a rap sheet on her, with entries that read like this: “small subadult grizzly sighted in the Lake Employee RV Park, breaking into sewer.” “small subadult blonde grizzly responsible for causing a bear jam at Fishing Bridge.” A lot of it read like blame the victim; it was hardly her fault that traffic stopped to watch her. A month ago, they decided enough was enough. She was becoming way too habituated to humans and showed no signs of fear. They decided to relocate her to the southeast arm of the Lake, the remotest region, farthest from roads, in the lower 48 states, according to its reputation. The thought was that she could scarcely get into trouble there. They trapped her and transported her about 30 miles by boat. She was back in 36 hours! In my last days, she was frequenting the Elephant Back area eating white bark pine nuts.
*The stars! I’ve never seen such clarity in the heavens even in the middle of the Atlantic. I watched the parade of the seasons in the night sky, saw the moon bright orange in the smoky fire skies, and watched Orion, winter’s hunter, climb higher in the night sky each morning as I got ready to leave.

I won’t miss the work I did for the park concessionaire. Although I formed some wonderful relationships with guests and co-workers alike, the company was unprofessional to the extreme in its dealings with guests and employees. I will miss the opportunities I had to volunteer with the Park Service, and will miss the opportunity to continue to share what I learned of the park with my friends. And I will look forward to many returns to this incredible place. We are fortunate that a foresighted government preserved this place in perpetuity. I need to do my part, whatever that may turn out to be, to ensure that a less foresighted government does not undermine the protection of this unique resource, and commits to it the resources it merits.

Even with these warm dry days, we’ve had frosts nearly every night for a month or more, beginning during Maggie’s visit. And, as the days shorten and the air is colder, a young man’s fancy, in the bison and elk world, turns to lust. It all began in early August with the rut of the bison bulls. As Maggie and I emerged from the woods on our hike out to Storm Point, she was wondering about what sounded for all the world like motorcycles revving (and, a few weeks after the gathering at Sturgis, we did indeed have a lot of them in the park!) Instead, we emerged from the woods onto the verge of a meadow chockablock full of bison. The bulls have a unique snort, takes on a timbre and resonance unlike anything I’ve ever heard!They spend their days separating the cows from the calves, or trying to, intent upon bending them to their own desires and needs. Not all of the cows are prepared to be quite so malleable, so there’s a whole lotta snortin’ going on. For the past five weeks, a lot of that activity has taken place in the middle of the road, any road, utterly without regard for the line of cars approaching in each direction. We’ve all heard the stories of cars being charged and gored, and some of the photos have been great; I’ve been trying to picture the face of the insurance adjuster reviewing these pictures in preparing his documentation for a customer’s claim!

As the weeks have gone by, some of the bison bulls have returned to their torpid cranky selves, and are currently drifting back across the central plateau to the west side of the park; a drive through will usually mean an encounter with a lonely bull strolling up the street alone. The cow and calf herds are still hanging in our area, but some of the big boys are still engaged with them. This morning, Bubba and I were walking back from throwing a load of wash in the machine. Bubba was in one of his rare off-leash moments, as I’d left the leash in Andra’s car in Bozeman and was trusting to his voice recall–not a reliable tool. We came into my campsite through the trees and there was a small herd in residence around the car, including a bull busily trying to separate out his main squeeze for the day. We had a few minutes of watching them mill around the camper and the car; the young’uns watched us with dull-eyed puzzlement while the bull continued with his business at hand.

Our nights are punctuated by the sound of the bull elk in their rut. It’s an eerie call, and frequently triggers the calling of the coyotes. As I drove out of the park last week, I saw a bull elk standing alone in a sunlit sage brush meadow, bugling his dominance and lustfullness to the neighborhood. I couldn’t stop there to get a photo, and thought the picture I would have taken would never have done justice to my picture of that powerful animal, with a gravity-defying spread of antlers, calling through that sunlit afternoon.

The harlequin ducks are back on LeHardy Rapids; I watched 9 the other afternoon preening themselves on the rocks in the middle of the Yellowstone River.

And last night was our first real snowfall. Just a dusting here at Lake, enough to ice the roads and bring out a spirit of congeniality on the part of many of the guests gathered in the lobby. But the Beartooth Pass was closed yesterday, Dunraven Pass, last night, and heavy snows in the Tetons all day. Preceded by rain, the snows have done a great job knocking back the fires, although they still require monitoring. The concern of the local folks is now erosion: with all of their ground cover and forest burned, there is little to hold the soil this winter.

I had a lovely visit from Maggie during the first week of August. I found that I was trying to cram into plans for the week all of the things I love about this place-that is, the bigger place, not just Yellowstone, but the feel of these mountains, the look of the sky and the air, the sense of the water so different from the ocean that’s been a part of my life so long. I had her visit programmed to the minute, and had to tell her, on her arrival, to call off the dogs when I was getting carried away with the itinerary.

She arrived at the hotel while I was still at work. When my shift ended, we repaired to Storm Point, one of my favorite short hikes in the area. And we drove there in Ruby, her wonderful enchanted convertible that appeared at the end of Neil Coffey’s magic wand. Top down, cruising through Yellowstone–what could be better!

And what a pleasure to take my oldest (in length of friendship, not age) friend to one of my favorite places. She got it immediately, was, I think, pretty taken with the serenity, the beauty, and the scale of these landscapes that puts precisely into perspective how important we are in this universe. We took advantage of passersby on the trail to document a moment in the lives of two Rhode Islanders on the lam.

We drove to Cody, spending the night at a pretty desolate KOA Kampground in a Kabin, I just love the alliteration! And, much to my delight, Maggie got herself some cowboy boots, a harbinger of a return trip. Couldn’t get her on a horse…yet, but she’s ready with the boots. We spent the next day driving up the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, one of the most beautiful drives I’ve discovered out here, with stunning vistas across valleys thousands of feet below, views of summer range cabins tucked into little valleys high in the mountains, little tarns surrounded by rocks and pines. We came into the northeast corner of Yellowstone, and I treated Maggie to the amusement of watching me try to fish at Trout Lake. Trout Lake was once a hatchery for the Park Service, and contains an interesting hybrid they call a cutbow informally_ a crossing of native cutthroat and rainbow trout. Of course, the only evidence of them I saw was a ring from one surfacing a distance from us. I’m sure if I ever hook a fish, I’ll be so overwhelmed that I’ll simply toss the rod away. But I love the process, and am trying to find the rhythm of the cast (so far I’m not even close!)

We spent a night in one of the little “Roughrider” cabins at Roosevelt Lodge. The Lodge is, to my taste, way more inviting than the somewhat grand but soulless Lake Yellowstone Hotel. The lodge is intimate, rustic and warm. The cabin was tiny, and heated with a little wood stove. We headed out for the Old West Cookout: a trip by wagon to Pleasant Valley, which housed a hotel back in the old days, as a stopover for folks who’d gotten of the train in Gardiner and were headed to the mines near Cooke City. The hotel burned nearly a century ago, and two pavilions, one for cooking, and one for eating were our home for the evening. It rained - that seems to be the weather each and every time I’ve been out there– but that scarcely dampened our ethusiasm for a good evening, with entertainment by Cowboy Bob, until it looked as if he could get electrocuted by his mic! Bubba had to hang out in the camper while we had a night out, poor boy! But he loved some new blood, and was well behaved during Maggie’s entire visit.

We spent a lazy Saturday afternoon on the Yellowstone, on a three hour float trip, joined by Andra Spurr and her friend, Mary. Just enough thrills in the rapids for a bunch of middle-aged ladies. Andra unfortunately became ill, but Maggie and I spent a night in her cottage, and I drove Maggie past my new winter home. We headed down the Gallatin Valley, and returned to Yellowstone, for the mandatory trip to Old Faithful. We hiked up to Observation Point and watched the geyser erupt with a handful of families, as opposed to sitting on the boardwalk around Old Faithful with 3000 of our new best friends. The power and majesty of these geysers is undermined when you’re sitting in the throng; our vantage point really emphasized the power of the scene.

Another night at my campsite, followed by a trip to Jackson, where I sent Maggie off to pick up her daughter, Kate, at the airport in Salt Lake for some more western touring and their trip back to Little Rhody. It was wonderful having my best friend here, and wonderful to enjoy that friendship, but it has made the following weeks a little hard. Much as I love this place, I really miss the being a part of a community, having those friendshis that touch our hearts and connect with us so powerfully. I’m not done with my western adventure by any means, and may never be, but need to feel connected to the place I live, not merely in that sense of a connection with place that touches my heart so profoundly here, but also, and even more so, with people who are, or will become, important to my life.

The kids and I first came to Yellowstone in 1992, 4 years after the devastating fires that had consumed more than a million acres in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. My perspective has mostly been that of a fascinated observer, wondering at the recovery of the forests, the unique mechanisms of the lodgepole pines to release seeds after the heat of fire, the flowers and grasses emerging in the newly lighted burned forests. I’ve seen the film footage of the valiant efforts of the firefighters, even visited the gulch on the Missouri River where smokejumpers died in a horrific fire (read Norman MacLean’s Young Men and Fire), but I’ve certainly never felt the vulnerability.

On July 17 a fire began in a lodgepole pine forest about ten miles west-northwest of where I am living and working. The fire was started by a lightning strike. One of the frequent phenomena here is the “dry thunderstorm”, one that sweeps through with lots of thunder and lightning but no water. The area where the fire began is in the heart of the 1988 fire, but a small pocket that was unaffected, so there’s plenty of fuel for the fire. Unlike our New England forests, the forests here experience relatively little rot and decomposition of downed material because it is so arid. The Park Service’s position on fire was highly controversial during the 1988 fires which were a media sensation. An exhibit in the Grant Village Visitor’s Center highlights the sensitivity of the topic with the Park Service folks, who were widely chastised for allowing Yellowstone to burn. In fact, the current Park Service position makes a lot of sense to me. Fire is an inherent natural part of the functioning of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Those fires that are of natural (i.e. not man-made) origin are permitted to burn, although attempts are made to protect buildings and archaeological resources. Of course, in populated areas, every effort is made to protect life and property, and trails are closed in the area of fires, but fires, while monitored, are allowed to burn.

Currently the fire, known as the Magpie Fire, has burned somewhere around 850 acres. The humidity was higher for several days this week, and not much wind encouraging the growth. Even so, several nights I awoke in the camper to the smell of smoke and a burning in my eyes. Today, the air dried out and the wind arose; we’ll see what that means for the fire tomorrow. The webcam on the top of Mount Washburn is aimed toward the fire, although it’s rather difficult to discern much because of the glass reflections. Take a look over the next couple of days though; you may see the smoke if the fire expands.(www.yellowstone.net/webcamlive4.htm) The fire is still miles from me, but, accustomed as I might be to northeasters and hurricanes, fire is a whole new animal, and it’s unsettling, gives me a sense of some trepidation when I see a column of smoke arising or wake to the smell.

Early in the season, many of my co-workers and rangers, seasoned veterans of the park, expressed concern that the snow pack was melting too fast and that this would, despite a reasonable snowfall during the winter, be one of extreme fire hazard. I pretty much poohpoohed their concerns. After all, we still had a foot or two of snow on the ground, we had a frost each night, we were pretty well snowed in for Memorial Day. Still another reminder that I have to learn to be open-minded. Now, in July, we are experiencing the same heat wave that is causing deaths from Fresno to France. Admittedly it’s still tolerable at Lake, at 7800 feet. But my weekly trips to visit with Maybelline in Gardiner certainly were not productive in terms of our work together this week, with temperatures in the high 90s. And fires are burning in eastern Montana, and in the Livingston area due north of Gardiner as well as in the park. And the snow on peaks traditionally covered at this time of year is absent altogether or evidenced by daily dwindling patches in the high elevations. Even to a casual visitor like myself, there’s noticeably less snow in the Crazy Mountains, to the east of the G-M Ranch where the kids and I have spent some wonderful time. Currently, understand there’s a major fire in Galcier National Park. The North Rim of the Gand Canyon was evacuated earlier this season.

The consensus, from those willing to speak in the National Park Service, from scientists around the world, is that we are well past the tipping point, that we are in the throes of, dare I say it, an extinction event. We have put into place a set of conditions that are accelerating daily the extinction of species, the destruction of habitat, the unravelling of the functioning of ecosystems. The question before us today is not whether global warming is taking place, but rather whether we can apply our technological skills to slow down or reverse the process. And yet our national leadership is still asking whether global warming is taking place.

Certainly our own consumptive behaviors are a contributor to the process. The energy cost of having fresh gourmet lettuces throughout the year, the need for the newest appliances, the yearly or seasonal readornment through new wardrobes…the list goes on and on. Admittedly the extinction event is one in geologic time, if perhaps short term geologic time, and will not happen in my lifetime. But the changes have already occurred and in a dramatic fashion during my lifetime. I can only change the portion of the world in which I live, and that, through my own consumption habits. I’ve learned, during the last six months of living in a van, how little I really need, and how unimportant it is what I really want. I am interested to see whether my commitment today to living more simply, to consuming less, to reducing my footprint on the earth, will carry over when I’m living once again with indoor plumbing.

What I need to do now is return to documenting my time here in the park, which will end all too soon. This opportunity may not present itself again, and I need to take full advantage of my opportunities to observe and learn from what I observe. This morning, Bubba and I surprised a red foxwe’ve met before, and watched three mule deer, all without leaving the loop of the RV Park on which I live. The seasons are changing again, the bull bison have begun their rut, and I have to get out and watch it all unfold while I still can.

The Lake Yellowstone area celebrated the Fourth quietly. To the chagrin of many of our guests, there were no fireworks. Needless to say, fireworks and wildlife aren’t all that compatible. And more about the danger of fires later. But we did have a Fourth of July Parade. Bristol it wasn’t, but it had a certain unique charm.

The anticipating throng was entertained as we waited on the lakeshore by a browsing bison moseying along the parade route. Of course, it required the front office manager leaving the hotel to remind some of the denser members of the crowd to stay away from the bison. But finally the parade arrived….

I spent my Fourth working an eight hour shift at the Hotel desk, then heading over to the Fishing Bridge Visitor’s Center where I volunteer a couple of shifts a week for the National Park Service. The NPS is understaffed and overwhelmed with the incredible task of managing this place. Volunteers are essential to their ability to communicate with the public, and it’s a lot of fun besides. I particularly delight in the Junior Ranger program, getting kids excited about participating and awarding others their Junior Ranger badges. Sarah and Benjamin did the program in 1992 when we first came out here, and Sarah still has her badge, I’m not sure about Benj. In fact, the program requires that the kids attend a ranger-led program, and I am now working with the ranger who did the program the kids and I attended in 1992.

I don’t know how much impact this little program had upon Sarah in her developing interest in the natural sciences, but she certainly has remembered it fondly. I like to think that we will have a similar effect on the kids I welcome to the program now.

I spend another afternoon a week volunteering at the Heritage Center in Gardiner while I’m up visiting Maybelline. The Heritage Center is a part of the National Archives, full of treasures formerly stored in a sometimes flooded basement. Finally these treasures are in a climate controlled and properly preserved environment, built and opened last year. But they are desperately understaffed, and can man their front desk, a security position, only with volunteers. So each week I spend a half day there, reviewing some fascinating archaeology reports and asking people for ids.

I’ve long tried to understand what is important to our policy makers and administrators on the national level. I’ve usually found myself out of step with the mainstream. As I get older, I seem to find myself farther out of step, just not marching with the rhythm of the band. And as I spend more time in the Park, only one of the many treasures in this country, I find myself getting angrier about our national priorities as expressed by the current administration and Congress. I see here a deteriorating infrastructure, a staff trying desperately, and with great dedication, to perform all that is expected of it: safety of the public, wildlife conservation, fire prevention, law enforcement,, education, archaeological research. An effective supporting foundation has raised a great deal of money for the Park, and I feel some ambivalence about its efficacy. When Congress sees milllions raised by this group, it can easily say “Why does Yellowstone need our dollars?” The Foundation raised more than $15 million toward the cost of design and construction of a new visitors center and educational facility at Old Faithful. The response from Congress was that they wanted the money to go through Congress if more than a million was raised in the future. So the Yellowstone Park Foundation will limit its contributions in the future to $1 million, in order to insulate itself and its efforts in the park from political pressure.

Our national parks are treasures in every regard. They are a preservation of our natural and cultural resources. They are a laboratory for the study of earth sciences, for efforts to manage biodiversity. They present an opportunity for us to experience firsthand our history, our proper place in the world. And for those of us who are so inclined, they are a place for us to find peace, a sense of our place in the cosmos, an opportunity to communicate with or sense the presence of a Higher Power.

One day of our war budget would make an incredible difference in our nation’s ability to preserve and protect these priceless resources. One day! Our national budget for preservation of these treasures is a pittance. And, of course, our administration doesn’t even include the war budget in our national budget, it’s all in supplemental appropriations, in what strikes me as a pretty transparent effort (supported tacitly by the Fourth Estate, our moribund press) to keep the public from noticing how our future is being mortgaged. We have lost the respect of the world. Today, I read in the Times online of the frustration expressed by UN envoys from around the world who have been trying to effect management reforms in that organization. Their efforts have been undermined and blown apart by our representative, the tactful and considerate Ambassador Bolton. In the face of overwhelming science on global warming (and more about that later) we deny that the science is there, and our administration applauds itself for its efforts to seek more funding for studies to see if there is such a thing as global warming.

Whose ends are being served here? Not the young men and women who are being sent to die in a dubious effort managed by civilian leadership run amok without regard for the expertise and input of the military. Not the people living in poverty, whose lot has continuously grown worse in the past six years.Not the millions of Americans living without access to health care. Not our children who are the victims of the callously cynical “No child left behind” charade. Not our elderly, who have been hoodwinked and robbed with the current Medicare prescription program. And not our priceless natural resources.

I don’t have an answer for us. I am currently reading the case for impeachment and Brookhiser’s book on what the founding fathers would do. And I am looking forward to a trip to the big city (Bozeman) to see Al Gore’s movie on global warming, highly recommended by Sarah. I can continue to inform myself. I can make choices in where I spend my money and how, in what lifestyle choices I make. And I can continue to talk with people who agree and those who disagree with me, to try to learn what I can, to understand where we can make changes. I do know that our founding fathers did not intend that this country be run for the benefit of the few, to the disadvantage of the masses and the squandering of our resources, natural resources, manpower resources, and financial resources.

So a little late, Happy Fourth of July. Please join me in thinking about what our democracy should mean, and what is important for you to preserve in that democracy.

While bison were found from the Pacific to the Appalachians prior to the European expansion westward, the bison herds numbering in the millions were reduced during the 1800s by market hunting,sport hunting, and the US Army. Ironically, the Army ultimately became the saviors of the bison after nearly driving them to extinction. When Yellowstone National Park was founded in 1872, there were relatively few bison left. The Rangers didn’t exist in those days, and when poaching in the Park was a problem, the Army was brought into the Park in 1886. The most notorious of the poachers, a guy named Ed Howell, was arrested by the Army in 1894. The Army lacked the prosecution authority to deal with the wholesale slaughter in which Howell engaged. Their solution was to take him to the South entrance to the Park, and to deposit his guns at the North entrance, figuring it would take them a while to be reunited. A writer for Field and Stream was so outraged by this ineffectual resolution that he organized a lobbying effort, resulting in Congressional passage of legislation giving the Army authority to prosecute.

By this time, the herd had been reduced to about 2 dozen animals. The Army undertook to import bison into the park, and, in 1906, set up an experimental breeding program. By the 1930s, between the introduced animals and the Park’s native herd, there were around 1500 animals.

The art and science of wildlife biology was not so evolved in the 1950s and 1960s, and determinations were made to reduce the herd, because of fears of overgrazing. These “management” activites reduced the bison in the Park to under 400. Subsequent studies and advances in the understanding of the ecosystem and its components have allowed the herd to grow to about 3500, currently believed to be the carrying capacity of the park for bison. They are still the subject of conflict. The bison are believed to carry brucellosis, a disease that can cause cows to miscarry. And, make no mistake about it, we are still in cow country and the range wars still go on. Even though the cattle can be easily vaccinated against brucellosis, area ranchers want the ability to destroy bison who may be carriers (studies I’ve heard quoted say there is no evidence of transmission of brucellosis from bison to cows, although it is believed that the bison may originally have gotten the brucellosis from cattle! Besides, the elk also carry brucellosis, but many of the area ranchers have lucrative business interests in elk hunting outfitting.) So when bison leave the confines of the park, and it is believed that several hundred do so each winter, they are hazed back into the park or destroyed. At least, if they are destroyed, their carcasses are given to native american tribes working with the Park Service. If the winter is harsh, a number succumb to natural causes, and serve as food for wolves, coyotes, eagles, etc.

Until a week or so ago, the bison population in my area of the park was primarily bulls, singly or in groups numbering up to 6 or 10. As the summer advances, the herds are moving east across the park. As I drove through the Hayden Valley on Thursday on my way to visit with Maybelline, traffic was stopped in both directions as a herd of about 150, cows and calves, trotted up from the river, took dust baths at road’s edge, and moved up the hill away from the river.

The males are bigger than the females, and, being vain creatures, have fuller “pantaloons” on their forelegs than the females. All have a bushy bouffant topknot between their horns. A tough place to scratch. Many of the trees in bison areas have been gouged free of bark by the bison trying to address that nasty itchy scalp.

Apparently, the natural turpentine in the pine sap acts as a sort of insect repellent.

These ungainly creatures have astounding ability to put a hoof on the gas. They can run 30+ miles an hour when they feel the need to do so, and can jump 6 feet high from a standstill. They are shedding now, and the woods are full of clumps of hair where they’ve rubbed some loose. And, of course, the woods and meadows are full of bison pies, watch where you step. They are irascible and temperamental on a good day, and, as we move into the rut season in late July, apparently the bulls become downright nasty. A ranger I know recommends that you watch their tails for an indicator of mood. If they are carrying the tail up and swishing it around, it’s an indicator that the bison will either charge….or discharge.

The calves are adorable, frequently referred to affectionately as red dogs. Ah, well, people wondered how I got such beautiful children, it’s the same in the buffalo world, I guess.