A trip to Fossil Butte National Monument

 

While working the Cody Show we received an extremely disturbing call. Our friend Val told us that her husband George had passed unexpected. He did not die from covid, but instead from a common disease. When we returned, we learned the sad details.

We met George and Val in Texas and later traveled to their ranch in Colorado. They were the best fly fisherpersons we have ever watched, and they taught us so much about fly fishing for trout that the information dramatically improved our catch, (We release all of the native fish).

Val sold her place here in Star Valley and as she and her daughter in law moved her rv back to the ranch we followed them to help with any unforeseen problems, (everything went well). The route took us past Fossil Butte National Monument, and we decided that when we returned to Star Valley we would stop and see if there were any new exhibits.

On arriving at the monument at first things looked the same, but a new outside exhibit showed how fossil collectors removed slabs containing fish fossils before preparing them in the lab, (if you look closely, you can see the backbones that tell of a fish covered in sediment).

Entering the museum, it was obvious that there had been lots of changes, (besides having to wear masks). The first thing we noticed was a new hologram display that showed how the different fish swam.

By pushing a button of a fish fossil, the fish would appear as a hologram and another display would tell of the number of each of that species type found each year.

Where before a large display had contained huge fossils of fossil palms, it had been expanded and contained many of the other plant fossils found in the lake and along the shoreline. 

Fifty-two million years ago, the climate had been warmer, similar to the climate along today’s Gulf Coast, (don’t forget that our continent drifts each year).

Turtles were common along with caimans and some of the turtle fossils showed holes where the reptiles had tried to eat them, (look carefully at the picture, and you can see the puncture holes).

Fossil mammals were also displayed along with fossil bats and birds that were similar to what we see today.

As with all the museums we visit we made a donation, and also bought tee shirts.

 It had been a nice diversion on the way home and apropos to our friend’s memory. Arriving home, we have since been hit with several days of heavy and much needed rain.

We do hope to take a trip involving camping, fossil collecting, and fly fishing. We had hoped to make this trip with our friends, but they will be in our minds and hearts. Clear skies

A Drive to Grand Teton National Park, along Falls Creek Road

 

It’s been a while since I have written, mostly because we haven’t spent much time outside. The reason, of course, is that the forest fire smoke has made the air quality so bad that its not safe to be outside or exercise. There was a brief respite last week and so Renita and I were able to do our walks, watch the Perseid meteor shower, and even take a drive to Grand Teton National Park.

The Perseid Meteor shower put on its yearly display, and I did go out to do a meteor count early on August.  12^th. I could see all the stars of Ursa Minor and even the Milky Way, so the seeing conditions were near perfect. From 4:10 to 4:27 am I saw nine Perseid meteors and six non Perseids. Doing a little math gave me a count of thirty-two meteors per hour. Not bad but nowhere near the peak.

We have always wanted to take the Fall Creek Road to Wilson. It doesn’t save any time, (a little maybe because of all the road construction), but we had read in the paper that bears were spotted south of Wilson which is where the Falls Creek Road is located.

The first six miles of the road were rough. The best way to describe it as a washboard surface that pounded our truck as we slowly drove upstream alongside Falls Creek. Occasionally a rock stood up and was too be avoided as it could damage a tire or an oil pan on a low riding car, (we were in our truck).

Six miles in everything changed as the county had just finished paving the next eleven miles! It’s a series of curves, one after another and the drive is slow due to the many turns. The road was also filled with people on bikes enjoying the smooth surface and easy ride.

Finishing in Wilson, our next goal was to go into the park and check the berry situation. The bears have had a tough go of it due to the extended drought but after entering Grand Teton National Park, we spotted hack thorn trees filled with berries.

Spotting a moose, we stopped and watched as it fed in a pond, before we walked along a trail past a bear warning sign.

There were quite a few walkers and so we felt safe. One person told us that a back bear had been feeding on the berries, but we never saw any bear sign. Renita, (my fearless pioneer woman), is really good at spotting tracks and scat, while I am constantly looking for live animals. She also listens for breaking branches and has alerted us on past hikes to a nearby bear. (My hearing aids are not as good as her ears). We spotted several pine siskins eating the berries and one posed for a picture.

Driving to the Jackson dam we drove by Willow Flats but didn’t see any sign of elk or bear. Turning north we next drove to Colter Bay to check out the lake’s water level. Colter Bay has been closed and all the moored boats had been removed. The lake is at an historic low.

As we glassed the dry bay a person next to us shouted, “look at the fox”, and turning we saw it casually trot past us before it begin to hunt for any careless ground squirrel. Finding a good vantage point, we saw that the fox had been collared. A radio collar on a fox means the fox has been fed by people!

Once it has been captured and fitted with a radio collar it is moved to a new location. If the fox returns and is fed again, it is recaptured and euthanized. While this may seem harsh it is a safety step to protect the visitors to the park. The rule is simple, a fed fox or bear is a dead fox or bear. They lose their fear of people, (a book I highly recommend is, Death in Yellowstone Park. In one case a woman was feeding a bear candy. Getting bored she said to the bear, “That is enough”, and turned her back and tried to return to her car, which was big mistake as bears don’t speak English).

From Colter Bay we drove out the entrance at Moran Junction and headed back home. It had been a good day of clear skies and we got a check mark form our Fitbit. That night the smoke moved back in from the California, Oregon, and Utah fires and new air quality warning have been reissued.

It’s supposed to get cold here, so we are hoping for rain to dampen the fires. So instead of saying clear skies, let it pour!

 

 

 

 

Hummingbirds, A Great Horned Owl, teaching a fly fishing technique, and making next years cabochons

 

The last two weeks have been filled with lots of indoor and outdoor activities. Mostly indoors as the smoke from the western fires has reduced the air quality so much that we need to stay indoors. Still recent rains have helped, at least temporarily, and so we have resumed our walking, worked on stones, and even got to teach two friends a beginners fly fishing technique.

The hummingbirds have been so enjoyable as we watch them feed and fight over the feeder. In fact, the fighting has been so intense that we bought two more feeders and spread them out. This made it harder for the dominant rufous male to keep the other hummers away. Now we have three males that each try to stake out and claim a feeder.

 

It doesn’t seem to be effective for them as they chase away others only to have other hummers sneak in for a drink. This has caused us to buy more sugar, in fact we have used more sugar this year then we have in quite a while!

Yesterday, while we took a walk around the park, a large owl flew above us and landed in a tall ponderosa pine. Trying to take images with a cell phone was less then satisfactory so we walked back home, got our good camera, and returned to the tree.

Surprisingly the owl was still there. While waiting for it to face us a couple walked over, and the lady said she could talk to it. She quietly hooted several times and it turned to look at us! We have never heard of an owl whisperer before, but we now have one in our park!

When we first saw the owl flying, we thought it was a Great Gray. There are rare but do inhabit the area. Once we got a good look at it, we saw the ears and realized it was a horned owl. It’s a beautiful bird but common here as it is across North America.

Our friends Fred and Becky had expressed interest in learning how to fly fish. On another day of smoke free air, we took them to one of our favorite streams and taught them how to make a roll cast. It’s a simple technique that catches fish and works quite well when the banks are lined with willow trees.

Becky quickly picked us the technique, she had stream fished in Colorado, but Fred struggled at first. He commented several times that he wished he had his Zebco reel. We never did spot or catch any trout as the steam was really low, but we did have several hits from mountain whitefish. They thanked us for the lesson, hopefully next year’s fishing will be better! 

Our shows are over for the year and now it is time to replace those we have sold and to work new stone. One of the new stones is Yellowstone Variscite. It’s mined from a claim on the east flank of the mountains. Just outside of the park. We hope to work some today and look forward to getting on the grinding wheels, (we make most of our cabochons using a Genie Cabochon Maker).

Once we have the stones finished, we will turn them into jewelry while we are in Texas! Clear skies

 

Humming Bird Wars

 

When you think of hummingbirds, you often think of beautiful small birds that meekly live off flower nectar. Birds that are so small that they do not bother anyone or anything. You would be wrong. As they fight at the feeder, they use their bills as lances and attempt to stab each other.

Besides keeping the feeders full we moved on to some must do projects, first of which was to stain and seal the wood of our pergola.

It had been through three winters and it certainly showed the wear and tear. Splitting up the staining chores Renita agreed to stain the cross members while I would do the ladder work. We had thought of using a spray gun, but we are too close to our neighbors, and we worried about over spray and wind drift.

The cross members were easily removed using an electric screwdriver and after placing tarps over our cement patio. we both stained our sections. It ended up only taking us three mornings and we shut down for the hot afternoons.

Finally, we were finished, and our neighbors gave us thumbs up. We even got one from the head of our rv park. Now our next task was to fill our orders from the shows, contact the people and mail their jewelry.

While we have been making orders, the hummers keep us entertained especially the bully of our hummingbird world here, a rufous hummer.

Ruby throated and black chinned hummers would arrive at the feeder only to be chased away by the male rufous. Whenever one stated feeding he would swoop down and threaten and then chase them away. This allowed the other hummingbirds, a chance to sneak in for a drink.

Now the hummers are drinking so much at our one feeder that they drain it in two days. We have never had so much activity, perhaps because the drought has affected the wild mountain flowers.  Two days ago, we got a heavy rain, but it has not helped the smoke as Oregon, Washington, and Idaho remain in a severe drought.

Now we look to the skies and hope for another Monsoon rain. That is how we get our moisture during the summer. Clear skies

 

 

The Cody Stampede and Wild West Art Show, 2021

 

I have not written in a while but there is a good reason. We are in the middle of three weeks of shows and so it has been hectic. During the pandemic lockdown we shut down our business, but we never stopped making cabochons, and adding bails or wire wrapping. Now the question was would the people like our new work?

Our first show was the Alpine Mountain Man Days, and we had the same spot we have had for six years. Its right next to the food vender’s area, one gets tired of the smell of fried food but its where our customers expect us, and we get quite a bit of returning customers.

The first day of the show was a Friday and usually it a slow day. This year there was a steady stream of people and we ended up having a good day. The second day a Saturday, (usually comes after a Friday), and we had a great day. While there was quite a few other people making jewelry, no one does what we do and so we did not have much competition.

Sunday was slow, not a lot of people but we had enough business to end up having a good show total. One of our customers bought an opal ring, and the next day she called us distraught that the quartz cap had separated when she washed her hands. We met her and returned her money, including giving her some gas money to make up for our mistake. To make sure we would not have this happen again we pulled all of our Coober Pedy opals for further testing. We guarantee our work with a lifetime warranty, (which means my lifetime).

Driving to Cody we stopped along the North Fork of the Shoshone River. I had never fished it and  it gets a lot of pressure. Two trout rose to my fly, but I missed both of them, Renita bravely walked through the grass taking pictures and watching for any rattlesnakes.

Arriving at the State Park we set up in our reserved spot. It was a beautiful spot, but it did not have any electricity or running water. Both are highly overrated; we have lived in Wyoming for forty-five years and had already made plans to compensate for the conditions.

Set up was at six pm and as usual other venders had jumped the gun so we could not drive to our spot. Instead, we had to load everything in a wagon and haul it to our designated spot. I got angry but nothing we could do and so I calmed down. Now Cody requires us to have a million-dollar liability policy, and it a good thing as we had one as a sudden high wind blew over and destroyed some other venders’ tents. Ours held in place partly because we had added new weight supports to meet the forty pound per leg requirement.

Each of the three days started with a parade that takes about one and a half hours. It seemed like every politician showed up but there were also many great floats. My favorite was the pack mule team of the US Forest Service. This team is used by the forest service in areas trucks cannot reached.

You can always tell when the end of the parade is near as reenactors dressed as mountain men walked along firing and then reloading their flintlocks. Behind this group a wagon was pulled in which a gatling gun was being fired into the air, (Custer had them but left his back at the fort).

As soon as the parade ended the record crowd headed to the vender area and we were swamped. We set records for each day’s sales and an all time show record, people were so happy to be out, and many wanted a souvenir from Wyoming.

The downside was the weather. The temperatures reached into the low nineties and so we both drank water and iced tea to keep from getting heat stroke. Thank goodness the humidity here is so low. We were also lucky as several brief rains cooled down the air, for a little bit anyway.

Now we are back at our home in Star Valley, and tomorrow we have our last show of the year. After that we will spend quite a bit of time making new jewelry to fill all the empty spots. Clear skies

 

 

 

Grizzly Bear Tracks in the Trail. A short hike in Grand Teton National Park

 

Its about time for our summer shows to begin and so we decided to make one last trip to Grand Teton National Park, hoping to see some wildlife. The heat and smoke from fires, has arrived and while we doubted, we would see and bears, and excuse to go to the park is a good one.

Our friends joined us and as we turned left at the Moose Junction, a moose almost ran into our car. It had been behind a stopped truck, and we did not see it until we almost hit it. Luckily, I was going slow, and the moose escaped unharmed into the sagebrush.

It happened so fast that we did not get a picture and so we continued on making our first stop at the Potholes Turnoff. A man told us that four elk were walking across the flat and while we never did see the trailing pair we did get to watch as a mature bull and a spike, one with its first-year short antler growth, headed for some shade.

They finally stopped when they reached a lone pine tree and grazed there as they had escaped the heat.

We next traveled to all the usual spots, but never did see any bears. Driving to a little-known parking, lot we decided to hike up the first part of a trail. It was dusty and we had little hope of finding any bears, but we all carried bear spray.

As Fred and I went first we scanned for bears, but it was Renita who found the first sign. There in the middle of the trail was a front paw print of an adult grizzly, (note the quarter for size). A little further Becky spotted a hind foot track, but it was not as detailed as the one Renita found.

Flowers were everywhere and we both posed for a picture.

As Renita and I crossed the flowers we found a huge bear scat, from a huge bear!

We were traveling in a group of four, all armed with bear spray, and making lots of noise so we felt quite safe. Bears usually attack persons traveling alone. Remember not to run.

 

Our 50th Anniversary, a weekend of food, bears, and fishing

 

It did not seem possible that we had been married for fifty years. I remember, among other things, my dad dancing the Irish jig down the aisle and of course taking Renita’s hand after her father presented her to me. The rest is pretty blurry, the wedding reception and the reception after the reception. For our honeymoon we went fishing on the Mississippi River and Renita caught the biggest fish, (besides me of course).

Our fiftieth started with a dinner at a great restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming, (thank you Matt), afterwards Matt presented us with matching custom-made fly rods. Both of the kids had gone in on them Each had an engraving that said, “Fiftieth Anniversary”, and each had our sign of the zodiac engraved on it. We had not planned any big trip but instead a week of doing what we love to do, watching wildlife and fly fishing.

The next day we headed to Grand Teton National Park. Of course, we saw elk, deer, antelope and even a moose. In the afternoon we stopped at Willow Flats and as we glassed for bear someone yelled bear and turning, we saw a cinnamon black bear trying to get into a bear proof garbage can.

It tried to rip off the lid, and frustrated it attempted to stick its head inside the container. All to no avail. It moved parallel to the highway, and I followed it taking image after image. A lady was so excited to see the bear that she practically chased it getting so close that I said to the man next to ne that she was dangerously close. He said it was his wife and did yell at her to back off.

The black bear crossed the road, avoiding getting hit by the car jam that had developed and went into the woods. From there we headed north to our turn around point and did not see any more bears. After driving outside the park to see buffalo we returned and made one more drive to Pilgrim Creek. There we were greeted by a bear jam of gargantuan proportions.

It was bear 399 and her four cubs. They were hunting for food, about five hundred yards away, and we were able to get quite a few fuzzy pictures before they headed into the woods.

At one point one of the year-old cubs ran ahead of the others, while the sow and the rest followed slowly behind. Six bears in a day is an exceptional day and so we decided to return the next day.

The day started out great as soon as we entered the park, we became a part of a bear jam that completely blocked the road.

The cars prevented another cinnamon black bear from crossing the road and it stood confused before it ambled off towards the Snake River bottom.

They were no bear team park personal to clear the roads, but the jam finally broke up after the bear left.

We did the usual loops around the park and had a nice picnic lunch on the shore of Jackson Lake. The lake itself is a manmade lake that stores water for the potato farmers in Idaho. It was rebuilt after concerns that it might fail like the Teton Dam did, (The new dam is sitting on six hundred feet of loose material and is designed to float during an earthquake).

The rest of the day was filled with the usual wildlife, just no more bears. We were thankful, as any day you see a bear is a good one, heck any day in the park is great.

We are blessed to live so close to the park and to be able to make so many trips there. 

A few days later we headed to one of our favorite trout streams to try out the new rods. As we headed over Salt Pass a bull moose greeted us with a smile!

The fish were finicky and it took a while before we both caught cutthroats and even a mountain whitefish. She did hook a large cutthroat but it took off downstream and the fly pulled free,

(it was a size eighteen elk caddis). I had bought Renita a new Ross fly reel to match her new rod and she is now laying out line like the great fly fisherwoman she is!

Clear skies