Edge Season

7I9A98657I9A9880 7I9A98937I9A98957I9A99117I9A99327I9A99377I9A99807I9A99457I9A01057I9A00327I9A01627I9A01357I9A00897I9A01967I9A0216I 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!

 

 

Around Here

7I9A70617I9A7912 7I9A79077I9A7079 7I9A70837I9A70977I9A7203 7I9A7235 7I9A7286 7I9A72977I9A71787I9A7830 7I9A78627I9A8146 7I9A8148 7I9A8152 7I9A81577I9A80877I9A79397I9A6638 7I9A6680 7I9A6737 7I9A6759It’s difficult to believe that it’s only been winter for a couple of days (officially).  The times here are finally quiet with a sense of steadiness and lack of rushing, which is how I always think the end of the year should play out.

Quiet.  Introspective.  Cold.  Steady.  Restful.

Before all things begin anew.

 

 

The Frank Church

Most of you now know I spent ten days in the heart of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness of Idaho on my elk hunt this year.  I want to share the images from that trip with you in this space and if you’d like to read a bit about it, you can proceed to the Danner blog where an essay about the trip is currently published and I have some of my field notes and images in a secondary post over on the Western Rise blog.  Additionally, if you are following my Instagram account, I have posted portions of my field notes from the trip in conjunction with a few images from the trip in my feed.

I photographed this hunt in an official capacity for both Danner as well as Seek Outside and it was so much fun to blend work with play with the insanity of a backcountry high hunt.  I’m still very happy with my work from this trip (so are those companies) (yay!).

This is one of the most amazing trips Robert and I have ever taken together.  I hope you feel the wildness while you sift through these images.

Also, I am aware that many of you do not hunt and probably wonder things about hunting all the time!  I encourage you to ask any questions you might have in my comment space!  One of the reasons I photograph and share stories about hunting big game and upland is because it’s what I have always done here — lived my life with conviction and shared what I am learning.  Also, I feel we live in a political and social atmosphere that is anti-omnivore, anti-firearm and anti-hunting.  I share because I want people to know the truth — that there is a way to take life, so that you can live, that is full of beauty, respect, love and holiness.  I am interested in clearing up any confusion there may be on the matter by educating folks as best as I can.  I am interested in changing hearts and minds on the matter.  It will be my pleasure to answer your questions as best as I can as well as bust any myths you may have been fooled into believing.  Inform yourself and the make up your own mind on the matter!  In the meanwhile, let me answer any questions you may have on how hunting legally works, how to get tags, general rules and regulations…ask away!

As always, huge thanks and love to Robert, for doing such a great job of teaching me how to hunt and how to hunt well (and there’s still so much to learn).

Lastly, please note:

There are a few images of a dead animal in this blog post since I had a successful deer hunt instead of a successful elk hunt — I feel these are beautiful, truthful images which is why I have shared them here.  My goal is not to offend your senses.  We hunt to eat.  If you are intolerant of firearms, omnivores and the practice of harvesting wild, clean meat from wild, clean lands please do not leave me nasty, judgmental comments in my comment section in an attempt to publicly shame me for my life choices.  Instead, please feel free to send me a respectful, intelligent email regarding your concerns on the matter:

thenoisyplume@gmail.com  

Thank you kindly.

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Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.
[John James Audubon]

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2014/12/19/9447/

Ten Thousand Hours

Farley is locked up on a staunch point, frozen in place with his head turned back over his shoulder, his nostrils flaring, his eyes shining in the cold.  I line up his point by following the direction of his nose and eyes to the base of a scraggly brush; there, where the roots form an abstracted cage against the earth, I see a pheasant dressed in drab greys and browns.  I relax and step forward through the snow, shotgun idle in my right hand now turning numb with cold, I kick the bottom of the bush with my boot and call out to Robbie, “Hen!”  So he’ll know to not shoot.

The hen rises up out of the snow, twigs and grey of winter on broad, thumping wings.  I feel the wind of her flight on my face.  We watch her as she goes deeper into the night where it grows in the East.

Farley looks at me like I’ve betrayed him.  I tell him, “That’s a hen, big boy.  No bird.  Get on.”  He blinks at me once, turns on his heels, and heads off into the brush and thicket at a gentle but determined jog — a gait he has spent ten years developing, a pace he can hold for hours on end.  He heads out into a blaze of winter white blended with hay stubble that buzzes in an adamant breeze.  He heads out into the exotic scent of rooster on the wind, into the dream that every bird dog dreams; to run, to sniff, to catch scent, to point, to wait for the shot, to retrieve, to give the game to the master, to be thumped on the arse by the palm of a gloved hand and told, “Good boy.  Good work.

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We are on a ranch that belongs to our friends; every curve of the earth here speaks of legacy.  The land rises up in good natured swoops and is strung together by wisps of brush that serve to fortify the drainages cut into stone by mountain water.  Bunches of thorns and brambles give way to scrub aspen and sagebrush and it is in the broadness of these places that the pheasant can be found.  This is a thriving and wild population of birds, an even mixture of hen and rooster, tail feathers here grow long and graceful, and the birds are fat on wild forage.

It is snowy.  We track pheasant through the snow, their footprints are are easy to spot and almost Jurassic in nature compared to the other upland birds we hut.  We monitor the dogs as they work, breathe out our cold smoke into the warm gleam of the sunset and trudge, step by step, upwards, paying attention to the body language of the pups as they quarter the space before us.

Pheasant are runners, they will run to eternity and beyond; flying is a last resort.  The dogs catch scent, move cautiously, wait tentatively with their noses pointed into the wind, creep forward, relocate, and then break into an easy trot again.  We walk quickly, keeping up is vital, no working dog should work in vain.

IMG_6663 IMG_6713I can feel the wind gusts brushing my face rosy, I shift my gun back and forth in my hands as I try to keep feeling in my fingers.  It is a cold night to hunt, the sun has slipped away and the air is fading to blue, chilling itself further as it passes over snow and ice.  We have been walking for a while, my body feels warm but there is an insidious tingling in my toes no matter how fast I move or how much I stomp my feet.  I tuck my chin down into my coat layers, as I always do, squint, try to wet my stony eyeballs with warmth by blinking too many times, and feel my exhalation turn to fine crystal on the curves of my cheekbones.

I am working closely with Farley while Robert keeps tabs on Tater Tot.  I always feel lucky to be partnered with our white dog; Farley is an expert.  When I say expert, I mean a master hunter.  His bird repertoire is as extensive as the interior West allows and includes some waterfowl; he is a true utility gun dog and the envy of many of our friends.  He knows how to respectively work every species bird he hunts, how hard he can push them, what to expect of them behaviorally and what their preferred cover looks like.  Some people say pheasant cannot be properly hunted by a pointer but if they had the great pleasure of hunting behind Farley, they would be forced to adopt a different opinion on the mater.  Farley doesn’t believe in wasting time.  He is efficient, right down to the speed at which he carefully covers ground.  He is a patient teacher, I learn from him every time we work together.

Tater Tot, on the other hand, is a young dog.  Pheasant are hard on him.  He has been raised on chukar and Hungarian partridge in big, wide open country which is perfect for a dog that runs huge.  Any bird we hunt in thick brush results in him making some mistakes.  He’ll learn, he’ll get better, it’s a matter of him working on his ten thousand hours and perfecting his craft.  With that in mind, Tater Tot teaches me, too, every single time we go out.  I learn from his mistakes and his successes.

I watch our dogs develop their craft and I learn to be patient with myself when it comes to developing my own craft, when it comes to building my gifts and honing my talents.  I remember that developing a voice within the realm of creative work can take a lifetime of evolution.  I realize that learning about myself enough to be proficient at expressing myself is honest work I can afford to be tenacious about; it is work that is worth the work.

Having an incredible bird dog isn’t just about bloodlines (though, those do help), it’s about exposure and development of natural instinct, it’s about taking my pup out and getting him into big country where he can work his heart out, rise to his full potential and develop a sturdy foundation for his skill set.  From time to time, Tater is going to bust coveys, run over singles, approach birds from the wrong direction and suffer moments of impatience and occasionally he might lose all all self-control and gallop around like a buckaroo.

He will lock up on exquisite, unexpected points on tight holding birds and will look as majestic as anything; he will have moments wherein he is god of all the dogs.  He will have good luck.  He will have bad luck.  There will be days when he rules the world on his four fleet feet and his humans will fail to get him his bird.  But in all of that success and failure and learning, he’ll be working steadily on his craft until one day, we’ll cast him off into the sagebrush and rim rock to do his work and realize that he, too, has become a master of his craft.

I hope I can say the same of myself someday.  Until then, there are those wily old pheasants running fast through the snow, tails streaming behind them like comets, and our little brown pup going forth earnestly and courageously into the winter white.

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