Deer on the Road

Heart Mountain, north of Cody, Wyoming, rises over 2,000 feet above the surrounding plain.

Not a big deal, but for the fact that the entire mountain is over 300m.y. older than the plain it sits upon.

How did that happen? No clue. Probably "slud", as Dizzy Dean said. Best explanation. Aliens put it there trails distantly in second place.

If it did slide, it traveled almost 50 miles, speed approaching 100 mph.

Wow.

If Heart Mountain were more picturesque, it would be a World Wonder. But it's much too close to the magnificent Absoraka Range, and is best known for the nearby eponymously named WW II Japanese Internment (prison) camp.

In 2000, either the last year of the previous millennium or the first year of this; depends on you, I went looking for Heart Mountain, see if twenty years improved my insight.

Couldn't find it.

What I found, at dusk, was 50 mule deer on the road.

Which raises a question only slightly less perplexing than Heart Mountain: what the hell were the deer doing on the road? No food there, no water. Seasonably warm, no need for reradiation from the asphalt.

One thing they were not doing is moving. Had to thread the car through and around them, often off the road. Took ten minutes to go a half mile.

There are two dead deer along the roads at Mississinewa. One has spots.

That is just wrong.

There is no sane reason to drive fast on those roads. There are roads for that very close by.

A redtail came up off a dead raccoon and, as I watched, two more flushed. So stunned, couldn't guess as to whether it was a family.

Then, what else?

Surely, more skilled, ardent, and experienced birdwatchers often see three redtails together. For me, the first and only.

As the Republicans continue the war on every thing sane and humane, one must wonder if all have sold a collective soul.

Reportedly, a New Hampshire legislator, voting to defund Planned Parenthood, said "We aren't paying for you to party".

Misogynistic, puritanical, self-righteous, hypocritical self-serving bullshit such as this has always led me to a profane invective.

Not this time.

I am stunned.

Monday I tried to cool my dogs by soaking towels in cold water and saddling them up. My big girl Abbe thanked me by shedding hers on 500 rounds of ammo. I spent all day Tuesday heating towels and spreading the rounds to dry them.

More gunstuff: guy wrote in a mag that it was easier to shoot .40 S&W in a polymer semi-auto than .357 mags in a revolver. That would be false. May have permanently damaged my arm shooting 180-grain rounds with my smallframe Glock. Pistol was jumping out of my hands, leaving bruises.

Next day fired my Vaquero, .357 mag, no problems, no pain.

The adage says "Don't believe everything you read".

Always trusted print, as there is a record.

And along comes a TV show, "Hard Copy". What?

Television is a collective lie. Infomercials, commercials, Fox News, campaign ads.

Marshall Mcluhan was right. It's a cold medium. You have no chance, you have no choice.

Except to turn it off.

Few do.

Dam!

Four glacial epochs shaped the topography of the midwest; Wisconsinian, Illinoisan, Kansan, and Nebraskan. The last, the Wisconsinian, began to fade about 12,000 years ago.

But it took awhile. Maybe 2,000 or so years. Because the yearly average temperatures differed only slightly for the onset and recess of each epoch, less than +/- 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

All readers of these humble offerings are endlessly astute, and will instantly recognize that if such minute variations can cause a sheet of ice two miles thick to squat on Indianapolis, global warming is not a theory but a fact, tirelessly challenged and unrecognized by all who might change its relentless course.

The glaciers were 10,000 to 12,000 feet thick. They leveled mountains in Canada, and deposited fine sand and boulders the size of houses. All those rounded stones you find are glacial deposits. Nothing but limestone and dolostone (white and shaley yellow) are from here. Been here for 400 million years. Everything in north central Indiana, and much of Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, and all the rest, came from somewhere up nort'.

If you go up a few flights in any tall building in Indianapolis and look to the south, you will see an unbroken line of low hills in a gentle perpendicular arc. This is the terminal moraine, the extent of all Indiana glaciation. South is hills and forests, much of it too irregular to farm, concentrations of caves and exposed fossils of animals and plants long gone, and coal.

Why should you care?

If you look at a river map of Indiana, note that the Mississinewa and White rivers are scant miles apart in Wayne County. But the White River trends west, while the Mississinewa, Salamonie, and Wabash Rivers all flow northwest. The latter three drain a vast area of glacial till, measured in hundreds of square miles, not acres. The rivers continue northwest to flood control dams, south of Huntington, east of Wabash, southeast of Peru. The flow continues northwest at short distance, turns abruptly west, before the confluenced flow turns south at Lafayette. The northwest flow is directed by an ancient feature known as the Cinncinnati Arch. This anticline runs from its namesake to Chicago, and is the sole reason for Indiana's gas boom, of a county named Wells, of a town named Petroleum, of working oil wells along SR 13 north of Wabash.

So what turns the rivers west? The Teays River. More correctly, its pre-glacial channel. Believed to be from 1 to 2 miles wide, 500 feet deep, it carved a huge valley very much in evidence today.

A river meanders. This is a result of the Coriolis Effect, imparted by the mad spinning of the planet. It's why rockets rotate, bullets drift, and whirlpools, even as you flush, always rotate in the same direction. It also causes a river, stream, or even a ditch to turn, in a predictable pattern (1 turn in 7 lengths), and erode either bank. Flow dynamics mean water with a further distance to travel must move faster. Water's capacity to carry a load, as sediment, is dependent on flow rate. Such that water in the outside of the meander erodes, as slower-moving water on the inside deposits.

The perfect exhibit of the majesty of the Teays is on display in Wabash.

You enter town through a 50 foot roadcut through Mississinewa Dolomite (400 my bp), cross the Wabash River, than climb across three distinct plateaus, formed from deposits from the slow-moving waters on the inside radius of the turn. And this ancient channel, scoured by the billions of gallons of melting ice, continues through Peru, turning all three great rivers.

Before Indiana senators convinced the Army Corps of Engineers to build the dams in the 50's and 60's, Huntington, Wabash, Peru, Logansport, and all points on the rivers were flooded regularly to an incredible degree by today's mild standard.

I have seen watermarks on buildings in all these cities fifty feet and more above today's regulated flow.

And that's the story of Mississinewa Reservoir, my personal playground.

For about seven years I was a vegetarian. Not a vegan. There are synthetic saddles, WinTec an outstanding value, but mine is a Heiser, over fifty years old. What to do with it? And I prefer leather shoes and boots, and belts, billfolds, and holsters.

I am convinced I cannot survive in this or any other climate that includes winter without wool. If there is a synthetic material that approaches the wonders of wool, I never found it. And now I lack the resources to look.

Following an accident in 2000, I was saddled with sleep apneas, undiagnosed until 2008. I was (and am) too tired to cook much, and I found myself living on cookies and candybars. No complaints, except unstoppable weight gain. It started with fish, and I couldn't unring the bell.

Today I didn't see much in the way of birds, but did see two groundhogs.

Even as I have killed nothing since before Clinton was president, only last week I had considered killing and eating a groundhog.

The recipe I found was detailed. And, rated difficulty was "Insane".

So much for pot hunting.

Driving north of the reservoir, a county road. A redtail left the trees at a home and flew at us, 15 feet up. A big girl, she passed directly through our view. It was simply awesome. I could identify all the feathers, that close. A wonderful gift from a magnificent raptor.

And today, east on the Slocum Trail, nearing Red Bridge, seemingly from nowhere, a turkey vulture, perhaps even lower.

These are huge birds, wingspans averaging over 5 1/2 feet. That low, that close, the wingtips seemed to span berm to berm, shocking, disquieting, heartstopping, all there was in the world.

My collie puppy has a wonderful nose, the best of any of my dogs, ever. We were walking a canopied road, he about 35 yards ahead. He caught a scent, went to my left, whirled back to the right side of the road, circled the scent again, went left, then hit the brush to the right at speed.

It was dizzying just watching.

Later, he picked up something and crashed into tall weeds on the roadside. But there was a small, hidden ditch, and a tiny whump, and the least little yelp, then he was off, running.

Sorry, it was a banana peel moment. Had to laugh.

Saw my first indigo bunting this week. Don't want to wear it out, but can only describe that blue as iridescent. If you know a better word for that deep blue with a radiance of its own, share, and I'll use it the next few times I try to impart the beauty of a singular North American color of stunning clarity and beauty.

I have a problem with calling people pigs, as I think it an insult to all swine, wild, feral, and commercial. Okay, "commercial" is better than the practice deserves, as pigs grown for slaughter live out their "lives" shot full of antibiotics, packed together on a slotted concrete floor over a foul, reeking pit of their own waste.

Enjoy that tasteless pork roast, those bleached chops where the only flavor is in the fat.

So what do you call people who "litter"? That is a cute term for those who befoul the world with their trash and refuse.

And what to call soul-sold legislators who vote to deny women the most basic protections, to strip the aged of basic medical protection, to deny needy children health care, to perpetuate draconian definitions of "terrorism"?

Republicans? Too legitimate, for soulless, heartless, human stains.

What, then?

Bluebird of Happiness

There were several Eastern Bluebirds doing birdwork in and about some low trees as I passed.

Beauty is transcendent, and the beauty of a bluebird makes me as happy as I'm apt to get that day. Love blue & orange paired, and the combination of such a vibrant blue back and deep orange breast is captivating.

There are several exquisite colors in our local birds, commonly the stunning red of a Northern Cardinal, the bright, cheerful yellow of the American Goldfinch, that iridescent blue of the Indigo Bunting, and the intensely bright head of the Red-Headed Woodpecker. No matter how many of each and all I see, I still hungrily anticipate more.

Yet the bluebird is just a joy, one, ten, or twenty.

Saw a sharptailed hawk, flying low and damn fast. 45 mph, easily. Wind assisted. Still awesome.

And a redtail cruising south along Red Bridge, maybe 30 feet up, and I at first thought she was a red-shouldered hawk, which I have never IDed. But nope, wrong tail underside. Disappointed? Hardly. Will never be let down seeing a redtail, ever. Love'emLove'emLove'em.

No indigo buntings, yet, but the aforementioned red-headed woodpecker, too close for glass, and a goldfinch just yesterday, already sporting a spring breeding gold jacket.

Some while ago, in the gloaming, I shot a bluejay in error.

When the subject is nasty birds, the bluejay has a full-time PR staff working to keep them, marginally, below cowbirds.

Didn't matter. That pile of blue, black and white feathers hung a guilt suit in my memory closet I try on several times each year.

I'm a largish (okay, fat) man, whose weight ebbs and flows like the tides. Unlike all my other clothes, that guilt suit always fits. Good cut, perfect drape.

I shot that bird over 20 years ago. Today, I have a nice collection of guns, and shoot one or more every day.

But I have never aimed any gun at any live thing since I killed that bluejay.

Lost Dog, Phantom Deer, Raptors

Easter Sunday my big girl, Abbe, went lost.

My cousin has several acres on the far west side of Elwood, wooded, lots of water, and a creek out back.

Dog heaven.

Three large dogs had been going strong for over three hours. Then Abbe lie down beside my chair and went to sleep. And then she was gone.

Everyone tried to find her, walking, driving, calling, calling, calling, stopping to enquire of everyone they saw, for over two hours.

I grew tired, and frustrated, and went home, just to be doing something. Of course, when I got home there was nothing to do, so I quickly and quietly went crazy. My worry wasn't my loss: I had the rest of my life for that. It was that whoever took her in would find her much too large for a housedog, and put her on a chain or in a cage.

About an hour after I got home, my sister phoned and said Abbe had just come up the drive, and was trying to get in the cars, find someone to take her home.

Where she is, now.

The road from Pearson's Mill runs north from lakeside, up a long hill and levels out to the SRA sign. I like to walk it because it's wide, paved, and there is much of interest for my dogs on both sides. Plus there aren't many hills in north central Indiana: the Wisconsian glacial epoch of

10-12 thousand years ago levelled our part of the state.

As the hill crests, the woods gives way to an 80-acre field to the west. Today, as I passed the treeline, I looked west and thought, "There's deer back there". My second thought was I hadn't seen any deer in that field in over a year, and why should there be any now?

I am a lout. In touch with nothing: nothing spiritual, no sentiment, no emotions, and certainly not any -sides, feminine, gay, artistic.

Okay, I'm aware that everyone has a full set of X (Female) chromosomes: women have two.

Men, instead, have a set of Y's. Difference: that X-leg we're missing contains expressions for sanity, common sense, sound judgement, and nurturing instincts, plus a few others.

Instead, we have a penis.

So I have no explanation for what happened next. As I looked at some sparse cover in the same corner, a quarter-mile away, I saw movement, then more, then four deer broke, ran north a couple hundred yards along a fenceline, and turned west into cover.

The dogs were in a ditch, drinking fetid water, or I'd be hosing beanfield mud off them well into the night.

I saw a red tail soaring high on those warm breezes Saturday, hundreds of feet, higher than I've seen one. Not falcon heights, by any means. Those fabulous feathered missiles will "wait on" at what can only be termed altitudes, 2000 feet, and more, then power into the stoop (dive), reaching speeds estimated from 180 to 220 mph. And hit the target with razor-edge accuracy, striking a lethal blow without harming themselves.

Okay, It's impossible. Both prey and raptor are vaporized from the impact at speeds that will fly any aircraft.

Except not.

And anyone who says falcons do this "by instinct", I will personally come to your house and smack you.

Miles of Bad Road.

The longest walks of my life were separated by over 20 years - a lot then, not much now.

18 and in the farthest north of Newfoundland, perched on a 600 m.y.o. mountain, peering across the North Atlantic with radar eyes, we identified and tracked aircraft coming over the pole and into Can-Am airspace.

At the bottom of our "hill" - not a lot of mountain left after 600 million years - sits St. Anthony, at coast side. The salient quality of the town was a hospital, which meant nurses, which, in 1966, meant young women.

Our site was about 3 1/2 miles up the hill, twisting, turning, climbing, falling, a landscape tortured by powerful erosive forces. We had a couple school buses ran up and down the hill periodically, to haul us, and the dear ladies.

One stormy, besotted night, I took the bus down to spend time with a nurse who was on call. Somehow, I missed the last bus back up. As I had duty that morning, I elected to walk up.

In the interim, the storm had turned into a fully-armed Nor'easter, and the hill was closed. Which happened one other time in my year there. When the winds pegged a 120-knot gauge for hours.

It was beyond brutal. My clothing was adequate, but hardly techno: the gear probably added over 30 pounds to my mass.

The wind was so intense, as I would finally get to the top of one of those many rises, sometimes crawling, as I stood, the wind often knocked me off my feet and I would slide back down the hill I had just struggled up. This went on for hours. When I got to the site, there was an old guardshack about 30 yards from the barracks door. I had to stop inside and sit on the floor, gather myself for that last 100 feet.

I was out of high school ten years before it occurred I needed more education unless I wanted to work for a living. Upon graduation, in the spring of 1980, a friend and I hitch-hiked east to see some friends. His visit went much better than mine. I can be a load, and was.

We were moved back off the road by Officer Friendly of the PSHP at Lancaster. At the onramp, we were picked up by a guy owned a couple record stores in Harrisburg. In the van, he had these three giant pickle jars full of caps. All colors. Like a jellybean guessing contest at a church bazaar, only pharmaceutical wonders.

He never offered to share, which was good. Because he fired a Jamaican fatty, and, after two turns, I was gone. I came too in Harrisburg, and remember two things only. One, Jim Salas immortalized and enshrined himself by terming people who live in row houses "row lifes".

The other: somehow, we agreed it would be a good idea to walk across the I-81 bridge at Harrisburg.

Your map will tell you it is only about a mile.

No way.

The bridge is over 100 feet high. There are 4 lanes of high-speed traffic, including trucks, with all that turbulence. The "guard" rail is for vehicles, the top below your waist.

If you have a sidewalk out front, it's probably 4 feet wide. The sidewalk on the northbound I-81 bridge over the Susquehanna is 30", maybe 36. It is narrowed repeatedly by infrastructure, and the only way past is to turn sideways and inch along.

Which walk was worse? The Newfoundland hillclimb presented much more opportunity for death or serious injury.

But I would do it again before I would cross that bridge.

My horse kicked the shit out of a pig this morning.

A stray found his way into the pasture, and Mister Buckles overcame his flight instinct at something he had never seen before and protected the others.

Of course I feel bad for the pig. He obviously wasn't afraid of the horses, or he wouldn't have gone through the fence.

But I have to be proud of Mister Buckles.

Driving a country road today, came on a mini-drama. Into view was a redtail flying low away from the road. On the road were two turkey vultures. One was standing over a roadkill raccoon, the other watching the redtail fly away. As we passed between them they rose, then settled back to their respective stations.

Always thought vultures were voracious, first-come, first served. (Queue theory, like at Wendy's: no one gets ahead by jumping lines.)

But the one watched while the other dined first.

Pity those who know everything.

This is Not Japan. Get Outside, Now.

Bought a new rifle yesterday. Kind of a kick-around .22, synthetic/stainless, virtually indestructible, just right for shooting at trash on my walks.

Took it down last evening, for cleaning and lubrication. Of course I couldn't reassemble it.

As I lie in bed this morning, much too long, I worked it out. Then put it back together. And, again, it didn't work.

Took it apart, consulted the parts list and diagram, and tried again.

Worked fine. What would take a normal person about twenty minutes only took me a half-day.

This model has had a long, successful run. I traded a quality high-powered rifle for one in the mid-60's, about 45 years ago. Traded the Remington because there was absolutely no use for it in Indiana. Like owning a Ferrari. You never get to wring it out.

My only complaint then was the 10- shot rotary magazine was an asspain to load. Especially when it was cold.

This wouldn't be a problem, except a semiauto can empty a magazine in less than a second.

So I bought four additional magazines. I could load a box of cartridges before I left the relative comfort of my little house on the edge of the prairie (just for you, Britt).

I took it out this afternoon. It's odd. My Abbe is scared by everything, from loud noise to her own shadow. She usually goes to the closet, or the bathtub, during thunderstorms. Nearby shooting will send her to the car, or to the nearest barn. And she even tries to get in any house she can find.

To my surprise, my shooting doesn't faze her.

I put the windows almost down and left the dogs in the truck after our walk, then went back to try the rifle. I heard my collie yelping, which meant one of two things: we had company, or Abbe was out of the truck.

She came over the hill while I was shooting, and stayed, and led me back, albeit with plenty of gap.

On the other hand, my collie is nonplussed by anything. Okay, that's not true. He goes apeshit at the sight of cats and squirrels. An oddity: he has the farthest sight of any of my dogs, and it's phenomenal compared with my collies. It is scary.

He doesn't seem bothered by shooting, yet, when I shoot, he is disturbed for days after.

Dogs. Too smart for us.

There is a theory we didn't really domesticate the dog. That the dog trained us to feed him, shelter him, love him.

Think you're smarter than your dog? He's standing in front of you, barking. What's he saying? You're so smart, you tell me.

So that's why I put the dogs in the truck after our walk, and went back to shoot my new rifle.

I'm there to check if the rifle functions correctly. Five magazines, ten rounds each, a 50-count box of .22 ammo.

I can't find the "round-seated-in-chamber" indicator, if there is one. And the cocking handle doesn't lock open after the last live round is ejected. So I missed count, and ejected a live round.

49 rounds fired. The rifle functioned effortlessly for the first 48. The 49th stovepiped. It didn't clear the ejector, and stuck out straight away, looking like Lincoln's hat.

Shit.

How can one assess this? 48 without a malfunction, yet the last one...?

Shit.

Saw a nuthatch today, one of my favorite (know you're tired of this adjective) birds. The posturing and movement is fascinating, and they are a wonderful blue-gray.

And I'm a certifiable nuthatch myself.

My guess is a white-breasted nuthatch, a guess because I am too dull to put quality glass on my leaving-home checklist. An unscrupulous waste of an expensive tool. Too, while I presume to post about birds, my knowledge is growing, but surely limited. You are welcome to help.

And birds were singing everywhere, singing and calling, celebrating our warmest day of the year.

Great time to get out. The birds aren't just singing for birds, or me. They're singing for you, too.