Madness in November

Sitting in my tree over the past weekend, I pondered on the potential dreaded outcome of the pending election that would occur but a day after my 64th birthday. How did we get to this place? Several of my oldest chums have become of the paranoid "they want to take my guns away" mindset. They truly believe that there is an organized government plot to ruin their lives, belief being the construct here - it saddens me that they have long since forgotten how to think. My life and theirs have gotten a hell of a lot better since we struggled with Nam and Nixon all those years ago, then worked both our collective and separate ways toward jobs and careers and families and now nearly retirement at the end of the long haul. Sure it's all been hard work, but we still sit in trees each November in hopes of bagging a deer, walk the trails for grouse, blast into the sunrise at diminished duck flights, work the dogs on the odd rooster and care less about answering [no] to 20 questions on a two minute background check. Reality does not suck, guys.
 
Three bucks walked past my stand that morning - all safe - I guess I was not really interested in pulling the trigger. Maybe next weekend.

So on Tuesday, my short little spit of time in the cosmic ocean clicked another digit on the rusting counter. The old chums predictably voted for lunacy and I have become............

A More Reluctant Member of the Species.

We're ready for your close up

Yikes, the browtinelessness genetics continue. 

October

When the grouse season opened a month ago, I rambled around the forest up at the cabin in the wolf country with all three dogs and no shotgun.  The idea was to see what the boys could find in the way of coveys and try to gauge what might be shoot-able later in the season. The condition of the forest was pretty much as if September and July were the same season. The dogs did their job, flushing what I can only assume were multiple birds. Being pretty hard of hearing anymore and not even being able to see the dogs at 20 feet into the brush, I just assumed there was a good crop of grouse to mess with later on down the line.  At one point there were four grouse in the trees craning downward watching all the canine mayhem beneath their safe perch and then two more flushes before I called the boys back to heel. Pretty hopeful, that.

Over the past weekend, I returned with the intention of hunting and picking cranberries. 
Much had changed. Most of the leaves were down and the woods had opened nicely.

However..........

Where in August there were oodles of green cranberries, I picked exactly nine. 9!
And with shotgun in hand exactly one grouse was encountered. One! Mysterious indeed.

But then...............

The sunset was killer, the whiskey in the glass was mellow, and  anytime in that wild place is great grand stuff.

Two Old Timers

Too cool

Cold at last
Fifty-two for a high
Stiff north west winds pushing low grey scuds ahead
a chill conveyor moving the first true pulse of migrating raptors
Broadwings and sharpshins
redtails too
here a kestrel
there a merlin
everywhere masses of blue jays
to keep them fed
and loads of fledgling eagles
clumsy yet in this grand soaring autumnal air
Oh but to be among them in the brisk sky today
needing only to stretch out
and ride !

September

The big-toothed aspen are discarding the first few bits of color from the canopy, providing nutrition for fungi upon fungi, and the first colorful hints that the change in seasons is upon the land.

Blazing Sky Woman

The western sky was going down all red and gold and purple
and I was going to be about two minutes late
if I didn't get off the highway and into
the little remote lake shore spot to catch
a sanpshot of sunset

I'd been on the road a while
heading home from the wolf country with
highbush cranberries and brook trout on board
needing a break

I wasn't out of the car ten seconds
when she came flying in behind me
skidding to a dusty stop on the gravel
bouncing out of the old beat car
striding right up close with smart phone in hand

"Wow
me too, dude
had to catch this light
wow
had to stretch
good spot
wow, dude"

She was about 19 or twenty
tall
long black Indian hair
swirling around her face
in the fading glow of
the stiff evening breeze


pulling up her hoodie
she told me about going to Watersmeet in the U.P.
heading back from Bismark
home
long trip
How long's the drive, I asked
Don't know she shrugged
long trip though, eh
chatty

She asked a lot of questions about
places and spaces
between here and there
and said wow and cool and dude
a lot
she seemed to be formed of pure innocent bliss
I asked another question about time

And I think she knew then that
I was not an Indian
despite the long white hair and clean face
and standing alone on the shore
of a lake staring
into the radiance of the west
my voice and mode of speech did not possess
her lilt

Wow, dude, nice
gotta go
Wow, dude, cool
Wow

The old car made some awful noises
as she fired it back up
and lurched twice before
she blew off into the darkening east
"Be careful out there" I said after her dust

I didn't catch her name

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzPnQTpElBw