Hermit Blog

Monte Vista Cranefest

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:49:13 -0700

Just a reminder to everyone that the Sandhill Crane migration is underway and that this weekend is the Cranefest in Monte Vista... their website has been down most of the morning, but here’s the Denver Post article: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20138137/monte-vista-crane-festival-is-this-weekend?source=rss

You might try the official website, and see if you have better luck than I did:
http://www.cranefest.com/

And here’s a link ot the National Wildlife Refuges website: http://www.fws.gov/alamosa/index.html

With a little luck, and with the weather’s cooperation, I should have some photos to share early next week! If you’d like to see my photos from 2009, the last time I got to photograph them, click here.

Backpacking -- A New Distraction

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:12:59 -0700

Sometimes I look at my life and I see a lot of apparently random occurrences converging on something. On what, I’m never really sure, but it’s definitely a feeling of convergence.

I fell in love with this valley, and this piece of property, and couldn’t really explain why. I’ve loved taking photographs for most of my adult life, yet I can’t really tell you why. Angelo entered my life when i needed him most and I’ll never know where he came from. He ran away and I can only guess as to the why. I’ve always loved words and writing. I wrote a couple of books. I share a few photos.

And now, the newest thing I can’t explain “why” is an interest in backpacking. I think part of it is to photograph even more things, and to explore more of the beauty that is less than 15 miles from my house. I’m not planning any cross-continental hikes, but I will be spending a few days or maybe a week in the wild.

I’m looking forward to spring and summer, and so I’m starting to accumulate the backpacking gear now... I have some from years ago, but here’s what I’m getting new... happily, I’ve been able to find some major deals on some of the equipment!

Sleeping bag -- Marmot Sawtooth, rated to 15 degrees. Down, and very ‘stuffable’ to a small size. It weighs 3 pounds and one ounce.

Sleeping pad -- Therm-a-rest Z-Lite. It’s not going to be as comfortable as my futon at home, but it’ll help insulate me from the cold ground. Weighing in at 14 ounces, I hope it’ll make sleeping a litte bit comfortable.

Backpack -- Kelty Red Cloud 110. This thing appears to be large enough to haul a kitchen sink. Unfortunately, the kitchen sink would still weigh a huge amount. The lesson I hope I learn is that I don’t overpack, weightwise. I need enough space, though, to be able to haul bulky late winter/early spring gear (down jackets and such), and also dogfood for the time I’m out there. The pack has an internal frame, weighs six pounds and two ounces (empty, of course), and holds 110 liters of stuff.

Tent -- A Zeus 2 Classic, from Eureka! This two person (hopefully one person, two dog) tent weighs less than 4 pounds, and folds to 6.5x15 inches when stowed away.

Cooking -- Here’s the light, cute, and tiny stove that will make it possible for me to have hot (though dehydrated) meals and morning coffee! A little Esbit solid fuel burner. While my preference would be to have a wood fire, the lack of precipitation out here this winter makes it almost certain that only fools will be lighting fires this summer. It weighs less than 8 ounces and when packed, is less than a 5 inch cube. I love that it’s solid fuel, so there’s no sloppy white gas or alcohol to carry. Better still is that each fuel tablet, enough to boil two cups of water, weighs only 14 grams (a little less than half an ounce).

Water treatment -- Unlike the old days, folks say you have to assume that every mountain stream has been contaminated with giardia and other nasty things. I looked at a bunch of filtration systems (all of them clunky) and some chemical treatment options (all taste bad, and shouldn’t be used for long periods of time) before my friend Katie told me about a relatively new technology of using Ultraviolet light... the bonus of UV treatment is that it kills microbes, protozoa, and also viruses. So we add a Steripen water treatment system to the pack, and in 90 seconds, a liter of sterile water. It weighs in at less than 8 ounces, including batteries (which are rechargeable AA size). Happily, I have a solar recharger for that size battery.

I’ll spare you (for now) the other things going into the pack... but I’m getting excited about this! Once I have the tent and sleeping bag, Angelo and Maggie and I will be ‘practicing’ right here at the Hermitage... it’ll be interesting to see how quickly the dogs adapt to sleeping in a tent. I think we’ll wait for a night that’s in the upper 20s before we experiment.

What fun, huh?

Departures and Arrivals

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:44:51 -0700

I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve been thinking about loss. So many people I know are going through the deaths of parents, of friends, of significant others.

Such thoughts often take me to one of the purest forms of expression: Poetry. Among my favorite poets is Rupert Brooke, who died before World War I was over. I came to know of him through the must unlikely of events. In the days before the internet, I was watching a movie (Making Love) in which several poems were credited to him. I went off in search of more information about him and found very little.

My friend Diane had a spare copy of his collected works, and gave it to me. I soon became obsessed with his poetry. As time went on, my collection of Brooke memorabilia grew.

But back to the subject at hand... loss. This poem came to me in the contemplation of loss, of arrivals and departures of loved ones.

The Treasure, by Rupert Brooke

When colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again,
With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:—

Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them: as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through,
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.

A Plate from Grandma

Sat, 4 Feb 2012 18:45:59 -0700

When I was very young (before my sixth birthday), I was a finicky eater. I was not interested in eating much, so my family resorted to all sorts of tricks to get me to eat. Ice cream, so I’d get some kind of dairy products. Hiding vegetables in every other kind of recipe that they could. Begging, pleading that I would eat.

Grandma (on my father’s side of the family) had a different approach. She just made things feel and look special. Looking back in time, I can see that she didn’t much enjoy cooking or baking by the time I got to know her. She’d spent a lifetime already feeding five boys and a husband, and most of her cooking was done on a gargantuan coal burning stove that also provided heat.

But when we saw her, and we were going to eat with her, she’d pull down a very special plate. The only one of its kind, she said. A plate that my father and uncles had eaten from. Already it was yellow with age, but it had an arched garden gate on it, a stone walkway, and a wonderful old cottage.

Sometimes, she still couldn’t persuade me to eat anything but toast with loads of butter and cinnamon sugar on top of it, but it was served on the very special plate.

Today I made a loaf of fresh bread. Whole wheat, the kind she liked. And when it came out of the breadmaker, I sliced it, slathered butter on it, and sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar. And I ate it off that very special plate. It’s crackled with age, and it has a few cracks that I worry will one day expand and break the plate. And you know what? It still makes the bread taste better.

Thanks, Grandma.

Photography

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:12:38 -0700

With a new and better camera in hand this week, I realized something.

The science of photography is to help you see what is.
The art of photography is to help you see what I see.

If you’re on facebook, you can see a lot of the photos I’m taking by ‘liking’ my facebook page.