Not just for the birds

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  • All Imperfect Things

    All Imperfect Things

    I got a sick queasy feeling deep in my stomach as we detoured and drove into rural Council, Idaho. The curbside spot right out front of the local veterinary office was the exact spot where we’d parked the bright red Jeep two years before and it was empty and waiting for us. Just like the white crosses along the highways in Montana marking highway deaths, that spot reminded me of the death of Angus that occurred at that exact spot when we drove him there when his cancer could no longer be stopped.

    Nothing bad happened to the dogs to prompt the detour and vet visit that day; we went there to get rattlesnake vaccinations since we had heard reports from other chukar hunters that they have been seeing a lot more rattlesnakes than normal. Despite the controversy whether or not they work or not, the vaccinations might buy us valuable time to get our dogs to the vet in an emergency. Peace of mind if you want to call it that.

    Bob and I each took turns taking one dog at a time into the vet exam room. I took Bloom first. A specimen of pure athleticism and muscles pulled me on his leash and dragged me into the tiny exam room. He’d only been inside this small room one other time, when he was 8 weeks old, so he wasn’t afraid of this place like dogs that make repeat visits.

    I lifted Bloom onto the exam table. He shrieked loudly as Dr. Gardner suck the tiny needle into the area where he’d pulled up the skin on his neck and injected the rattlesnake vaccination. I was embarrassed by his behavior and apologized and blamed his genetics and reminded Dr. Gardner that Angus did the same thing whenever we took him there after several barbed wire injuries needed stitched up, his yearly vaccinations, and nail trimmings. Dr. Gardner remembered, and Bloom — just like Angus during nail trimmings — required all hands on deck including the receptionist to hold him down and try to keep him from clawing his way off the exam table. Bob was outside on the sidewalk waiting for it to be Peat’s turn and heard Bloom screeching at the top of his lungs. He told me later that he wondered if they’d decided to do open heart surgery on him without anesthesia. Peat’s turn wasn’t much better but we were both glad to get that out of the way.

    The next day we decided to hunt in a place we’d gone several years ago. The pullout where we parked near the river to begin our hunt was scattered with old dried up goat heads. Nasty little things, and before we even started we were pulling several of their spiked seeds from the dogs pads as they stood on and hopped around on three legs. Cruel and imperfect plants. In the ecosystem where all flora and fauna have a purpose, I’m not sure what good they do?

    We headed up the rocky slope while there was still shade on this part of the mountain and before the October sun peeked over the ridge. The soil was parched and cracked, and the grasses and end-of-season arrowleaf balsamroot crunched underneath my boots. We both thought it was ridiculous and pointless hunting so early in the season where there wasn’t any green-up and it hasn’t rained for months. About an hour into the climb both dogs seemed to sense birds but had trouble pinpointing them in such dry conditions. A covey of Hungarian Partridge that was probably walking uphill busted wild way above us and flew down the ridge out of sight. It was a good sign despite the dryness and not being close to the water that we managed to see some birds. It was a long way down to where the huns flew so we kept going up and hoped to find them on the way down.

    Half way up

    Bloom with his long legs and spanning gait ranges bigger than Peat but he’s still inexperienced, young, and insecure and will check back constantly for my whereabouts, and when he doesn’t we have to second guess if he’s onto birds. He’s got his faults and is a strange dog still figuring out the world. It will sure be exciting when he does.

    Beep!

    I scanned the tall grass looking for Bloom who I’d just seen ahead of me but couldn’t see him. My Garmin handheld strapped to my hunting pack beeped again, I squinted at the screen which was hard to read with the glare of the sun: Bloom on point 35 feet. I looked around and still couldn’t see him. Bob who was just above me yelled “Can you see him?” I answered back ,”No.”

    I spotted something white buried deep down in the golden grass, I couldn’t even tell what it was. Bob yelled again “He’s right there! Can’t you see him, get up there, get ready!”

    I hesitated. My mind was playing tricks on me and I wasn’t even actually sure that he was pointing birds because Peat, who normally backs Bloom, was still running around. As I got closer, he was sprawled on his stomach in an awkward position flat on the ground. I didn’t know what to make of what I saw and I couldn’t tell if he was breathing and thought maybe he’d been bitten by a rattlesnake or caught in a trap, or something else bad happened.

    I moved even closer and could see that Bloom was shaking. I thought to myself, surely if he’d been bit or something we would know it. Suddenly, a covey of chukar exploded just in front of him. Instinctively, I mounted my shotgun and fired one shot but the birds were almost too close and I missed the one I’d picked out. Bob, who was above me and to my left, fired simultaneously and I saw a chukar fall to the earth. Bloom sprung up from the ground, found the downed bird and quickly put the chukar in his mouth while both of us were praising him. It wasn’t a perfect text book point and we’ve never seen him do that before, and even on the retrieve he dropped the chukar from his mouth while jumping over the grass to Bob like a mule deer.

    We both agreed that in 10 years when we’ve forgotten the details of each point, bird, retrieve over the years, we’ll always remember this one. This imperfect crazy day that Bloom found, pointed, and retrieved his first chukar without any help. And on his belly, no less!

    It was starting to get really hot outside and we slowly descended back down the mountain finding game trails to make the downhills easier to navigate. We got back to truck camper and I tied up the dogs up to the camper in the shade next to me and sat atop our school bus yellow wooden stepping box outside and removed my sweat-soaked leather boots and wool socks and then went inside and started making some sandwiches. From inside, I noticed a gray pickup slowly drive past us then stop and then back up and stop again. The two occupants got out. One of them approached Bob, who was sitting down outside in a camp chair, and introduced himself because he’s recognized Bob and the dogs from reading our blog. Tim and his brother both upland hunters chatted with us for a while while we exchanged stories. It was nice to connect in person with other chukar hunters.

    Right after Tim and his brother left, we sat down to eat our sandwiches. Suddenly a small snake with diamond patterns on its back crawled swiftly out from underneath the yellow box I’d just been sitting on. We both jumped up from our chairs and I grabbed the dogs’ collars and pulled them away from the serpent. It was a baby rattlesnake, and we both couldn’t bring ourselves to kill it and watched slither away and disappear. Why would we end its life when it wanted nothing to do with us?

    All imperfect things have a place in this world.

    The retrieve after the imperfect point
    Bloom’s Day
    Dogs doing their Dorothea Lange look
  • Starts to Be

    Starts to Be

    Do you believe in miracles? –Al Michaels, 1980

    And I, whose childhood
    Is a forgotten boredom
    Feel like a child
    Who comes on a scene
    Of adult reconciling,
    And can understand nothing
    But the unusual laughter,
    And starts to be happy
    –Philip Larkin, from “Coming”

    The animals are endlessly regenerated, and yet they are finite. I am more powerful than the animal because I kill and eat it. The animal is more powerful than I because it can elude me and cause me to starve. The animal is my benefactor and friend. The animal is my victim and adversary. The animal is different from me, and yet it is like me, as much like me as its ancestors were in the earliest time of the world.
    –from Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships, by Robert Brightman

    Hunting can be confusing. Not hunting for two seasons, really, gives you even more time to get even more confused. Yesterday, that confusion shifted planes, and I’ve been trying to make sense of it. Leslie and I have talked a lot about it, and we came to the same conclusion: it was a miracle, and Angus had a lot to do with it.

    We’ve been camped at one of our favorite spots in Hells Canyon for three days. It’s where we scattered Angus’s ashes on our last day as Idahoans. It’s warm, it’s too early for the birds to be here; they’re down near water. But we wanted to “hunt” here anyway, just because. The dirt is talcum. There’s nothing green anywhere, and the two creeks in the area are scant trickles with numerous undulating ridges between them. The first day we hunted nearby, and the only sounds to accompany the hike were our boots crunching old arrowleaf balsam root and other dried-to-hell ground cover. The second day we went to another favorite spot from our past, partly out of curiosity to see what it looked like after a massive fire that had torched the area two years ago. While the burn was hard to see, the landscape had changed entirely: instead of the sagebrush and bitterbrush hillsides and flats — perfect habitat for chukar and Huns — the entire drainage was now a vast sea of dense dried western wheatgrass 4- to 5-feet tall and next to impossible to walk through. Scarce of partridge. Still, we were out with the dogs.

    The third day, yesterday, we went early because of the heat. Another favorite spot, a ridge we call “The Ridge.” We had low expectations but wanted to do more reminiscing, I guess. Leslie, who’s not fond of grouse hunting, said, “Well at least we should get into some grouse on the north-facing timbered slopes.” We saw one. The dogs, as usual, worked their butts off, but Peat was feeling the heat and had his range thirst-shortened. At one point, when we both realized we’d forgotten to bring any food and it was really heating up, we nearly turned around. We decided to circle one more knob before heading back. As we came near a flat at the apex of the last circle, our Garmins told us Peat was pointing about 150 yards away. I said, “He’s probably lying down in the sage shade.” But then I added, “Never doubt your dog.” As we inched closer to Peat, still unable to see him, he remained on point, while Bloom was still cruising somewhere. As I got to about 30 yards from Peat, still hidden in the sage, Bloom suddenly stopped and pointed. Just then I saw two creatures on the ground in the open near the sage. They were big, and for a moment my brain didn’t know what to do with them. A second later my brain told me they were the first chukar I’d seen in nearly two years. And in that same moment they flew. I traced one of the two birds with my barrel as it ascended and I fired and watched it drop. Then I heard Leslie yell, “I got one!” Waves of chukar kept launching and I just watched. There must have been at least 60 birds. I understood nothing but the ballet of dogs and birds and started to be happy. For me, this is the best moment of hunting and why I like it. Jouissance.

    None of those birds should have been there. They shouldn’t have been anywhere near. Leslie fired one shell I had hand-loaded two years ago with steel #6 shot buffered with Angus’s ashes. His soul knew we were here, and he put those birds there for us, even though every member of the super-covey probably thought, “What the hell are we doing here?” And, consistent with Angus’s deadpan humor, he knew we’d need at least 50 birds for a chance at two. Dogs are sanguine like that.

  • Blooming

    Blooming

    …and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.
    –James Agee, A Death in the Family

    We’ve had Bloom a little more than a year now. He’s an odd bird. I have to remind myself that it’s all relative. Everyone who’s had more than one dog compares the new dog to one(s) before. It’s a little unfair but we can’t help it. Of the four Brittanys, he’s the uniquest dog we’ve had so far. Even my first, Glenna, fit some prior description I had of “dog,” plus I had data from my brother’s Brittanys, and she didn’t deviate enough to warrant pause. Angus almost immediately improved on a known thing, by a good stretch. Peat initially (and easily) fit the antichrist character. Good to have got that learned. But Bloom, Bloom. Bloom. Whom?

    We named him after a fictional character we like, Leopold Bloom, from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Joyce’s Bloom is a decent chap, one of the decentest. We thought, hoped, the new puppy would live up to his name. So far, I’d say he’s a good man, boy, dog. But it’s taken the entire time we’ve had him to gain even a preliminary idea of who he really is. He doesn’t show a lot of self-awareness. And there’s something in his eyes that is more like nothing than I’ve seen before. He seems, just lately, to be trying out patterns. We’ve worked with him as consistently as we can, but might as well have named him Enigma.

    Still, we love him well. Maybe once we spend time with him on the chukar hills we’ll be able to tell him who he is, but I kind of hope not. I’m finding I’m admiring the mystery a little bit, just as I admire how he moves. He does have the “Angus lope,” but with even more power.

    We’ll have more on him soon. For now, here’s a look at him growing. A scene near the end of the video shows Peat and Bloom playing in the yard during snowfall last Christmas Day. Leslie took the video while I played the pipes downstairs.

  • Yay

    Yay

    Soon we’ll head east to the west we’ve missed. Chukar season is on in Idaho, and we’ll have tried-and-true Peat and apparent prodigy Bloom with us in our travels to new (for us) and familiar places. We are excited. I’m so excited I made a silly little video of Peat. I’ll probably post one of Bloom soon, too.

    Enjoy.

  • The End and the Beginning

    The End and the Beginning

    NOTE: I began this post in April, part way through my last quarter as a teacher at Neah Bay High School. I didn’t finish it for some reason. Now I want to get it out.

    In the grass that has overgrown
    causes and effects,
    someone must be stretched out
    blade of grass in his mouth
    gazing at the clouds
    — Wisława Szymborska

    It’s been a tough year for me out here away from birdland. I’ve missed so much and have done a terrible job dealing with that frustration. I’ve turned self-pity from a Georges Seurat triptych to El Capitan. Nothing gets through, and you know it won’t, so you stop trying.

    Or you should.

    But I haven’t, even though I’ve told myself a thousand times I should. Leonard Cohen puts it this way:

    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That’s how the light gets in

    Until this afternoon I’ve all but ignored that light (despite focusing, obsessing on the cracks). Right now I’m sitting at my desk in my classroom overcome with overdetermined light and a few tears shed by an epiphany coming from a conversation with a student about the last stanza of Wisława Szymborska’s 1993 poem, “The End and the Beginning.” “…someone must be stretched out / blade of grass in his mouth / gazing at the clouds.” The poem is about recovering from the destruction of war. I hadn’t read the final image correctly, and I hadn’t even chosen the poem but rather used it as one of the readings in a canned textbook unit (something I’d never done until now, which — if you’re a teacher — will tell you something about my state of mind). And so here comes the student, trying to finish writing answers to the questions in the textbook, and we worked through it together, and we both saw the light at the same time. Dead center in the stanza is the word “must,” which is a word we must become desensitized to in order to endure parents’ and teachers’ and authority figures’ orders, or to make haphazard guesses as to whom is knocking on the door (“It must be the postman…”). But everything depends on that word here because, without it, the thing that signifies recovery can not happen. Someone must be lying there on the grass without a care in the world.

    When I was about 10 years old, still disgusted by the two-year-old fact that the Beatles had broken up, I edged up the alphabet to the next good thing to listen to: Beethoven. My favorite composition of his is the adagio to his string quartet Opus 132, the “Heiliger Dankgesang,” which he wrote after recovering from a near-death experience. If you haven’t heard it, it’s worth a listen because I think anyone can hear the joy of a kind of breakthrough, and we can all use that kind of experience from time to time. It was a rough year, two years, for everyone, and we’re still not out of it. Remember that, and remember to remember that you yourself are not exempt from the need for TLC. There were many times this past year when I felt I’d reached the end, and things like this string quartet, or like the experience with the student (I wish I felt I had the space here to do justice to that moment, and to the student himself) cracks open the chance for a beginning. We all must have those moments. They’re everywhere, but sometimes hard to see.

    So I’ve missed birdland, as I knew I would but didn’t know how much it would matter, and now see the chance to return to it, wherever or whenever that may be. All the responses to my previous post (“Granted“) were so kind and thoughtful and sincere and helpful. They’re the light that’s got through the crack, and I’m so grateful for it. I’m also just now realizing that after Beethoven, the next musical light that came on for me was just up the alphabet a bit: Bird (Charlie Parker). Which makes me think of Steven Feld’s amazing book on the Kaluli Indians of Papua New Guinea (Sound and Sentiment), whose existence is wholly wrapped up in the sounds of birds in the rain forest they live in (they rarely actually see the birds because the forest is so dense), so much so that when they describe those sounds they weep. Tears of joy. At the end of his time living with the Kaluli, Feld played them a recording of Charlie Parker, telling them he was called Bird. When they heard the recording, they wept. Tears of joy. I can hear the chukar calling.