October, October

Fall is here! Fall is here!

Walk this way

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." -Camus

Muffled marbled mosaics

I'm trying to break your heart

This sparkler won't scorch

Like pemmican pushed through a Coke can...

Faerie hems, edges, edges, edges

Gotta break 'em off somethin'

Mountain Ash-ram

Silent Creepers

So I've seen about 479 of these little wood chickens this season. Mostly I return their thunderous, spontaneous greetings with a hearty "Ah! Jesus!" and a frantic chest clap, but I do appreciate them keeping me on my toes. For some reason, autumn must have a slightly soothing effect on spruce grouse, because they seem to be more sluggish and less aggressive lately. Maybe its because the kids are all grown up. Or they'd rather be making decorative gourd centerpieces than dispensing random heart attacks. I don't know. What I do know is that they let you get real close. Other crew mates of mine have seen this fact through to the point of bludgeoning, roasting, and ingesting, but I prefer taking pictures...

Check out that eyeshadow

Feathered boa

Learning Lessons the Hard Way

Peep this awesome photo sequence of an ornery otter telling a coyote what's up.
Who says lutras can't be badasses? Cuddly badasses.

Whistle Pig

Animal of the Week: Le Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata).

What you should know:

- Hoary refers to the silvery gray fur which decorates their shoulders, not their promiscuous social lives. Although males do keep harems, so I guess it is kind of a double-meaning.

- They eat grasses and seeds and such. They whistle while they work.

- They're uber-lazy, hibernating eight months of the year, sunning on rocks for the other four. Although sometimes the "wrestle with each other for hours." If I was so fat and furry that is what I would do too.

- They are camera whores.

I'm ready for my close-up.

4 days, 46 miles, 17 crossings, 114 rub trees: Scenes from the Nyack Loop

Home is wherever I'm with you

A procession of professionals

Walking the wreath around Stimson

None but shining hours

After the flood, the flow is steady

Strange flowers smell of nothing

Backcountry kingdom

Raised by racoons

Enjoy your worries, you may never have them again

Kickstarter

Short steps, long horns

I'm Your Huckleberry

Fact! Huckleberries have never been successfully
domesticated. Knowing that you have to get out
 into the wild to gather them makes them all the
more special and delicious.

Huck-le-ber-ry

1. the dark-blue, purple, or black edible berry of any of the various shrubs belonging to the genuses Gaylussacia and Vaccinium. A most tasty delicacy for blue-tongued bears and humans alike.

2. a shrub bearing such fruit.

3. as in "I'm your huckleberry": old-timey smack-talking slang for both "I'm the man for the job" and "I'm the man who is about to hand your ass to you."

4. a rube, bumpkin, or amateur.

5. a blue, bow-tie wearing Southern dawg.

6. a frequently-used excuse for late-summer tardiness while hiking trails in Montana. As in "sorry I'm late, there were huckleberries."

Little Orange Dog

Last week I had the pleasure of hiking with a new field partner, the little orange Monroe T. Scarr, a soft, smelly, and snickering golden retriever extraordinaire. Our stroll up Essex creek on the eastern forest service side of the park turned memorable within the first few hundered meters when we realized the barely-used trail had fallen into a wild disarray of jungle-growth proportions. If your average jungle was largely made up of frosty six-foot-high nettles, thick thimbleberry bushes, and those nasty burr-plants with the greasy black needles.

Still, Monroe is a consumate scientist and stimulating conversationalist, so, slipping, tripping, soaking from morning frost, and explicative hurling aside, it was a banner day.

Here is a random transcript from our walk:

M: Hey, what are you doing? Why are we stopping again?

K: Look, thimbleberries.

M: Yeah, so?

K: They are perfectly ripe and delicious. Here, have one.

M: Meh. I really don't see the appeal.

K: Well, think of how you would walk through a forest if there were little meat baubles dangling over the trail.

M: Hmm. What's a bauble?

K: Alright, a packet--little juicy packets of meat hanging from every branch.

M: That sounds amazing.

K: Yeah, I know. So your meat packets are my thimbleberries.

M: Whatever you say.