Married to Montana

One of the very best things about marrying a girl from Montana is that you never have to reach far for an acceptable excuse to visit Big Sky Country. I first visited the state twelve years ago and have returned again and again to enjoy both family and the great outdoors.

If I could wave a cosmic wand, I'd overlap our least favorite time in New Mexico -- the hot, dry days of June -- with the best weather up North. This year especially we longed to be elsewhere as we experienced a terrible wildfire season statewide. But the Montana summer was brief this year; a long, cool, wet Spring throughout much of the state delayed many favorite pastimes well past June for locals and visitors alike. So once again, our wager that the weather would be damn near perfect in early August paid out yet again as we were treated to daytime highs in the upper 80s with plenty of sunshine for hiking, boating, fishing, attending weddings, beer, and much more!

Summer was in full effect with Flathead cherries and plenty of produce at the Saturday Farmer's Market:

And waves of grass through fields:

In the Swan Valley, Morrell Falls provided cool mist...

... enough to nourish the wildflowers growing on rocks.

At Seeley Lake, the water lilies were popping:

Lazy days with widlife at Flathead Lake:

Our trip closed fittingly with a sunset over the Pintler Range and Butte, America, the former mining metropolis and home of ecorover and about 34,000 other humans:

See you next time, Montana.

Thankful for Quail

I had an opportunity this past weekend to scoot down to the Southeastern corner of the state for a couple of days of quail hunting with my four-leggers. The weather was typically desert New Mexican, requiring both running the heater on full tilt at dawn and the air conditioner at mid-day to cool down the cabin. Such is life with the humidity hovering around zero.

Southeast New Mexico is often called "Little Texas." The oil and gas industry predominates the culture, economy, and landscape here. Large, well-paved highways crisscross the hardpan to move tankers along and get that precious oil moving towards the Gulf. At times, the smell of petroleum-based effluent wafts through the breezes. The plant life that thrives in the area -- mesquite, creosote, cacti and their thorny friends -- beat up indiscriminately on dogs, hunters, clothes, trucks, and sometimes, and when the wind whips up above 50 miles an hour, even your soul can feel a little bruised. This place surely fits no conventional definition of beauty.

Yet, hunting has a transformative quality that can turn these desolate biomes and nasty climates into pure enjoyment. The thorns, enemies, become allies as they provide essential cover for quail. The headwinds, instead of simply slowing you down, become appreciated as they fill dogs' noses with scent. Feet stop hurting as one hurries to catch up with a dog on point. Any real hunter knows these feelings well.

But there's another quality about hunting that I find rather unique. There's a saying among photographers that the key to taking a good photo is "F11 and be there," emphasizing that the most important aspect is not technical but temporal. Maybe this is true for any passion, but hunting is something that motivates me be there. Any hunter knows that a quarry does not harvest itself. Hunting is that reason to get up pre-dawn, possibly suffer through inclimate conditions, and simply be there. The rewards are frequent and come in many flavors. One of my favorite rewards is the magic dusk light washing the landscape in gold in these wide open spaces.

A moment like this captures it all for me. I pause to reflect alone with my dogs that we are fatigued in the best of ways. We have a few quail. Our spirits are refilled with an enthusiasm and a joy that will bring us back early the next morning, and then again, and again. I appreciate that we are in a truly beautiful place, however unconventional it may be.

Teriyaki Columbidae

For those of you lucky enough to have a few extra dove in the freezer in the middle of October, I'd suggest trying out Hank's dead-simple teriyaki recipe.

My first attempt went off rather succesfully... which is saying quite alot. Pictured above are three different columbiformes: two mourning doves on the left, a eurasian collared dove foreground right, and in the back we have a rock dove, or as it's more commonly known, "the pigeon."

It was a nice departure from the tried-and-true trifecta of dove/chile/bacon. While I lack the plucking skills and the patience to match Hank's feast for a crowd, the labor is limited with only a few birds and the bag and the culinary experiment had little cost should it have gone horribly wrong. In the Albuquerque area, Talin Market provides your asian ingredients, although I have discovered everything but the sake at regular chain grocery stores.

Octopus Ballet

Originally posted by at Signals vs. Noise, this clip is too cool not to share. There's something enchanting about a little-known species, in this case, Grimpoteuthis bathynectes, dancing through the hydrothermal vents at the ocean floor.

Footage captured by a team of researchers at the University of Washington.

Fish Fingers

Presented a few months ago with a bachelor weekend, amigo Anthony and I headed for the Jemez Mountains for a few days of fishing. As a rank fly fishing beginner I was looking forward to another opportunity to improve. Learning to fly fish was a goal in 2009 and I accomplished it, I guess, as long as we can consider accomplishment to mean 1) acquiring a rig, 2) learning how to cast a fly line, and 3) catching one and only one trout. For the record, I do, and I did.

Anthony snapped a couple of pics. Hey, there I am. Probably tying on another fly after getting snagged in the encroaching vegation for the who knows how many-ith time. Fishing the small waters of northern New Mexico sometimes requires a hobbit like nimbleness and an aptitude in precision casting. I possess neither quality. Fortunately it doesn't diminish the good times one bit.

 

The mighty Rio Guadalupe begins at the confluence of the Rio de las Vacas and the Rio Cebolla, two smaller streams a little higher up. Not longer after it joins up with the main stem of the Jemez River. The water was cool and the many small trout that call this place home were hungry. We caught many throughout the weekend, most no bigger than the size of your hand.

Many thanks to my friend and guide for the weekend.