Possible answer to post below?

Lauren at 17 in Olgii with Aralbai

At 25 on her Fulbright:


With Aralbai, classic Kazakh cowboy, and his new eagle just before her return.

Sooner or later we will get Peculiar to get some of his "Mongolia expedition staff at 17" photos too...

Mongolia Bad?

More Boston. A good person- but she did not approve of my encouraging a young woman to go to Mongolia,and I am not sure I ever convinced her...

VERY grumpy. Two deadlines down and a big one still to go. I need a weight machine; more, to GET OUT. But duty calls...

Q o' D

(On racing and boxing, grumpy):

"Riding horses to exhaustion and punching each other in the face under agreed rules are worthwhile and manly pastimes, far better pedigreed and infinitely more exciting than hitting balls with sticks, tossing leather bags across a field, or chasing a puck around on ice."

John Derbyshire

Cladistics

From the always reliable XKCD, via Jonathan who just emailed that he was in Nairobi impatiently waiting to go out in the bush. We should all be so lucky as to have THAT cause for impatience!

Obligatory cute dog pic

Irbis preparing to bolt for his kennel because he is being photographed (by R. A. W.).

A Few Links

I have been neglecting my blog family. Check the sidebar for new additions to the blogroll- Border Wars, and my neighbor (forty miles on dirt roads) Morgan Atwood at Rum & Donuts, who has abandoned his pseudonym "Nagrom". Also, LoARSqred, partner of MDMNM of Sometimes Far Afield, has moved with him to Small City NM where she too has started a blog, A Seemingly Stochastic Life, full of gardening and hunting and good food (I think MDMNM has been too busy to blog).

Have you seen Neutrino Cannon? Scarily erudite and fiercely opinionated-- and more often than not, right-- on a daunting variety of subjects. Check his interests in his profile...

Darren of Tet Zoo may be blogging more than ever but has moved to Scientific American Blogs, where I hope he is getting the recognition he deserves.

A few particulars. What on earth are "conventional" breeders doing to dogs? Christopher at Border Wars muses (angrily) here and here.

Excellent essay by Paul Theroux on the PLF blog (originally from the Financial Times) on why there is still plenty of good potential travel writing. Need I say I agree? I actually quoted Theroux in Eagle Dreams.

Here is a strange one: exactly how weird were the popular cartoons and at least some music in the Thirties? I submit that the psychedelic Sixties had nothing on them. Following my whimsy after watching a jolly YouTube of Fats Waller doing "This joint is jumpin' " at NC (In the thirties "...everyone dressed up for parties, or just dressed better back then...[and] "weapons carriage was apparently considered normal", I went looking for some remembered Cab Calloway songs with cartoons.

Oh. My. God. NOTHING prepares you for good music linked to the weirdest cartoons you have ever seen. Snow White parodies with Betty Boop, Bimbo the Bear, murder attempts, and Cab Calloway as not one but two cartoon characters singing St James Infirmary over the apparent frozen corpse of Betty--! Koko the clown turns into a ghost for a while, while singing and moving like Calloway, transformed by the Wicked Stepmother. But why are all the characters floating down the River Styx on an ice floe past skeletal and spectral card players (aces and eights), musicians, broken- down cars, and even barflies, though the container on the bar is marked "milk", while owls and demons and what appears to be a large spermatozoon fly overhead?? And why at one point do Koko and Bimbo try to beat up a tree stump?

And that is the LESS weird video. Next, try this one, where Calloway starts live with his band singing Minnie the Moocher but shortly pops up in the underworld again as a cartoon GHOST WALRUS, menacing Bimbo and Betty as ghost wardens execute ghost skeletons in electric chairs to much hilarity and little effect, while a scat- singing nursing cat and her kittens join gleefully in on the chorus. The end reminds me (seriously) of Goya's skies full of hellish creatures, and also that the thirties cartoonists were hyper- literate and cultured and amused themselves inserting high- culture references everywhere. (A later example: "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit...")

It is a shame that they are hard to find today except on YouTube-- too un- pc by miles-- but we are lucky that they still exist there. On the other hand Max Fleischer and his brother and his associates may be in part responsible for the weirdness of my generation- I saw that first one often as a child, and God only knows what else!

Apologies (Chas!) for the info dump but I have both a book and a review deadline looming plus have written an essay on my friend Peter Bowen's novels that may soon be linked here-- this after travel and PD slow typing. I needed to put out a little or I would never catch up.

One more though: despite my Scots maternal blood, they will never get ME to wear a kilt, but check out and help Stingray's (and others) Kilted to Kick Cancer campaign.

Malcolm Appleby

Malcolm Appleby, the engraver and metalsmith who engraves guns as animals and canvases for his fantasies as well as an amazing array of other things-- objects, drawings, and more-- is probably best known for his Raven Gun in the Tower of London, though I wish they would display it better, not in a dark inaccessible corner as it was the last time I saw it. Here is my scan of a brochure showing it-- sorry for any lapse in quality between pamphlet and scan.


After Betsy died in '86, he made me a wonderful belt buckle of old Damascus washed in silver and gold, a "bird of prey with a heart". (Click to enlarge).


A visiting member of our blog tribe-- will link when he gives permission, as many of us prefer to remain anonymous or at least pseudonymous-- took these photos of it backed by Doug Tate's excellent text on Appleby in his book on English master engravers, British Gun Engraving, and by photos of the Raven and Crocodile guns (does anyone know if he ever did the promised "Merlin"-- falcon-- gun? I have lost touch).



Brochure from the Royal Armouries; first buckle photo Daniela Imre; second two R. A. W. .

Mongolian Art

Just for fun-- the cover of a small Mongolian pb treatise on Eagle Hunting (in Mongolian-- can't read a word of it) that I found as I dug deeper into the library.. Sure, it is sort of Soviet- influenced I suppose, but its bold vivid block print style is still striking.

Boothroyd

Here is the 1987 (see ref to Betsy's death) letter from "James Bond's Armourer" praising the Model 12 that I promised last night-- click to enlarge, twice if needed. Also notice that handguns were still legal in England then...

Five (million)-star accommodations

Jim and I decided we were ready for a night out, so on Saturday evening we took a bottle of wine, our sleeping bags, and dogs, and headed for our sheep pasture. Jim built a small bonfire and we relaxed, eventually crawling into our sleeping bags to sleep under the stars alongside the New Fork River. Click on photos for enlargements.

The sheep herd, along with their guardian burros and dogs, met us when we entered the pasture, but didn’t join us at our campsite. We had two herding dogs and Rena the Akbash guardian with us, so we were sure to be alerted to any critters roaming about during the night.

Not long after we settled in around the campfire, Hud the herding dog let us know there was a bull moose just down the river from us. You can just make out the moose crossing the river in the photo below (those are our sleeping bags and pillows in the right side of the photo also).

Darkness crept in and the moose came up the river just opposite from our camp. It’s rut (breeding season) so this bull was walking along emitting soft grunts and calls. We could see the moonlight reflecting off his paddles even in the darkness. He eventually walked upriver from our camp and crossed back onto our side, but was met by the guardian dogs when he tried to walk back toward our camp. We could hear the bull as he thrashed around, rubbing his paddles against the willows and brush, and crossing back across the river again.

We let the fire burn down and went to our sleeping bags to watch the light show. There were millions of stars filling the night sky, and we saw several stars slowly falling, while others seemed to shoot across the sky. I closed my eyes and started to drift off to sleep when the screech owl arrived in the trees nearby. They are definitely named appropriately. Fortunately the owl only screeched about four times before moving away from us.

Things were fairly quiet for a while, but another moose tried to approach our camp from downriver a few hours later. Rena put the moose in the river, giving us peace once again as the bigger animal retreated.

We had a series of visitors during the night, including our guardian dogs that were in charge of the sheep herd. They never came together to our camp, but stopped in on individual patrols during the night. Luv’s Girl was thrilled to see us, and tried to bulldoze her way into our sleeping bags, but Rant seemed irritated that we were there. He ran around outside the perimeter of our camp, huffing into the darkness and marking all the brush. Apparently we were just another burden of his, more critters to be guarded. We heard the soft hoots from owls off and on during the night, and the occasional howl of a coyote, always met with a ruckus of sound from our guardians from various points throughout the pasture.

The sheep and burros arrived at our camp at sunrise Sunday morning, nibbling on the frost-covered vegetation.



Jim started us a pot of coffee, and a few ewes came forward to share a bag of pumpkin seeds.

We drank our coffee while enjoying the view, soon realizing that any effort at getting acquainted with a trout would have strong interference (see photo below). We threw our gear and dogs back in the truck and headed back to the house.

Returning to Bloggage: More Gun Stuff

More photo- blogging than not...

I always write about double guns but you could make an argument that the most useful shotgun I have is my 20- bore Winchester model 12-- even the likes of Geoffrey Boothroyd, who Ian Fleming wrote into the James Bond books as Bond's "armourer", owned one, along with one of Churchill's Dixons (I have a letter from Boothroyd praising M12's but I will copy later-- it is 2 AM).

Hemingway shot one, I suspect in preference to other shotguns, as did my father-- a 16, that I grew up on, probably one reason they work for me (good material on Hem's in Silvio Calabi's Hemingway's Guns).

Unlike most shotguns it was made in 20 first, in 1912, two years before it appeared in 12 or 16, and I think the 20 frame looks and handles better. Here is mine, made in the thirties (they were made until the seventies) with my little Brit 20 and an older Hemingway biographical work, High on the Wild, showing his.

Incidentally there is a new Hemingway bio just out, Hemingway's Boat, that sounds interesting-- may read & review down the line...

Fall in Yellowstone

Jim and I spent part of the week sorting sheep and doing most of our fall shipping, so we rewarded ourselves with a quick trip to Yellowstone National Park. After a breakfast in Jackson Hole, we headed north toward Moran Junction in Grand Teton National Park, and a black wolf crossed the road in front of us along the way. I wasn't fast enough at getting the truck pulled off the side of the highway to get a photo.

The highlight of the day was the raven that followed us around near Fishing Bridge, inside the park. It's hard to get decent photos of ravens, so I was pleased to have such an opportunity to try to capture the beauty of this bird, with its beautiful black feathers in its textured pattern.


It was a beautiful day, with the changing fall colors providing for brilliant yellows, reds and oranges across the landscape. There were still a lot of tourists in the park, and we laughed that the biggest traffic jams we saw were not "wolf jams" or "bear jams" but bison jams!


This is what the large population of bison and elk have done to Alum Creek, turning it into a mud flat (although the elk population has crashed in recent years). Alum Creek actually looks better now than it did 20 years ago, with some grass species starting to work their way back along the edges. It is still the most degraded riparian area I've ever seen in Wyoming. The nearest lodgepole pine trees to the creek (which are up on the hillsides, out of the picture) have been girdled - bison stripped all the bark off the trees for forage in the winter. If our livestock range looked like this, we'd be out of business.


We dug around in a few piles of bison dung and found it was rich with insect life, with a large variety of species represented. That's one advantage of bison protection inside the park – the use of pesticides outside protected areas results in less insect life in dung. Dung can be an important food source for a variety of bird life, including everything from burrowing owls to sage grouse. We debated bootlegging dung out of the park to perform our own reintroduction process, but didn't do it. Yes, it would have been illegal. Heck, it was probably illegal for us to be digging around in the dung with sticks!

We were also rather irritated about how much of the park was closed due to grizzly bear danger. Seems that the current thinking is that if grizzlies are present, that's reason enough to close an area.


There's certainly no shortage of grizzlies, and no shortage of people who are willing to get way too close. We saw a young grizzly (wearing a radio collar) working his way down a hillside. When we visit the park, we usually see a bear within about a mile of this location, so it's somewhat of a regular bear crossing.


Unfortunately, people aren't very willing to give bears much room to cross the highway. The red color on the left edge of the photo below is the car I kept between my body and the bear.


The last images I'm sharing today are of a new outhouse in the park - part of our economic recovery dollars at work. Notice the sign, and a slight alteration that had been added to the sign by a visitor. I know that guy, and drank a beer with him a few minutes later. (He took his handiwork down before we left). He suggested I call this post "A mature couple visits Yellowstone," but our behavior suggests we're lacking in the maturity department.



Yellowstone really is a fabulous place to visit, and hopefully we can squeeze in another trip to the park later this fall. It's a magical place when there is snow falling and most of the humans have left for the season.

Doo, doo, doo, looking out my back door

It's one of those mornings I'm finding it difficult to get anything done, since I'm spending most of time looking out the window, watching our Akbash livestock protection dog Rena, and how she handles two coyotes that have been in our neighborhood all morning.

Rena alerted me to the two coyotes as they crossed the meadow across the highway early this morning, putting the stalk on a group of Canada geese, but not succeeding in so much as alarming the big birds. The coyotes disappeared into the tree-lined ditch and did some howling and yowling, but Rena's not allowed to go across the highway, so the coyotes were safe.

Eventually Rena turned her attention to playing with our herding dog pup, Hud. A little later I realized Rena was starting to "huff up" again, so I called Hud to my side and went to the kitchen window to watch. Rena caught a movement in the sagebrush behind the house, so I grabbed a camera and took this photo from my back doorway - sorry it's not any better quality.

Rena chased the coyote, but neither animal seemed terribly serious about the chase today. If you click on the photo, you can see an enlarged version, with the coyote in the lower right corner. There are also two prairie dogs standing at the entrance to their burrow, watching the chase as well. I'd like to photograph Rena actually catching a coyote, but since there aren't any sheep here at the house, Rena's not really guarding. Oh but I would love to photograph any of my guardians catching a 'yote. Usually all I get are the carcasses, which I admit does make me proud of the dogs' good work.

Boston and Home at last!

Home from our second trip this month and hoping to stay, write, blog about something with content, hunt, and not travel.

Our stay with sister Karen Graham and her husband George exceeded all expectations. We didn't go out much- rather, we sat and ate and drank and talked and met with friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in many years-- writers, artists, bloggers, falconers, hunters, fly fishers, pigeon men, carnivores, vegetarians, a Buddhist, and more. A quick digest to I hope entertain...

A gathering: Dr Hypercube, Rex Passion (Explorers Club, white sharks, elephant seals), me, the multi- talented Patrick Porter (botanist, flower farmer, pigeon man, bird hunter, connoisseur of scent hounds, writer...), his wife Jill, and, up from Philly, Eric Wilcox (falconer-- my apprentice in his youth-- western big- game hunter, and oriental textile expert; source of many of my "objects", like the Uzbek gun slip).


Some of the same crew indoors-- that's George with the dark hair down back.


Me with my (slightly dotty but still energetic) mother, one reason we went back:


One of my old friends, well- known fly fisherman and writer Paul Dinolo-- I have known him since we were about 13 (he called and announced himself by saying "is this the guy who called Richie Salvucci a fat shit in 1963?") He also built me an ultralight fly rod while we were there, and tied flies at the party!



Our favorite "foodie", frequent NM visitor and current Manhattanite Emily Kunhardt, with newly platinum hair. Congratulations on the new apartment; can't believe you were 16 when we met, and won't reveal your age now, if only because it makes ME feel old.


Us with Sy Montgomery and Bronwen Fullington at a great Vietnamese restaurant in Lowell (goat on the menu!) I am hoping to get some of Bron's photos of her recent trip on the "Buddha Trail" in India, especially of virtually extraplanetary Varanasi.


Lib & (with camera) Karen:


My nephews Alec (tall) and Evan, going out to Young Marines; I apologize for the weird color!


George and I web- surfing. Notice the B17 logo on his shirt? He runs a historical site for WWII B17 history here , based in the 34 missions my father's crew flew and full of fascinating lore. George gave me a chunk of runway from Lavenham. On his next visit to England I hope to put him in touch with "Johnny UK" who lives only 25 miles from there.


I hope these trips have been fun. Forthcoming blogging will be less "personal"!

Trolling for flies

Twenty years ago B.C. (before Cass), Jim and I were newlyweds who climbed mountains, drove to neighboring states for a lunch of burgers and beers at a favorite bar, and fly-fished in cold mountain streams. We had a lot of energy, and definitely knew how to have a good time.

Then we had Cass. We took turns working, so that Cass never had to be with a sitter or in day care. Our disposable income vanished. Our somewhat adventurous life quieted to a milder tone, as we tried to be responsible parents, to Cass and his older brother Justin, who stayed with us in the summers.

We took Cass for his first camping trip when he was three months old, into Wyoming’s Red Desert, sleeping in the sand dunes. Cass discovered his natural habitat early – anywhere outside, in Wyoming.

We also started ranching about the same time, around 3 A.C. (after Cass), so we started staying close to home. Our outdoor recreational gear stayed in the shed, rarely used. Our North Face packs, Chouinard and Black Diamond climbing gear, half a dozen sets of telemark skis, high-altitude stove and tent – all awaiting the chance to return to use.

As Cass grew, we introduced him to each sport. Soon he was camping on his own, so our tent and sleeping bags were some of the first equipment to go. Snowshoes, gone.

After a few seasons on the ice, we introduced Cass to downhill skiing. The hockey gear found a new home with some other child, and Cass began consuming at least a pair of skis every year – first the “old-school boards” from the shed, then a new pair of twintips every year. The downhill ski addiction was soon accompanied by the need for the backcountry winter trips – so the high altitude stove and backpacks were no longer resting in the shed, waiting for our return.

A few summers ago, Cass asked about rock climbing. We took him out and had a wonderful day re-learning our old sport. Of course our climbing rack soon went on climbs in Colorado and Utah, without us parents who had worked to collect such fine gear.

Cass received his first gun in the year of 5 A.C., and has been a shooter ever since. He has his own collection, and “borrows” firearms from the ranch as the need arises.

Somewhere along the line, Cass became a fisherman. A few winters ago, he and his dad spent evenings tying flies. Cass is now out on his own, and wets a fly line at least once a week during seasons with open water, and even ice fishes now and then.

The other afternoon, Jim and I went to feed the guardian dogs and check on the sheep herd. It was a beautiful, slightly overcast day, and we walked down to look at the New Fork River, which serves as one boundary for our sheep pasture. We were met with the sounds of splashing – there were at least three trout breaking the surface at once in a feeding frenzy. My hands had never itched for a fly rod so badly. The trout weren’t especially big, but they were very active, making a noisy ruckus as they rose after the fly hatch hovering at the surface. It was magnificent.

Jim and I raced to the house to search for gear, and I swear I could smell the fresh cornmeal-dipped trout frying in my cast iron skillet. Our gear search netted us one fly rod, one reel, and no flies. My small and handsome black box of beauties had gone away to join the unappreciative tackle box of a teenager. We had nothing – none of my favorites, the tiny renegades. No elk hair caddis. No light cahills. No royal wulff. No olive hares ears. So sad. My box of treasures was gone.

Jim and I are recovering from that trauma, but part of the recovery process has been the realization that all of our really fun stuff has walked out the door with our children. Well, they are adults now, so it’s our turn for the good times once again. All we need are some enablers.

Please, dear readers, have pity on the flyless anglers. If you feel for our tale of woe, drop me a fly in the mail. We promise to attach it to a worthy fly rod and take it for a dip. I may even post some photos and stories of our angling adventures.

The flyless anglers may be reached at: The Urbigkits, P.O. Box 1663, Pinedale, WY 82941. And thank you, fellow wetliners, for your help.

Gun Tech Query

On the inside upper front of the frame above the cylinder of this old Colt revolver (above the barrel throat/ forcing cone) there is a shadow- click to enlarge- which is actually a milled recess. Any of you scholars know why?

To Boston

... for a week, to stay with sister Karen Graham, frequent commenter, her husband George, and their sons Alec and Evan, and to see my mother Mary (below).

They even like guns!

Hoping also to meet up with Dr Hypercube and Sy Montgomery (below, in Mongolia) and fish with Captain Rick Rozen (below Sy, in Costa Rica) and go to a museum or two and EAT FRIED CLAMS AND STEAMERS! Reports to follow.

(Blogging, email, comment validation may be slow).

Sunrise in the Upper Green

I wanted to catch the early morning light in the Upper Green River region of western Wyoming, north of Pinedale this weekend. I was lucky enough to recruit my son Cass and our neighbor and friend Haley for the adventure. The mountain on the right in the photo above is Square Top (about 11,600 feet), and on the left is Osborn Mountain (about 11,800 feet), in the Wind River range.

It was 25 degrees with a thick frost - conditions were beautiful. Cass couldn't resist taking a dip with the fly rod.


Cass had to share the water with the residents of the neighborhood.


The sun came up over the top of the mountains and burned the frost and mist off quickly, giving rise to another beautiful fall day in Wyoming.

A sleepy but happy Cass.

Haley enjoying the first rays of light from the banks of the Green River.