Journey 2008 ...

6 May ... Moose two ...

So, I am walking up this hill along the edge of a field, and a young moose blasts out into the field right in front of me.  I think, Cool!  Out of the corner of my eye I see another, bigger, coming; ... no doubt `mommy'.  She comes to the edge of the field, sees me, and halts. Mommy is about fifteen yards away.  I am thinking, Cool!.   And then she starts walking toward me.  My thoughts have now gone from `cooI' to `this (big) animal is moving straight toward me'.  ... (A mature female moose is perhaps five times a big as I am.)  She stops about ten yards away.  `Baby' (still a huge animal) is behind me in the field.  I am between the two.  They exchange a few noises as the younger one goes completely around me - they join in in the brush and move off about seventy-five yards.  My camera is now working and I get some (relatively distant) pics. 

I didn't feel in danger, per se, but I do think Mommy wanted Baby back.  It was an `Assisi moment'.


5 May ... an `Assisi' moment.

I went up to [deleted's] last night looking for wild turkey.  Got into some deer.  I could smell them (a first for me and deer).  (Oh, they don't smell all that great - but it was a cool experience - experiencing the outdoors and wildlife in a further dimension.)  As I was coming out - across a draw I saw a moose.  I didn't have anything else to do - so I decided to see if I could get closer.  I went around and got on the same draw as he, and as I closed the distance to less than seventy-five yards or so - he noticed me.  I took it slow - and he seemed non-threatened.  So I got closer.  I want to say I `sneaked' - but I was in the open - and he was already aware of me.  On the other hand - it was what I would call an `Assisi' (Saint Francis of Assisi) ... as I got closer and closer.  I eventually got within about 11 yards - the only thing between us a slash pile about three feet tall, of which we both stood very much above. 


May 4 ... "and he appeared in another form."

It had been a very hard night/morning.  I went to church very much in need.  There is a kid who often sits behind us in church.  I forgot his name, but my wife says his name is John.  But I kind of like him - and I will at times put my hand on his shoulder and be warm and friendly and interested.  This morning, `out of the blue', he put his hand on my shoulder.  O.M.G. ... now I see it.  Jesus said he would never leave us or forsake us.  We don't believe it because we don't see him, or what we think is him.  Our `image' of him. We are waiting for someone to show up who looks like the `Jesus' we saw in our Sunday School lessons, or in the stained glass in church.  But he can take on any form he chooses to.  He can show up in a child, or as a `stranger', or maybe in a gentle breeze, or the moment of mist just at sunrise.  How can we pin him down to an `image' - where the possibilities of how he might show up are infinite.

I thanked him (John) - I said I really needed that


25 ... (At Bank ... making a deposit)

                "I love this stuff ... but true living has no bearing on how much you have of it.  That (knowledge) is freedom!"


18 ... I went looking primarily for bear and secondarily turkey.  Saw primarily elk and secondarily deer.



17 ... I would have gone after that bear ... but I got attacked and bit by a dog riding my bike home from campus.  Police, Animal Control, doctor to get cleaned up and for antibiotics and a tetanus shot.

                  Ughhhhhhh.

16 ... did some work out in the County (Camp Grizzly).  On the way back decided to hunt `Keith's' ... at sunset saw 2 beautiful toms across a meadow, with 2 others - but couldn't close the gap ...

                   And saw oodles of deer.

15 April, Opening Day of ...

I saw the thing my heart loved today ... a beautiful brown Black bear.  I will go after it.



14 ... thoughts on the movie Enchanted ... draft, here

13 ...

Actually, perhaps the two (experiences) are related.  (See 9 April.)  I mean, sometimes my wife has barked, as she scampers away, "Three times in one day is ENOUGH!"

       Time of Love ... (April 1)

time of love 2

 ... as I was photographing, they went behind a big boulder and disappeared.  Somehow I felt I shouldn't disturb them.  After a minute or so, the hen came out, [deleted], then the drake.  I think they had just ... you know.


11 April ... came back with a tick from walk up on the hill.  Amazing ... the snow's not even gone.

9 April ...

I was photographing ducks today.  One hen Mallard barked like a dog.  I had to do a double take.  And then a triple take.  Yes.  It sounded like one of those little barky-dogs that old people take on bike trails with a leash ... you know - the ones that make a pathetic lunge at you as you go by.  I would have thought it to be a dog - but the noise was coming out of the DUCK!

I am coming to believe IN THIS DAY AND AGE that anything is up for grabs, really!


8 April ...

My dad a year or so back, talking about a friend of his, ... he "hunts even more than you do."  Well, the guy is a part time guide - so, go figure.  What a crushing thing to tell a son. :)  May I live to see the day that I hunt more than a part time guide.  Maybe I already do.

7 April ... Ashamed of Love ... here

5 April ... Pintail on Richard's pond ... (see pic)

pintail on pond

4 April ... Shoveler pair on Richard's pond.  Mallards, also.  Been watching some 50 widgeon, with single drake Pintail in the mix - but no good pics. 

31 March ... Several Things ...


    For The Beauty ...

The other day my wife and I were talking about `beauty'.  A flower is beautiful for beauty sake.  It's not beautiful for function - as it could function without it.  Same with a sunset.  Oh, My! ... I missed it all these years.  I should give my wife flowers - not for the function (because in function I'll not give at all) - but for the thrill it brings her heart.

 ... my wife gets back from a trip tonight.  I bought her some flowers.  I can walk through the store day after day, month after month, year after year, and not turn a head.  But walk through the store with some flowers.  OMG!  Female heads turn.  Happily married ones.  (Maybe especially happily married ones.)  I thought - perhaps it's like this to be a girl and have a nice bod and walk around wearing a string bikini in a store of men.  (But alas, it was not me toward which they turned - but the flowers.)

Flowers to a woman ... like a beautiful nude to a man.

One doesn't give flowers to a woman because it's logical; one gives because they are beautiful.


    On writing ...

I gotta write ...I have been hitting brick walls lately - I think it is because I am not in line with my Destiny.

And ... photography.


    On Gardening ...

I am thinking of doing a garden plot - yes, hand tools and hand care.  Consider when you have been swimming or diving in a lake, and you were underwater when a motor boat went by? ... yikes, the sound!, the fear!  Perhaps so it is with modern farming, and the `machinery' overhead.



30 March ...

Finished Marianne Willamson's book ... The Age of Miracles ... the first third - esp. the Intro - is jaw-dropping.  Some of the other stuff I ... yet.

29 March ...O.M.G.!


Gen 4:11 And now thou art cursed from the earth, which hath opened her arms to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.

Rev 12:16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened up her mouth, and swallowed up the flood ...

We are too used to thinking of the earth and creation as `it' ... `matter' - just `material'.  That's not how the Bible sees `it'.  Maybe we would take better care of our environment if we recognized `it' is a `her'.

Can we assume the God (or the Bible writers) is (were) careless with words?  Or must we assume there is something MUCH BIGGER here than we are accustomed to thinking?  Perhaps there is more to the idea of `Mother Earth' than we western civilized people are accustomed to think. 

Maybe it is no accident that the world, creation, universe is so BEAUTIFUL. 

Maybe, like a woman, it (SHE) responds to how she is treated.

Likewise, it may be no accident, that when we treat her bad, she is nasty in return.

... marvelous. 



28 March ...

That's why Jesus caused so much furor.  People came to him with their `bless me' and `fix my neighbor, wife, roommate' prayers.  And Jesus' response was to [ignore them and] write in the sand.  When Jesus did speak - he said things like - remove the log from your OWN eye.  Take up your CROSS and follow me.  If you want a better life - EXIT the one you're presently in.  Sell all you have (not get) and give it (the money from the sale) to the poor.  No wonder we think our prayers go unanswered.  Answers like the ones Jesus gives are not on our radar screen, not on our shopping list.

          Earlier ... on unanswered prayer ...

If I think of all the unanswered prayer I have logged - I start to laugh.  (Or cry.)  My prayers of all shapes and sizes seem to go down range and bounce relentlessly off hardened targets.  Reload - blaze away, same result.  My children on the other hand, pray, and changes in the cosmos of geographic proportions unfold.  Georgia - it's like a single shot rim-fire 22 - shooting off the hip on the fly as she goes about her day - and they all `hit' - unleashing beautiful changes or additions to the world around her.


27 March ... For the Beauty!

Gold ... where is it?  Buried at Fort Knox?  WTF!  Gold is for beauty - and it's buried, hidden?!!!  That's aweful.  The Ancients used gold to decorate their palaces and temples!  God has given us so much beauty - and we miss it - or we get it and bury it.  Could a bee find a flower in black and white?  Yeah, probably.  God gave the COLOR, the BEAUTY, to us.


Undated ...

Jesus said, "Come see where I lay my head."  Now I see it.  Jesus was inviting them to see his life of simplicity.


23 ... Easter ... OMG! ... I think I'm becoming an `environmentalist'.

All the sudden I see the `connectedness' we have to our envirnment.  If we trash the planet we trash our home.  In some sense a love for my natural world provides a `home' for such thinking - but now it has expanded, or matured, or progressed - to the next level.  My connection to it.  Our need for `care'.  Enjoying recycling.  Sensing the need to be more modest.  It's a `conversion' experience.  I feel crossing into a whole new life.


22 March ... "It is Good" Bike Ride ...  here

And ...

    Thin Red Line in the afternoon, with Frank ... 48:30 for me ... 46 for him. 

21 ... watching widgeon, recent bike ride ...

                 widgeon in air


16 March, Skunk Route, w/ Georgia ... 47 min.

        The Bug on Top


    Totalled 10,000 vertical feet this break.


15 March, Skunk Route, Solo, 40 min.

13 March ... Skunk Route, Solo, in the rain ... 41 minutes.

10 March ... Skunk Route ... with Michelle, Cara, and Jaci ... 50 minutes (for me ... much less for Jaci). 

    All made it to the top.

9 March ... solo ... Skunk Route, 42 minutes.

1 March ... new route ... and slow.


kind of a ...    
                  
     ... pic of storm ... here


16 Feb ...

                    Skiing today ...

                     ... Perfect `10'.

15 Feb ...

                    .... the beauty and mystery of my wife's body ... intoxicating.


10 Feb ... Thin Red Line ...

                   51 minutes (49 for me) ... not too bad.

pic at sunset


                   More ... here


9 Feb ... On Emergencies ...

I have been thinking about the idea of `emergencies'.  We as Americans (or we as humans) are too easily sucked into the thinking that life is an emergency.  Paying bills, homework due, this problem, that problem, and so on.  Now, don't get me wrong - there are some true emergencies.  When Sue collapsed out jogging - that was an emergency.  But I find that I handle too much of all of life that way.  Survival.  Survival of the fittest.  Then I read the Bible.  Jesus had `pretty big shoes to fill' ... but I don't get the sense that he considered it a big emergency - or series of emergencies.  Oh, yes, the people around him were in emergencies - but he seemed to level everything out.  Emergency thinking is a `high' in a sense - it gives us a false sense of importance - as we are always rescuing ourselves and others in our `emergency' situations.  But it also keeps us from looking at what is important.  I find that I get all caught up in bills, work, keeping everything together - and miss how I treat my family, or mistreat, or not treat at all.  Whoa ... wrong!  I need to step back and take a better look.  I need to give, and love, instead of just `fix'.

7 Feb ... 1 AM ...

 ... went skiing on the hill beside our house.  Perhaps the best powder I have ever skied.  DIVINE !!!



2 Feb ... I guess I'll admit we have a lot of snow.  I was walking back from skiing on the hill beside my house I something whacked me in the head.  "WT ... !?"  I turned around to see that I had run into the eave of our garage ROOF.  And I am a short person.

 ... All this snow?  I LOVE IT !!!

27 January ... skiing again this weekend ... (video clip ... here)



23 January ... we have run out of wild game meat.  The other day I went to the store and bought some over-the-counter beef.  I cooked it up.  It was aweful.  I had my wife return the rest of it. 

Gotta get an elk.


22 January ... Regret isn't about what you did or didn't do ... it's about how you think and how you feel about what you did or didn't do.

18-21 January ... went skiing this weekend, here ... here




19 January ... Power Climb ... here