The Life and Times of the Plume

I woke up terribly early this morning, around 4:30AM-ish.  I was out of bed by 5AM and I know why!  I ate not one, but two cuts of antelope backstrap for dinner last night (keep in mind, this is American pronghorn we are talking about, an antelope steak is tiny compared to a beef steak).  I was thinking about it and I realized that our diet here is pretty vegetarian.  I know this probably comes as a surprise since we spend a lot of time hunting. But here’s the thing, we don’t eat meats every single day.  We eat a lot of eggs.  I think we consume red meat every 1.5 weeks or so and then, of course, upland meats here and there.

Last night I grilled that backstrap and then sliced it up to go on top of a huge pile of greens, artichoke hearts, toasted walnuts, carrots and cucumbers (this is one of our very favorite meals here, Robert swoons for it).  But that red meat is so clean and wild and fresh and beautiful and a rare enough portion of my diet that it gives me a huge energy burst which signifies the importance of animal proteins to my very cells!  Early mornings like this, in my life, are always a product of eating elk or antelope or deer the night before.  Clean meat really works.  I believe in it.  When this body wants it, this body gets what it wants.

This is all to say, it was early here and I was outside right as night was turning to morning, the dusky quiet moment when all of the life on the river begins to stir in anticipation of the sunrise.  I saw a flock of pigeons flitting about at the edge of the cliff, the white winged doves zooming about in pairs as they tend to do, Canada geese overhead and down on the water, a variety of ducks, cackling pheasant roosters above the house and the quail covey chattering down below, incoming herons, the bald eagle, yellow winged blackbirds, robins, meadowlarks (oh my heart) and down on the water, fish were belly flopping all over the place like they were performing for a cheering crowd at Sea World.  It was beautiful to be out in the quake and clamor of it all.

I am reminded now of the time I went out with an acquaintance of mine who is a recordist (he makes recordings of nature sounds and is an incredible naturalist, to boot) to a huge marshland near Soda Springs, Idaho.  He was hoping to capture the sound of cranes trumpeting in the early morning.  We arrived at the marsh around 3AM, plugged in all the high-tech recording devices and sat down with headphones to listen to the world wake up.  Lang’s recording equipment was so sensitive it could capture sound up to 8 miles away and you really cannot imagine what I heard that morning.  I could hear ducks smacking their beaks, water swishing around the knees of herons…

The memory of it still blows my mind and I wish I could relive that symphony of sound over and over again.  It was gorgeous to hear the marsh stirring in the tiny, dark morning hours and the depth and breadth of the murmuring under high quality amplification — it changed my awareness of sound.  Forever.

I think Lang looked over at me as the marsh began to stir and he smiled when he saw my face, I am sure my expression was one of sheer rapture and elation.  It was an experience I’ll never forget and one of the greatest gifts of sound I have ever been given.

After this experience, I began to wonder about micro-sounds.  The tiny sounds that our weak human ears cannot register, like the musical tone of cotyledons pushing up through soil, the leathery sound of chartreuse leaves unfurling or the crunch of dirt molecules beneath the feet of ants.  What does that sound like?  Don’t you wonder?  Does anyone but me wonder about these things?

I like to be able to really sit back in a wild landscape and spend quality time in sensory immersion.  Sometimes I go crazy and let myself sense it all, all at once, but it’s also nice to isolate a sense and consciously go deeper with it.  In these waking springtime moments, when the world is so fresh and pungent and stretching, I find the swirl of details keen and bright.  It’s a wonderful time of year to squander the morning hours on sensory experience.  Which is exactly how I spent part of the morning today.

Besides all the regular, wild-haired, nature girl stuff, I vacuumed up a black widow spider this morning.  I’ve been letting her live in a wee nook in the kitchen window frame for months now but she has grown very large since we first met and lately I’ve had a sense of her watching me, not to mention I am terrified she’ll lay a nest of eggs.  So I ambushed her with the vacuum at approximately 6:01AM and she made a *thunking* noise as she flew down the hose like when you suck up a nickel.  It was disturbing.

I’m almost finished meeting a bevy of deadlines here and have been slowly re-entering into studio work after a few days away from the bench.  At midnight, a couple of days ago, while waiting for my WIFI to ramp up so I could upload photo submissions, I was doodling in my sketch book and writing a poem when this ring design came out:

It’s a continuation of my Rags & Riches Series and it’s so delicate wearing!  The bird and feather are one piece of metal, connected thinly by careful sawing and hammer formed in opposite directions (which was a challenge).  I’m working on finishing an essay currently but am hoping to have a few more of these made for you by the end of the week.

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