The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 83

Badlands Birthday

February 17, 2016 by The Noisy Plume

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I had a lonesome birthday this year. I dropped Robert off at the Santa Fe airport on the 12th and he flew out to Arkansas for early season work leaving me with a big truck full of dogs, guns and harvested quail (on dry ice) to drive home alone. I wish I could have lingered longer in the desert, camped, climbed out of the cold bed of the truck for more glowing sunsets, wandered, sketched, photographed and daydreamed…but work commitments had me busting my own butt to get home in time for everything that is coming my way in the month of March and April.

On the 13th, I drove the meager distance between Santa Fe and Durango. I stopped to wander a lovely patch of badlands with the dogs, feel the wind on my soulbones and move my body a bit while the pups got their poops out.

I met up with friends in Durango and shyly admitted, during the course of the evening, that it was my birthday (probably out of self-pity, most of all) and we had good food and laughed a lot and the company had wonderful warmth to it and I made a nest on the living room floor and slept well and deep before striking out on the highway again, on Valentine’s day.

How I drove that day, crossing Colorado, Utah and then Idaho. I drove like a wild pack of flying hammers zooming end over end on an unpredictable wind and made it home to the strawbale house on the river at nearly midnight. I was exhausted and hungry and like any time I’m away for two weeks, everything in the fridge had gone to rot so I drank a glass of water and carried Farley up the ladder to the loft and fell asleep with my arm around him.

New Mexico seems like a far away dream now and I already miss Robert terribly. What a beautiful winter we had! I’m just starting to comb through my images from the trip and look forward to telling you all about it.

I wish I had some kind of romantic and whimsical goals for this next year of my life but to be honest, I’m simply hoping to keep hanging on tight to the things I value most and love dearly. The people. The places. The honesty of earnest, hard work. The beauty of creating with my hands and heart. Appreciation for and full-seeing of the gifts that are continuously raining down on me every moment of every day.

But for the grace of God go I! 7I9A1977

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: birthday, new mexico, travels, utah

Not Afraid of the Dark

February 10, 2016 by The Noisy Plume

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Honestly, I can hardly believe this photograph turned out so well. It is magic. Rob and I had been hunting all day and when we arrived back at camp, I looked out at the moonrise and the delicate palate of the sunset in the sky and I had a vision. I set up my camera and remote and literally galloped out across the sand dunes to get this photograph.

The moon. My friend. I have no reason to fear the dark.

We have been in New Mexico for nearly two weeks, hunting quail and being a family and camping and living rough and working our beautiful, steadfast dogs in incredible country. It is the joy of my heart to be here. The joy of my heart. I think it’s because it is the joy of my heart, truly, that I was able to make a photograph like this (and many more that I look forward to sharing with you). I believe in creating from the light, from joy, from emotions that are rooted in beauty. It is from those places I experience a true welling up of originality.

More soon.

I just had a hot shower for the first time in nine days and it was SUBLIME.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: desert, new mexico, travel, upland hunting

Edge Season

January 28, 2016 by The Noisy Plume

7I9A9865 7I9A9880 7I9A9893 7I9A9895 7I9A9911 7I9A9932 7I9A9937 7I9A9980 7I9A9945 7I9A0105 7I9A0032 7I9A0162 7I9A0135 7I9A0089 7I9A0196 7I9A0216 I really like the weather in these edge seasons of high desert Idaho when the air and wind are deadly cold but the sun is gaining strength and heat — the feeling of it all pressed up against my cheeks while we are out hiking or running is simply one of the best feelings of all. To be kissed by the sun and cut by the wind, simultaneously. There’s nothing like it.

We went out yesterday under such a magnificent sky. It gets foggy in the high desert during the winter months and the mantle has lifted! We’ve been gifted with such bright days this week. There’s a sense of coming alive all over the land. The deer are beginning to drop their winter burdens. I expect to hear a meadowlark any day now — last year, around this time, I heard the first one in the sagebrush above the riverbank here. They always signal a seasonal shift for me. I cherish their music.

I can sense it all stirring, waking, rubbing at sleepy eyes.

Along the roads and deer paths I run, the sage is coming back, fragrant and soft. I run my hands over it as I pass through it and then lift my fingers to my face and breathe a little deeper. Is there a greater, more soulful scent than the sagebrush of the interior West? Maybe the perfume of an entire slope of wild rose in bloom. That’s lovely, too.

Rob is starting early season work in the southeast (Arkansas, Tennessee, et al) sooner than ever this year. The off-season seems to get shorter with the passing years as he goes deeper and higher with his job. We’re savoring our last moments together as a little family before the fire season busts us up for a bit. And no, we don’t know where we’ll be living or where I’ll be working or any of that stuff. As usual. Being a firewire is to exist in a kind of information less purgatory; I live a very last minute life. But we always prevail and something pseudo-suitable always turns up in the way of housing and studio space. I’ve quit worrying about it. Things will shake out how they will, they always do.

I have enough projects and travels to keep me active and busy this spring (I cannot wait to share some of those details with you), but I’ll still miss Robbie when he goes. We’ve done a lot of growing and shedding of old selves this winter. All the change and growth has been rooted in truth, in realizing the things about our individual selves that we’d like to work on, and then simply working on those things and rewiring our hearts and minds, dropping bad habits and lighting new fires in our hearts. I’ve loved this winter. This winter with him.

He’s been building me a hotbed! It’s kinda state of the art, you’d expect nothing less from him though, would you? I can hardly wait to get it planted. I have my seeds coming in the mail as I type this. Maybe they’ll arrive today!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: hunting, idaho, photography, upland

The Bob

January 26, 2016 by The Noisy Plume

I had a wild summer. It’s strange that I’m only starting to share some of these photos with you now, in the waning days of January, but things take as long as they take (and I have the most dependable WIFI I have had in a long while so I can actually get images uploaded for you — hallelujah).

The short of it is this: I spent a week on the back of a hilariously stubborn, thistle-chomping Haflinger while riding 80+ miles into the heart of the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana (I abated the stubbornness with a little willow switch). One of my dearest friends was with me and we had a blast choking on the dust kicked up by the full string of mules we were riding behind, freezing to death on the first day which involved 21 miles of rain after un-sleeping in a haunted Forest Service cabin, fishing the pristine waters of the Southfork of the Flathead River, and generally being spoiled rotten by our hosts, guides and friends (you’ll know them as @muledragger and @bigskybandits on the old Instagram machine). I shot most of the trip from the back of my bumpy and delightful horse with my x100t — it shoots pretty soft so if you notice a difference in the feel of these photos, that’s the reason why.

The entire trip was terrible for my already acute case of horse-fever. While I’ve always dreamed of having a pack mule for mountain trips and high country hunts, I walked away from this backcountry horseback trip with such a rich respect for the hybrid. They are truly such wonderful, stout, complex creatures. A joy to behold and to know. And boy howdy, when you reach your fingers down into their big, beautiful ears to give them a scritchy scratch and they lean in and drop their enormous heads down on your shoulder and forget their size and weight because they’re too busy feeling mule ecstasy…well, it’s a pretty darn magical thing to experience. Our libraries need more books about the solid love of good mules.

Without further adieu, I give you the Bob Marshall Wilderness and a smattering of humans, horses and mules in the fat heart of summer. Enjoy!

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: backcountry, horses, montana, photography

Pacific Pacific

January 24, 2016 by The Noisy Plume

I don’t trust the ocean. But I like to look at it and notice the way it reacts to the sky. Every passing moment brings a change in light. The water is a mirror for the cosmos to look down into.

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My friend’s husband (who is also my friend) told us he had a surprise for us. We were nervous about it because he likes to shock people (though he is very excellent at crafting wonderful surprises, too) and so we asked for hints and our dialogue over a few days went something like this:

“Can you give us a hint?”

“There’s going to be a buffalo.”

“Should we wear something specific? Will it be hot or cold?”

“What you have on would be fine.”

“Wait. Will we need goggles?”

“Sure. You could wear goggles. You could wear a bikini, too.”

“What?!! Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise!”

We had no idea what on earth was in store for us and we were very afraid and imagining all kinds of terrible and weird things. Finally, en route to our surprise, he turned our truck towards a little airport in the San Diego area and she and I looked at each other and I yelled out:

“OH MY GOSH. WE ARE GOING TO FLY TO CATALINA TO SEE THE BISON HERD!!!”

My friend and I proceeded to scream our heads off and jump around in our truck seats and he was delighted because no matter their age, boys always love to make girls scream. He was smiling enormously when he said, “Yes. You are correct.“

So she and I bounced around some more and hollered and whooped and grinned at each other and gave each other high fives and said, “Happy Birthday!!!” Because it’s always one of our birthdays when we see each other and this was too nice a gift to be fluttering around and not attached to something special.

And we looked at him and told him it was a very good surprise, indeed.

We loaded up into a little orange and white Beechcraft Duchess and took off into the sky. The fog was too thick and so we changed our plans slightly. Instead of zooming out to Catalina Island to see the bison we flew up and down the coastline and marveled at the color of the ocean and the sun on the water and the light mingling with clouds and the hue of the surf running to shore and the mud of the insidious riptides pulling the sand out from beneath the break. I looked at the millions of people below us fading away into specs until they were out of reach and out of sight and we were resting in that wild, unruly place between the Earth and the stars.

From there, we cruised inland, up and over the piney mountains and into the crumpled, thirsty plains of the desert. We landed on the airstrip in Borrego Valley and had a casual lunch at the cafe there before taking to the skies once more and slipping back over to the sea — that great big ferocious blue thing that so effortlessly refracts the heart of the sun.

It was such a grand day. It was such a thoughtful surprise. I have had the great pleasure of flying in so many little planes and helicopters over such beautiful, wild country in the past 12 months of my life it has had me thinking, for a while now, that I might work on achieving my pilot’s license.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: california, pacific ocean