• animals,  natural areas,  nature

    Those Black Eyes

    I read the other day that God finds a thousand ways to tell us that we are sought after. In many ways I’d like to believe that. And please don’t ask me to define what God is because I can’t. All I can do is share my experiences where I have moments with a something bigger than me.

    While out shooting the sunrise last week at Pineridge Natural Area I was startled by some movement at my feet. When there’s movement that close to me, I am startled because we do have rattlesnakes in the area. However, looking down, I watched this baby cottontail move closer and closer to me, seemingly a bit quizzical about me and unafraid. As I looked into those black eyes, with no words needing to be exchanged, I felt something, a connection. Was I being sought after? I went home clearly touched in some way by Nature and those gifts she offers. I’m grateful to say the God of my youth has evolved into the God I can experience today through the black eyes of a cottontail. I wonder, who sought who? Have a wonderful Monday and a great week.

  • animals,  coffee life

    Meet Milo

    Milo is one of the regulars at Mugs who brings his human to the coffee shop for their caffeine fix and to show off Milo. He is one of the best behaved dogs you’ll ever meet. Every once in awhile I see him get one of those pupcups, which is a small cup filled with whip cream. I’ve never heard him bark either. Anyway, meet Milo and have a great week!

  • animals,  quotes

    One of My Neighbors

    “One of these days, I’m going to publish a book of all the pictures I did not take. It is going to be a huge hit.”

    René Burri

    So what title would you give your book of images you never took?

  • animals,  quotes

    We Are Never Alone

    I come here to listen, to nestle in the curve of the roots in a soft hollow of pine needles, to lean my bones against the column of white pine, to turn off the voice in my head until I can hear the voices outside it: the shhh of wind in needles, water trickling over rock, nuthatch tapping, chipmunks digging, beechnut falling, mosquito in my ear, and something more—something that is not me, for which we have no language, the wordless being of others in which we are never alone.

    Robin Wall-Kimmerer

    I find it interesting that squirrels usually make sure there is a tree between them and me. For some reason last week there seemed to be a bit more courage, a willingness to take more risk, for this squirrel. Then again it just could be they’re a photogenic squirrel wanting their photo taken. We didn’t talk but some connection was taking place. Yes, we are never alone. We awoke to a dusting of snow, overcast skies and cold. Now at the coffee shop and no appointments. Stay warm.

  • animals

    They’re Good Neighbors

    I seldom saw rabbits around my condo when I moved in over 20 years ago. But, over the past couple of years we’ve started to see more of them. My guess is the overgrowth of trees and shrubs around the holding ponds now provides a good habitat for them. They do not play loud music, take up a parking spot, throw wild parties, raise hell or smoke. Nor do I have a vegetable or flower garden to defend from them. They’re good neighbors and I like having them as neighbors. And, Happy June 1st!

  • animals,  National Parks,  Yellowstone National Park

    I wonder…

    Bison are so iconic of Yellowstone National Park, and the Black Hills. They appear peaceful, unconcerned, even lazy, as in this image, yet they may attack anything, often without warning or apparent reason. They can move at speeds up to 35 mph and cover long distances at a lumbering gallop. So make sure you can outrun the person you are with! As I look at this image I wonder how many photographs have been taken of this bison.

  • animals,  National Parks,  Yellowstone National Park

    Hard to imagine…

    A lone bison along the Madison River outside of West Yellowstone

    American Bison once numbered in the millions, perhaps between 25 million and 60 million by some estimates, and they were possibly the most numerous large land animal on earth. However, by the late 1880s, they had been hunted to near extinction throughout North America. The Yellowstone Park bison herd was the last free-ranging bison herd in the United States being the only place where bison were not extirpated. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is descended from a remnant population of 23 individual bison that survived the mass slaughter of the 19th century in the Pelican Valley of Yellowstone Park. To assist in the species’ revival, in 1896 the United States government obtained one bull and seven cows from the Lincoln Park Zoo bison herd for Yellowstone. In 1902, a captive herd of 21 Goodnight plains bison was introduced to the park and then moved to the Lamar Valley and managed as livestock until the 1960s, when a policy of natural regulation was adopted by the park. Yellowstone National Park has large areas of alpine meadows and grass prairie and this provides a nearly optimum environment for American bison who live in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Their typical habitat is open or semi-open grasslands, as well as sagebrush grasslands, semi-arid lands, and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. Bison will also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. It’s hard to imagine those numbers of bison especially when you look at the lone bison in the above image. (Information from Wikipedia.)