The Field Notes section chronicles our adventures at home and abroad in this daily online journal. We have compiled an Archive of past years which you are welcomed to access at the bottom of this page by clicking HERE. As the seasons sometimes pull us in multiple directions for extended spans of time, please understand if updates are not daily (or even weekly if on long adventures but be rest assured―we'll catch you up as soon as we return!

12/29/08

Wind is blowing like the dickens! It is warm though... a blistering 32F... this feels like a tropical heat wave after the frigid temps of the last few weeks. Heading out to Lamar Buffalo Ranch tonight to spend the next few days with a great group of folks from Boise, ID skiing and wildlife watching.

A couple sketches from home before departing.

12/28/08

Wolves and other wildlife were on the agenda for today as I spent all of the daylight hours with Kirsty and Alan Peake and their family who are visiting from the UK. The bull elk were out around Lava Creek and several groups of cows and bison were scattered from Mammoth to Lamar. We stopped near Mammoth as the Canyon Group of wolves have been in the area for a few days - making kills in the Mammoth Hot Springs area. No luck, but we did get a nice look at the Druid Peak pack splinter group known as "302's" group. They had made a kill near Tower Falls and we had great viewing as these wolves (5 black and 3 gray individuals) romped and played in the snow with alternate bouts of chasing the ravens and eagles off of the elk carcass that they had been feeding on. This group of wolves consists of 5 Druid Pack wolves and 3 Agate Creek pack wolves. With the level of upheaval in the northern Yellowstone wolf packs, it is hard to know if this group will now become a territory holding pack or not? The Leopold pack has mostly fallen apart, the Agate pack is down to ~4 wolves, the Druids are split up, the Slough pack has fragmented to all quarters and the Oxbow pack is in a similar state of disrepair.... it will be an interesting winter in the wolf world this year.

12/25/08 Merry Christmas!

Jenny and I went for a ski up Republic Creek near Cook City, MT. Snow was amazingly good and the temperatures mild. We were the only ones on the trail and the dogs just reveled in the fact that they could leap off of trail and literally, have to swim through the several feet of white powder.

He's still on the carcass... but today was the last day... our "Christmas grizz" strolled on down the road to points east.

Jenny and the pups ready for a Christmas ski near Cooke City, MT, AND this grizzly bear has been on this carcass near Geode Creek in the Park for several days now... long after most of his species have nestled into their dens.

...and some bull elk we spotted in Round Prairie on the way back from our ski...

12/20/08

Sketches of the pups...

A few pencil studies of the Casey & Jasper snoozing.

12/19/08 Elk hunting

We are nearing the end of an extended elk hunting season up the Valley. We were unsuccessful at getting a deer or elk this year and today was a continuation of that theme. Left the house before light a little before 6am, got the the trailhead at 7am, skied into the area I was interested in hunting and dropped the skis, poles and sled off and put on my hiking boots. Covered ~4-5 miles one foot and ~1000' in elevation and roughly a mile in and a mile out on skis. Some recent sign but not visuals, a wonderful day out though, chickadees, nutcrackers, the occasional croaking raven and commanding views of the mountains and basins from high above - makes for great weather watching too. Snow squalls moved in and out all day. I just feels good to move about the landscape in a way that you have complete, or near complete knowledge of everything around you, taking a step at a time or one every 5-10 minutes... one becomes immersed in tree squeaks, the sound of snow crystals bouncing off juniper bows, swirling flakes of white in eddying winds (which makes stealth a challenge with a quarry that holds its sense of smell above all others), deer tracks going uphill, longer strides of elk going a similar direction, stream gurgling under ice, the tap, tap-tap, tap of a woodpecker, the flicker of bird wings through fir limbs in the distance, the musky odor of elk urine in snow. 3:15pm back at truck.. actually friends' Shawn and Missy's truck considering the events of yesterday... this may be the end of my season for 2008.

12/18/08 Lamar visit, cougar kills, mangy wolf and torn brake line...

Jenny and I came back from Lamar Valley this morning after having breakfast with the Yellowstone Association volunteers at the Buffalo Ranch. I was quite bummed with the overcast light yesterday when looking for a landscape scene to sketch in oils but, this morning the Valley was bathed in liquid, brilliant sunlight. Though I didn't break out the paints, I tried to absorb into my mind's eye, the striking image of morning illumination shooting beneath a cloud veil of blue-gray above. When driving out of the Valley I caught a glimpse of the blood spot in the road near the Yellowstone Picnic area - not to distant from Tower Junction. This is the same frozen, red gore that I had spied yesterday. The small splotch of frozen crimson was not from a road-killed animal as I had assumed... word through the grapevine alluded to the fact that this was the remnants of a cougar-killed elk. In driving by this morning we did spot the carcass not 60 yards from the road, smothered in ravens and magpies amid the sage brush with an attendant coyote. Apparently some visitors did see the cougar near the kill yesterday or the day before going up the side of Junction Butte.

This evening Jenny and I drove up Eagle Creek behind the house to go skiing. Just past the first Creek crossing there was another carcass of some kind. We could make out many magpies, ravens and at least 3 golden eagles - one of which was very close in a sagebrush plant. As we rounded the bend near the carcass Jenny yelled "there!, going up the hill!" I brought the binoculars to my eyes in time to see a very sad looking gray wolf that was nearly half naked with mange. The poor thing's back half was almost devoid of hair including its thin, almost rat-like tail. It stopped several times as it went up the hill, looking back at us over its ragged, furry shoulder. Dan Stahler from the Yellowstone Wolf Project was up that way and we mentioned the wolf we saw. He said that several wolves have been up in this area this year, many of them mangy. Members of the Slough Creek Pack (wolves 590 & 527), the Casey Lake Pack and possibly some Leopold Pack members have all  been using Eagle Creek as a hangout over the last few months. ¶ As luck would have it, our ski outing was not to be. We climbed up the road towards the upper gate of the Eagle Creek Road in 4x4, the truck bogged down in the dry, sand-textured snow that is so typical of the frigid conditions of late. On went the chains, but as often happens, they were loose from putting them on after only getting stuck. The chains worked to get the truck out of the mire but unfortunately, not only did the cut through the snow but the tire chains also tore loose our brake line from one of the brake calipers of the truck... amber brake fluid emptying into the white powder. Without brakes, I had to still maneuver the truck through the mealy snow enough to back up into a 3 point turn... without going off into the swampy depression beside the road grade. The dogs bounded and played as Jenny and I labored to dig, extract, chain, drive and turn our rig around... at least somebody was having fun. Free of the snow trap, with pups loaded up and minus functional brakes, we milked the emergency brake all 7 miles, and ~1000', home where I dropped Jenny off and milked them another 2 miles down to the Tire Iron garage in Gardiner. Jenny had dinner ready by the time I borrowed a friend's vehicle and did some grocery shopping.

12/15/08 - oh no, the pipes...

It is FREEEHEEEHHHEEEHEEEZZZIN'!!!!  It has gotten quite chilly for so early in the winter season. The house thermometer read 55F when I got up this morning & yesterday - that was inside, the outside temps were close to negative 18F. The heater was running on and off all night and the dogs huddled closely on the bed. Just as I started to begin feeling all atop of things, so far as winterizing goes in this new house goes, I walked out to check our detached laundry shed. We have our washer/dryer, chest freezer and hot water heater in this detached shed adjoining the western side of the house. Well, all seemed in order -  until I checked the shed last night around 9:30 pm. Before I even got to the laundry shed the sound of waterfalls became audible... we don't have any waterfalls... until now that its.... a pipe going to the washing machine blew out and water was spraying all over the upper floor of the shed to a depth of ~1" deep when I opened the door and it was spilling down through the air vent/radiator onto the floor of the lower level. Upon opening the door to the lower level I saw plastic buckets and paint containers bobbing about in water that was ~15" deep... almost to the level of the wall outlet. What followed next could easily be referred to as 'a dance of mild panic'... followed by shutting down of electrical breakers, high-speed bailing with a 5 gallon bucket (I figure that there was easily 200 gallons of water removed by the time it was all said and done) and my pant legs became frozen stiff from the level of my boots to my knee caps amid the sub -12F air like some ready made shin guards for a midnight game of cricket. To make things even more delightful was the realization that the water pump and the power to the laundry shed were on the same electrical breaker switch... meaning that I could not turn the power on to keep the space warm (lest we lose the hot water heater and all other plumbing within the shed) without starting water spraying all over again (apparently the main water shut-off is down in with the well parts; which is all under snow and the metal lid which is frozen down atop of it all). So, long about 12:30am I got to bed after rigging extension chords and other paraphernalia from beneath the dirt crawl space of the house to keep the shed warm until morning when I could fix the pipe. ¶After waking up every half hour all night - expecting the next stage of frigid doom, I got up ~7am this morning and the dogs and I drove the 58 miles to Livingston, mailed some Christmas packages and stocked up on plumbing supplies and turned around drove 58 miles back and patched the broken pipe...  So far so good - the fix is holding.

12/11/08

A nice day out hunting in the Gallatin National Forest with friend Aaron Schuerr... no luck with the elk but a great day out, in great country, with great company....

Aaron Schuerr and I having lunch high up on the 'hills' of the Gallatin Mountain Range.

12/10/08

Just got back from a jog with the pups. Just as we started out for our morning exercise a chorus of wolf howls echoed out of the Eagle Creek basin just north of the house. I figured they were no more than a mile from where we stood and made a concerted effort to keep the dogs close at hand. Wolves have been known to kill dogs separated from their people, but just like having to follow the rules of the automobile world, there are rules to getting along with ones wilder neighbors. The wolves continued howling for a few more minutes and we continued our run without incident. Oh, and Jasper and Casey each found a wonderful elk and deer foot, respectively to carry home and munch on. As as side note, the Canyon wolf pack killed an elk next to the Mammoth Hot Springs Chapel two mornings ago and friends has some close viewing of them yesterday morning just east of the Chapel where law enforcement moved the carcass to.

Working on a few plasticine models of deer but did some drawing

from video footage of ones observed in Texas last week.

12/9/08

Just working on some drawing in the studio while awaiting the wood stove to do its work - in order to make clay more 'sculptor friendly'.

Quick (~20 min) self portrait on paper and one of Jenny from last night...

12/2 - 12/5/08

I spent a few days in Texas, a bit west of San Antonio, visiting with the great folks at the McCall/501 Ranch near Uvalde. The main goal for the trip was to get some white-tailed deer reference material and view the location of a proposed/upcoming sculpture. Dwight, who manages the Ranch, was a very cordial host, and while there, he got me set up to view several deer in the wild and in their breeding program on the ranch. Thanks again Dwight!

Sunset over Texas brush country as viewed from a hunting blind where I watched some deer one evening.

Sketch of a young doe's head and ear from Texas.

11/29/08

Jenny took the "puppy kids" for a hike up by the Blanding Station on the Forest Service property above the house... both Casey and Jasper proved themselves formidable hunters yet again be each harvesting a fine specimen of a deer leg (severed by a hunter and left behind).

Here's Jenny's thoughts from the day --I was feeling restless on a lazy Saturday afternoon and decided to take the dogs on a jaunt around the forest service land adjacent to the house. Because there are still a lot of hunters in the Eagle Creek area and we couldn’t travel too far afield, we stayed in the immediate proximity of the Blanding Station (photo).  Every time I walk in the fields and brush around the house I’m struck at how lucky we are to have such a place to explore right outside our backyard. We didn’t see any deer on this walk, although there was plenty of sign, including deer legs Jasper and Casey discovered in the brush. Jasper, the “great hunter”, is a master at finding even the most obscured dead animal parts. No deer or elk leg escapes his attention, and the more stinky and decayed, the better.

Beautiful contrasts of light and dark at the Blanding Station and Jasper posing with his trophy...

11/27/08

A few sketches done as gifts for folks who helped us out on trips in the past few months...

Sketch of Lincoln after Augustus Saint-Gaudens bust of Abraham (left) and a sketch of a bighorn sheep observed on Wilcox Pass, Jasper Park, Alberta Canada.

11/18/08 - 11/22/08 Monday to Saturday

Fun in Chicago!

Cannot wait to get back to Chicago after spending the last several days there with Jenny! Were initially invited out to participate in a Yellowstone Association event hosted by Phil and Patty Washburn and Lou & Barb Lanwermeyer at the Union League Club on Jackson Avenue (this was a classy venue with a remarkable art collection!)... right across the street from the Obama headquarters. I gave a presentation on the Park's wildlife for the Association event followed by two programs for local schools north of the city. What a great town... friends Phil and Patty Washburn were kind enough to let Jenny and I stay at their loft in the city. The loft gave us very easy access to anything and everything that a couple of 'city-deprived' souls could wish for... we could walk, ride (the train), take a taxi to almost anything from downtown to the shores of Lake Michigan; this included a trip to the Chicago Field Museum and the Chicago Art Institute with my mom and friend Casey who just happened to be in the area the same time we were.

Pictures from bottom, clockwise around: entryway to Field Museum, illuminated advert for Aztec exhibit inside, world's most intact T. rex skeleton named "Sue," entryway to the Art Institute (both shots of entryways in dark due to the fact that we closed both places down) and on of the two lion sculptures by Edward Kemeys (originally done for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition). After getting home I picked up my copy of David Wagner's wonderful book on American Wildlife Art, published by that very same name, by Marquand Books - it has a wonderful section on Edward Kemeys and a very detailed account of  the life and works of this often, overlooked American sculptor.

With so much endless possibility we were caught between 'the rock' of discovering where everything was and 'the hard place' of not nearly enough time.   As fast-paced as the city is, we found it refreshing to be in the company of so many people from so many difference walks of life, vocations, ethnicities, ages, religions... so far from the 'Christo-Caucasian' monoculture that defines much of Montana. I did manage to carve out a few moments of 'quiet' between touring, visiting and enjoying the company of Jenny, Mom, Casey, Barb and Lou. A few precious, but chilly, minutes out on the 3rd floor balcony of the loft one morning brought forth a universe of sound and sensation. Scribblings in my notebook between bites of chilled toast and banana went something like this - "clack of the Metra train, whiz of cars and growl of bus, smell of chocolate wafting through (from Blommer's factory), people walking fast, a slow one pauses to tie a shoe, only one horn blows (I'm a little surprised by this), all against the background din of a pulsating urban heart, red brick, lighter brick, green street lamps, nude trees radiating from circular dirt portals, multilayered life, street on street, skyscrapers on trash (I am told that from State Street to the shore of Lake Michigan is underlain with the city's forgotten landfill)... brakes screech below, overcast above."

 Just a few of the many works that inspired me during our brief tour of the Chicago Institute of Art. Top row from left to right: Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter by Francois Rude, Model for statue of Louis XV by Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Nathan Hale by Fredrick MacMonnies, detail of Amor Caritas by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Standing Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, Lady in Green and Gray by Thomas Dewing, The Sun Vow by Hermon McNeil, bust of Anne-Marie-Louise Thomas de Domangeville de Sérilly, Comtesse de Pange by Jean Antoine Houdon; bottom row from left to right: Four Evangelists by Alessandro Vittoria, Brittany Town Morning, Lamor by Dennis Miller Bunker, detail of The Herring Net by Winslow Homer, The Wedding at Canna by Giuseppe Crespi, Le Silence by Auguste Preault, detail of hands from Standing Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French,

Blue Chicago - (11/23/08 entry by Jenny) Ah, the aliveness of the city! While George was off giving lectures on Wednesday and Thursday, I had the chance to roam the city. Walking through the bustling downtown streets was simply amazing. I’m not sure what I found so incredible about it - the sheer number and diversity of people purposefully traveling through the streets, the public art everywhere, ethnic restaurants on every corner, sirens and trains and car horns, or simply the sum of it all into one big mass of energy. On my walking adventures I encountered a street musician playing Amazing Grace on the saxophone beneath a heroic King Lear sculpture on Michigan Ave, the mysterious “bean sculpture” in Millennium Park, and flags waving in the sunlight on the bridge across the river on Michigan Ave.

Shots taken by Jenny while out and about in downtown Chicago: Right to left - Street musician beneath King Lear sculpture, reflection in Millenium Park Cloud Gate Sculpture, flags on the Michigan Ave. bridge across the Chicago River,

11/13/08 - Thursday

Spent the day delivering mail around the Park today with friend Carolyn Duckworth. With Yellowstone's roads closed until enough snow builds for over-snow travel this winter (if the Park is even open for winter travel this winter... but this is another issue the politicians have yet to figure out) we dropped off letters and packages to all the outposts in the interior. We took cameras, binoculars, spotting scope and sketch pads if any neat things came up along the way. Largely uneventful, but wonderfully enjoyable (to be in the interior with no one else beyond rangers and maintenance staff), we made our way from Mammoth to Canyon Village, Canyon to Lake, Lake to Grant, Grant to Old Faithful, Old Faithful to Madison and home. We counted duck species, geese and swans along the way, herds of bison in their thick winter coats in Hayden Valley and at Lake. The sun was out for a majority of the day turning the snowy roads to slushy lanes, and when the sunlight was interspersed with many quick-moving clouds, it made for wonderful displays of color and shadow across the land.

11/12/08 - Wednesday (entry by Jenny)

We were relaxing after spending the morning fruitlessly tromping around Eagle Creek hunting. All of a sudden our pups, Jasper and Casey, went nuts barking and carrying on at the front door. George got up to see who was there, and was surprised to see a young mule deer buck staring in at us!

Unexpected guest at our front door... mule deer buck looking at Jasper... looking at the deer.

11/4/08

A very hair raising run with the pups this election day morning... As we rounded the bend on the main road north of the house I heard a "woof!" and limbs breaking, and brush shaking... With the amount of commotion I was expecting to see a moose or large elk bound from the shaking brush that was only ~20 yards to our right and down below the guard rail. I paused long enough to see the brush start moving back in our direction - and a low, hump-backed form at the center of it...  A GRIZZLY! Luckily the bear stopped and we backed away hoping that it wouldn't come up onto the road after us... but not before Casey put her front feet up on the guard rail to sent a few barks its way. I quickly pulled her down and got out of there. On the way back we made a very wide loop off the road so we didn't have a replay of events. The dogs noses went up in the air like they smelled a carcass when we did the detour... this is probably what the bear was protecting down in that swale. Moral of the story is - we'll be jogging with our bear spray from now on.

9/25/08 -  9/28/08

One could not ask for a better backpacking outing.... Jenny and I spent the last few days in the southwest corner of Yellowstone Park - an area known as "the Bechler" and/or "Cascade Corner". I cannot think of a more perfect union of welcoming weather, stunning autumn color and the best company to be found - my darling Jenny alone. As luck would have it, our friends Mike and Ashea were hiking this route at the same time and we were able to swap vehicles which allowed each couple to through-hike the route and come out at our own car. Jenny and I hiked from the Old Faithful area out the south-western corner to the Bechler Ranger Station and Mike and Ashea did the reverse.

All smiles at the start of our four day backpacking trip (Jenny), left, something/someone to detour around in the trail- a bull bison (center) and an image of Lonestar Geyser cone between eruptions where to took a short rest.

Our first campsite was along the placid backcountry lake by the name of Shoshone Lake. Fine dining of macaroni and cheese with chocolate bar desert was on tabs for the evening. So far as we could tell, we were the only ones camping on this section of the Lake this night. Having left the departing pair of day hikers along the route in, we were left to enjoy the passing of day with the chorus of bugling elk that sounded out from all quarters. The rut is still in 'high tide' here and with dusk comes a heightened level of activity with much of the reverberating calls coming from the western shore of the lake and associated geyser basin.

Image of Shoshone Lake's western shore in the morning light.

Day 2 was a lot of fun, but a long hike but a wonderful treat at the end.... "Mr. Bubbles" - the hot spring adjacent to the Ferris Fork campsite where we spent the night. It is hard to beat a good soak after a long haul! Images above, clockwise from bottom left: Jenny and I in "Mr. Bubbles" pool, the moose that came through camp at breakfast on Shoshone Lake, bacterial streamers in hot spring runoff channel and an active spring along the trail to the soaking pools.

As the sun began to drift low and away Jenny and I made it to Bechler Meadows on our third day. Light across the cured grasses, lazy water and distant peaks made us pause, then pause again, stop and point, snap photos, absorb and stand in silent awe.

Jenny caught me making some sketches of Colonnade Falls (left and center) and I snapped this shot of her after we made our last of five river crossings (right).

9/19/08 Friday

At long last there is a hint of quiet in our lives, in the season. We sit on the deck eating pancakes and turkey bacon... the aroma of which drew me out of the hammock and my westerly view of sunlight shards through cottonwood trees. Sitting  upon the deck, Jenny, the dogs (lying flat and partly draped across our feet) and I and watch the day go down. The sky over Bunsen Peak and Mammoth Hot Springs in the Park is a cascade of warm pastel colors ascending from a smoky pink along the tree and ridge tops to a subdued salmon pink, up to the zenith amid illuminated hints of green, green-on-cobalt, soft blue and rising amid clouds of smudged violet. We have spent enough evenings now on our porch, gazes resting upon the southern sky, to have a small window in to the rhythms of this place around us. As dusk passes we find the blackbirds - silent, ebony squadrons of fliers - winging in groups of five to twenty diagonally across the hills bound for somewhere to our north and east. On this night Jenny finally verbalized what we both have been thinking for the last few weeks... "wonder where they are going?" Amid their nightly sorties come loose gangs of robins and those black and white clowns-of-the-air - magpies; dragging foolishly long tails they give the impression of little dragons - ready at any moment to spit out a magpie-sized ball of fire - clearing their throats before settling into a tree or cave. Sunbeams drop lower over the ridges of Electric Peak and lays a cool, dark blanket over the land. For the first time to date I saw Bunsen Peak for something more than a lumpy hill, something more alive, tactile and familiar; the outline of a sleeping dog - a Lab if you will, its back to us and its head toward the Tetons. From east to west the first pitch is undoubtedly hips - a pelvis, the next swollen ridgeline - a ribcage, and lastly the highpoint, a shoulder, a pointed scapula connected to the outstretched foreleg of a ramp to the west towards Golden Gate. So... with all light fading and color a thing of memories, the dogs all lay down, the sun rolls upon its cheek and we, and our empty plates, retire for the evening.

9/4/08 Thursday

Sort of gloomy weather and quite cool today. The dogs and I walked Jenny to the mailbox to see her off to work. With the scarcity of heat she's riding her bike down the hill to work this morning. Elk tracks have beaten the dirt to powder underneath the apple trees at the Blanding Station. The dogs hunted bones with reckless abandon and I did the same yanking out spotted knapweed in the pasture of the Station. American robins are sailing around in raucous flocks of 10-20 individuals... looks like they're getting the migratory restlessness.

9/3/08 Wednesday

Working in the studio early this morning I heard the whistle of a bobwhite quail... no, we don't have bobwhites here... that's Jenny's and my call to each other when separated. So, I poked my head out of the door to see her standing near the open door of the house in about the same position. She was pointing down by the creek... there were 2 bull elk, one in velvet with a small rack and a 'rag horn' bull with his velvet gone. I walked quietly over to the front door and got the camera and snapped a few shots. I had seen some large animal beds in the grass there a few days before while pulling thistle and hounds tongue... it must be these guys and their lady friends!

The first elk we've seen grazing in the yard at the new house... and a shot of the new studio interior... keep watching as it is about to get a makeover.

Amazing sunset this evening!

9/2/08 Tuesday

Choke cherries are ripening and we have had a bear in the area last night taking advantage of the fruity snacks. Yesterday evening I noticed a few limbs broken on one of the cherry trees up near the Forest Service's Blanding Station, ~1/4mi north of the house and wondered if this was a bear... very few others would break limbs quite that way in search of cherries. This morning while walking the dogs I was able to pick out part of a front track from a bear in the dust of the trail. Friends Tim and Charissa Reid, who own and operate Headwaters Bed & Breakfast down along the Yellowstone River a few miles west of Gardiner on Rt. 89, said that they had grizzly bear sign and a scat in the yard the other morning. This is not a good sign in a way as it means that the white-bark pine nut crop up in the higher elevations may not be very good this year and the bears are coming down to lower elevations, and around town, to make up the caloric difference.

Left to right: choke cherry limbs broken down by a bear, US Forest Service Blanding Station above our house, ours and Jenny's parent's dogs caching in on cherries missed by the bears... and object of everyone's desire... nice ripe (compliments of a frost) choke cherries!

8/26/08 Tuesday OUR NEW HOUSE!.... and garage, and studio.... and dog playground...

It has been almost a month since our last Field Notes update because of THIS! We've been working on moving into our new home ~2 miles north of Gardiner... the place has trees, creek running through and wonderful views into the Park and of surrounding mountains. The home itself used to be the old railroad depot in Emigrant, MT which is ~ half way between Gardiner and Livingston, MT. This move will also effectively double my studio space and just simply provide a wonderful refuge to create and relax for Jenny and I.

8/25/08 Monday sunset at OUR NEW HOUSE!

'Fire in the sky' sunset from the back porch of our new place.

8/18/08 Monday -Working at moving things from the old house to the new... but had to stop for thise beautiful moon set over Electric Peak.

Moon over Electric Peak from house in Gardiner, MT.

8/15/-8/17/08 Teaching "Wolves of Yellowstone Class" at Lamar Valley Buffalo Ranch in the Park.

What a wonderful group of students we had for this class... though none of us managed to steer clear of the chiding that was rationed out at every turn and for the least provocation. We had a great time walking to the Rose Creek wolf acclimation pen and talking about the history of the reintroduction, the controversies, the scientific info gathered to date, the troubles of living wolves and amid all of this we had some absolutely wonderful viewing of the Slough Creek wolves romping and rolling around in the company of what appeared to be an outside black male wolf... we inferred that the girls really liked this guy and a pretty close view of a gray Druid Peak pack wolf as it crossed from their traditional den site, across the road and across the Lamar River right past a few fishermen, as well as, a few grizzly bears, bison, falcons and so much more. Thanks to each of you for making this a very enjoyable time!

From left to right: a wonderful moon setting over Folsom Peak as viewed from Slough Creek at sunrise, a grizzly bear that is taking a nap after feeding heavily on a bison carcass in the Lamar River and the group intently watching through Yellowstone Association spotting scopes at the interactions of wolves and bears at the bison carcass.

8/10/08 Bison watching in Hayden Valley of Yellowstone with friends Kyle and Joy Sims... the mating season is in full swing!

Images from left to right: Kyle lining up for a photo from the tailgate of the truck, a bull - who happened to be missing half of his tail (we saw three bulls this way - out of a group of ~300 bison -which is often a fate that signifies a run-in with wolves as they will grab the tail as an impromptu handle during an attack), a lone bull and amazing sky of clouds, another bull tending his cow - and bellowing to fend off unwanted suitors, Joy's feet in a relaxed pose in the truck window as a bull bison strolls easily down the road stopping traffic in all directions. I should mention that this bull later bluff charged a man right next to us. We all took cover in the truck as this fellow stood right there in the path of this bull's approach to the road. This is the closest I've ever been to seeing someone gored. I yelled at the man as several others did... to which his response was, "I'm a vet[erinarian]," to which I yelled back... "do you think he cares!" as the bull walked up within 5 feet of the man and threw his big wooly head down like he was going to run the guy through. At this point the elements of trauma first-aid were running through my head - "check the scene for safety, check for an airway, breathing, major wounds, stabilize the head and neck in case of a spinal injury...". It is a good thing bison aren't really all that malicious or their would be dead tourists everywhere come August. Ultimately, the man just turned his back on the bull and walked up onto the pavement and the bison continued on its plodding route between some cars... you sure see it all in Yellowstone.

7/26/08 Saturday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

My last day of the Resident Artist Program... Thank you so very much to everyone at the National Museum of Wildlife Art! This was such an enjoyable experience that I can't believe the 3 weeks has come and gone so fast...

Thank you so very much to Gigi and Mike Halloran who hosted at their guest house in Jackson during the Residency Program . Endless thank yous also go out to the education staff including Jane, Bronwyn, the Amys and Mathew for taking care of all the logistical 'hoop-jumping' with much grace and smiles, and to all of the folks affiliated with the Museum for their good humor, welcoming spirit and such great kindness including, but certainly not limited to: Bill, Joffa (for lending your sculpting stand), Kavar, Lynn, Jim, Nancy (for letting me check email on your computer), Pontier, Wendy, Pam, Zeenie (for the PR help), Security - Marc, Bob, Joe, Paul, Lance, Joe and Jay for keeping me out of trouble, Curatorial staff - Fay (for allowing time in the vaults), Adam, Rachael, Ron, Front desk/store staff - Joel,  Elizabeth, Joyce, Susan, Karen, Andee, Trevor, Cafe' crew - Tom, Heidi, Freddy and Fernando for all the great lunches...

My work/display space in Johnson Hall at the NMWA (left) and the falcon sculpture I worked on for the public during the Lanford Monroe Artist-in-Residence Program.

Newspaper article about the Artist-in-Residence Program from Jackson Hole News

& Guide from July 9th, 2008

It was a long ride home after saying my good-byes and packing up at the Museum. From there it was north through Teton and Yellowstone... but, hey, it's a drive through the PARK! Elk, bison, bears, geese, eagles... I can't complain to badly.

A grizzly bear taking a 'cool-down' mud bath in a road-side bog near Grant Village,

Yellowstone Park, on the way home from Jackson.

7/25/08 Friday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

I had the rare treat of getting to spend a few minutes in the Museum vault today. All my attention was consumed with studying the wonderful works of Wilhelm Kuhnert... particularly his drawings. These, more than anything else, gives one insight into his working thoughts, concepts of simplification and handling of his drafting materials. In regards to the latter, the man's drafting skills were superb and his line quality and effortless 'touch' in even putting down pencil marks are the subject of great envy on my part. I spent much of my time studying his drawing of a chimpanzee by doing my own reproduction of his sketch. There is no better way to force, and reinforce what lies before ones eyes than to attempt physical reproduction.

My study sketch of a chimpanzee drawing done by the great German painter, Wilhelm Kuhnert in the collection of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming.

7/24/08 Wednesday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

What a day... I did my usual sculpting/drawing demos BUT in the afternoon taught a children's class on sculpting at the front entrance to the Museum.... Needless to say it was a BLAST! We had a live model (a black lab named Ella) compliments of Amy in the Education Department. We had as many as 37 kids sculpting along with many adults and other onlookers totaling over sixty folks who attended!

With little time to spare, I departed for Victor, Idaho to visit the studio and home of Scott Christensen and Kristie Grigg. If you are not familiar with Scott's work you should certainly take a look at www.ChristensenStudio.com - he is one of the very finest landscape painters working today.

7/23/08 Tuesday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

Studying sculptures of Ackley (left) and Bateman in the Museum

after my 'working hours' were over for the day.

Storm rolling over the Teton Range and dropping rain and hail all the way.

7/20/08 Saturday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

Drove back home through the busyness of the Parks. It was so nice to be able to relax at home with my darling wife and pups... we settled onto the deck after the drive was behind me. Either this evening or that of Sunday, the light was just exquisite over the top of Electric Peak and I did this quick little oil study.

Oil study of light and atmosphere of Electric Peak (6x8") from our deck in Gardiner.

7/17/08 Wednesday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

7/16/08 Wednesday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence @ National Museum of Wildlife Art

Put in some time speaking with visitors again today... this is such fun... and working on the peregrine falcon sculpture. Afterwards I took some time to again sketch the "Mares of Diomedes" by Gutzon Borglum (sculptor most know for his creation of the mountain-sized busts on Mt. Rushmore).

Sketch of the lead mare from Borglum's "Mares of Diomedes" in the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

Hazy view of Sleeping Indian on the skyline as seen from the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY... more smoke from California it seems.

7/15/08 Tuesday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art

Another great day at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. I started out the day visiting the pond where we met Jeff last night to see if I could find any bird nests that he could film for 'life around the beaver pond'... no luck though there were lots of singing warblers and I did see a grosbeak and a couple robins carrying food for chicks. I darted into the Museum to start my shift as Lanford Monroe, Artist-in-Residence at 10am and sculpted some on the falcon piece that I am using as my demo for the stay. After lunch (and sketching the marmots feeding in the gardens next to the cafe) we did another "Art-making session" for the public under the entry way to the Museum. This session (which is done each Tuesday and Friday from 1-3pm) was started off with a group of ~15, 6-7 year-old kids from summer camp... what a BLAST! They were so excited and energetic as we did out own rendition of a bald eagle in flight after Sandy Scotts sculpture near the entryway - complete with the "secret wire" hidden inside the wings to make them stand up "all  by themselves"! At the end of my shift I spent some time in the collection drawing and studying the Gutzon Borglum sculpture, "The Mares of Diomedes," which is currently on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.... what a wonderfully composed piece!

A quick oil sketch (6x8") at the close of the day... smoke from California making for colorful sunset.

7/14/08 Monday- Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art

Had a nice day off from 'work' at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. I made some sketches of a bachelor herd of bull elk near the house, ran some errands in town including lunch with film-maker friend Jeff Hogan. Jeff is currently shooting a film on beavers for National Geographic. After a dinner with my host here in Jackson, Gigi, at Dornan's restaurant in Moose, WY (right below the amazing vistas of the Teton mountain range - a sharing a pizza named the "Mt. Moran") we joined Jeff at a near-bye pond in hopes of getting a look as some of the beaver he was filming. The one beaver make just a couple passes near the lodge and left us to find enjoyment in the other novelties of the pond including a hen goldeneye duck that fed and dabbled within 10 yds of us for over an hour. The songs of yellow warblers, MacGillivray's warblers, robins, red-naped sapsuckers, tree swallows, rufous hummingbirds and a chorus of mosquitoes - which the latter weren't so bad compared to other times.

Film-maker Jeff Hogan watching a colony of beavers along with eager Teton Park visitors.

7/13/08 Sunday- Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art

Jenny came down last night to visit here in Jackson. We got up and headed up to Colter Bay at the break-neck hour of 10am... needless to say we enjoyed sleeping in for a change. The two of us rented a banana-yellow, tandem kayak and took a two-and-a-half hour tour around Jackson Lake. We took out leftover from dinner at Teton Thai the night before and dined on a small island smothered in blooming purple lupine blooms along with yellow-green buckwheat, golden Helianthella, crimson Indian paintbrush and more... more also included a healthy dose of mosquitoes too but we persevered. Conditions where were sunny and clear - the Tetons shown bold and somewhat surreal along the Lake's western shore. In the absence of a camera we both took turns doing some sketches in my sketchbook. All in all, this was the perfect sort of day to be out on the water and outside in general. While Jenny was drawing I went a-bug-hunting.... spotted a beautiful spider web just as full as a web could be. I wondered where the spider could be that owns this web - or was this a case of an absentee trapper leaving his deadly snare in place for no reason beyond laziness of tearing it down before moving to greener pastures. I counted 29 insects caught in this net no bigger than my hand. With it place on this island on the upwind side of the shore, it was a prime position for anything coming off of the lake breezes. Of the 29 insects, 1 was a caddis fly, 2 mosquitoes and the rest were midges of varying sizes... AND there was the spider, black, the size of a bit of #6 shot, wrapped around one of the smaller midges sucking the last of its juices. Soon this fly would become just another dry husk fluttering in the wind amid the threads of a beautiful doom. Butterflies carried on as if nothing were happening, sucking nectar and having their own territorial disputes.

After paddling back to the marina we parted ways - but not before standing around like a couple of newly dating teenagers delaying an inevitable departure with as many looks, hugs, etc. as could be fit in.... we've only been apart for a week but it still seems to long. Alas Jenny has to go get our devilish dogs out of Alcatraz aka. the kennel, and go to work in the morning and I have things to attend to before going back to the Museum on Tuesday.

Just as the last light of afternoon was falling I did a small oil painting of the Teton Range above the Snake River plain. It turned out a big warm as far as colors of the mountain but I was more or less happy, esp. with the last blushes of light that I dropped across the peaks.

Shot of the Tetons from near my 'home' in Jackson...

7/10/08 Thursday - Jackson, WY - Lanford Monroe Memorial, Artist-in-Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art

Having an outstanding time here as the Lanford Monroe Artist-in-Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art! Robert Bateman came for the opening of his show here and this was the first time I had gotten to see he and Birgit since Jenny and I visited with them at their home on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. On top of sitting in on his lecture of the show with the docents, I attended his public lecture in the evening which was very well attended. I also had the pleasure of meeting David Wagner, curator of the Bateman show and author of the recently published American Wildlife Art - a wonderfully well done book on the history of wildlife art in this part of the world. David and I first emailed each other as he is assisting with the Society of Animal Artists show in Green Bay where one of my pieces will show starting in August. Visit his website for more info on David and the book at http://american-wildlife-art.com/ I'm really looking forward to diving into reading this volume...I also had the pleasure of meeting Chipper Thompson, who is a musician by trade, and has just published a book on the artwork of Lanford Monroe. Lanford is the namesake of the Artist-in-Residence program that I am a part of - she and Chipper were married before her untimely passing. The book, another one that I am poised to acquire, contains several beautiful reproductions of Lanford's work. As for me personally, I have been teaching/demonstrating for the public over the last 3 days and just finally got to put some clay on the armature of a peregrine falcon that I will be working on for the duration of the residency. Thank you to everyone at the Museum for making the last few days an amazing beginning to what will surely be a wonderful few weeks!

7/7/08 Sunday - Yellowstone Butterfly count! We had 11 counters in 2 groups this year and spotted 39 different species. We were a bit early compared to last year's count and as a result missed some of the fritillaries, wood-nymphs, coppers and skippers BUT we had a great time and found 5 new species never before seen on the count (marked with an "*"). Our day ended a bit early as the butterfly gods were seeing that we were having more fun than should  be allowed.... see the real reason below...

Species observed during the 2007 Yellowstone Butterfly count: listed in the order of abundance-   1   Boisduval's Blue  (Plebeius icarioides)  106 2   Hayden's Ringlet  (C. haydenii)  53 3   Common Alpine  (Erebia epipsodea)  41 4   Acmon Blue  (Plebeius acmon)  25 5   Common Ringlet  (Coenonympha tullia)  25 6   Variable Checkerspot (E. chalcedona anicia) 24 7   Greenish Blue  (Plebeius saepiolus)  11 8   Field Crescent  (Phyciodes pratensis)  7 9   Silvery Blue  (Glaucopsyche lygdamus)  6 10   Painted Lady  (Vanessa cardui)  5 11   Rocky Mtn. Parnassian  (P. smintheus)  5 12   Two-tailed Swallowtail  (P. multicaudata)  4 13   Dotted Blue  (Euphlotes enoptes) 4 14   Callippe Fritillary  (Speyeria callippe)  4 15   Northern Checkerspot  (Chlosyne palla)  4 16   Western Tiger Swallowtail  (P. rutulus)  4 17   *Juniper Hairstreak  (Callophrys gryneus) 3 18   Mourning Cloak  (Nymphalis antiopa)  3 19   Margined White  (Pieris marginalis)  3 20   Clouded Sulphur  (Colias philodice)  2 21   Purplish Copper  (Lycaena helloides)  2 22   Arrowhead Blue  (Glaucopsyche piasus)  2 23   Northern Blue  (Lycaeides idas)  2 24   Melissa Blue  (Lycaeides melissa)  2 25   Atlantis Fritillary  (Speyeria atlantis hesperis)  2 26   Edith's Checkerspot  (E. editha)  2 27   Northern Crescent  (Phyciodes cocyta)  2 28   Checkered White  (Pontia protodice)  2 29   Large Marble  (Euchloe ausonides)  1 30   Stella Orangetip  (Anthocharis stella)  1 31   Christina Sulphur  (Colias christina)  1 32   Ruddy Copper  (Lycaena rubidus)  1 33   *Bramble Hairstreak  (C. dumetorum) 1 34   *Western Pine Elfin  (Callophrys eryphon)  1 35   *Thicket Hairstreak  (C. spinetorum)  1 36   Mormon Fritillary  (Speyeria mormonia)  1 37   *Purplish Fritillary  (Boloria montinus)  1 38   Common Sootywing  (Pholisora catullus)  1 39   Garita Skipper  (Oarisma garita)  1 AND... as for the real reason the count ended early... hail at midday!

Our 'gang' of counters included (left to right) Kathy Russell, Katy Duffy, Jenny Golding, Gene Ball and myself (behind the camera).   A magnificent look at this one male, ruddy copper made our morning!   This was a first for the Yellowstone count... a juniper hairstreak! They are about the size of one's thumbnail but more than make up for their size in beauty...

 6/30/08 Sunday

Lupine blooming now. The slopes and dales of Eagle Creek are seeing a blush of beautiful purple-blue.

6/29/08 Saturday

Jenny and I took a drive up into Swan Lake Flats in the Park just to relax, do some sketching and watch the sandhill cranes with their colts... saw a nice cinnamon-colored black bear on the way up, then we went outside the park and down-river on the Yellowstone near Yankee Jim Canyon. The river is high and brown - flowing very swiftly and some of the white water in the heart of the canyon is quite awe-inspiring.

Sketches done of mountains to the west of Swan Lake Flats in Yellowstone (Antler Peak on the left, Quadrant on the right)

6/26/08 Thursday

Drove down to Jackson, WY to attend the Trailside Gallery summer opening of their new location... it is quite nice I might add. Visited with friends Kyle and Joy Sims and finally got to meet sculptor, Veryl Goodnight after many exchanged emails. Veryl is not only a wonderful sculptor but a delightful person to visit with... looking forward to similar such visits in the future.

6/25/08 Wednesday

At long last... a new entry. Over the past month Jenny and I have been pursuing the possibility of buying a new home in the Gardiner area, traveling, teaching, lecturing, conferencing... "uhhggg," as Charlie Brown would say... but is has all been very enjoyable stuff - well, except for getting all of my wisdom teeth pulled a week before a series of lectures and a class in Salt Lake City, UT. I don't recommend doing this if you have the option of arranging your schedule around it...

Jenny and I went out to Lamar in the evening and just relaxed at the confluence of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek. The water is high and brown, the grass is green and vibrant. We spotted 2 black bears and 2 grizzlies - one of them being the lop-eared bear that I first saw near the Buffalo Ranch with friends from Maine. While doing some sketching and sitting in the bed of the truck with Jenny and the pups we spotted a bison cow with a newborn calf. The cow still had afterbirth hanging from her back end and the calf still had some of its umbilicus attached and some wobble in its legs... she was moving away from the area where this other grizzly was walking into. The cow led the calf right into the flooding Soda Butte Creek and the calf was washed downstream - right past us... the rest of the story is told in this rough cartoon that I drew on the way home as Jenny drove- amid one of the most stunning sunsets I have seen here in Yellowstone... and that's saying a lot considering the number that we have savored.

Cartoon depicting the events surrounding crossing of Soda Butte Creek by a bison cow and her

newborn calf to escape a grizzly bear.

6/23/08 Monday

I took the pups for a walk up along Eagle Creek. As we finished a sizable front of dark clouds and veils of rain came over the mountains to the south... heading our way. Beautiful bull and cow elk in their sleek summer red/orange suits. They are so shiny and trim-looking. We made it home just in time as the rains and wind hit. With the remaining light piercing through the western horizon, the eastern vista became festooned with color - pinks, orange, mustard, cobalt, violets, ultramarine AND a full double rainbow! Keep the rains coming we say... we're truly enjoying the greenery.

Quick sketches of Jenny - a couple from her playing guitar (right) and one just nestled in before bed (left)...

Also completed the project I started on the winter solstice this year of photographing the point of sunrise at each month between the then and the summer solstice. What is shown is a composite image of each month's sunrise as viewed from the same point in our driveway in Gardiner, MT. Note the sunrise gets 'cramped' and later in the morning due to the mountains blocking an otherwise level horizon line. This was pretty neat to do... it is taken for granted that the earth's tilt changes our perception of the sunrise, but I had never set out to really know to what degree this actually occurred.

6/19 - 6/22/08 Thursday- Sunday   Dusty Boots, Splattered Paint - Art and Science in the Backcountry course taught through the Yellowstone Association Institute with friend and landscape painter Aaron Schuerr.

6/10- 6/15/08 Tuesday-Sunday

Jenny and I headed down to the Salt Lake City area of Utah. I gave a lecture at the REI there and taught a drawing class and gave another lecture in Ogden, UT. Jenny attended a conference at the Snowbird resort where we stayed for a few nights before staying with our friends Dave and Sharon Holmstrom in Eden, UT. We took a side trip one morning to the Bear River Wildlife refuge to enjoy the marshland wildlife. Bird list below.

Panorama looking east from Bear River wildlife refuge.

Species (48 total) from birding at Bear River Refuge, Utah (6/14) in the order they were observed between 08:00-11:00 - note: I stopped counting ~09:30 on account of the numbers becoming to overwhelming to keep realistic counts... I erred on the side of enjoying the morning with Jenny than keeping a orderly tally.   ring-necked pheasant - 4 long-billed curlew - 8 American robin - 2 eastern kingbird - 2 western meadowlark - 8 blue-winged teal - 8 northern harrier - 2 killdeer - 3 western kingbird - 1 Bullocks oriole - 1 red-winged blackbird - 18 American kestrel - 1 cinnamon teal - 25 northern shoveler - 3 horned lark - 2 cliff swallow - 124 double-crested cormorant - 3 mallard - 8 peregrine falcon - 1 white pelican - 15 black-necked stilt - 26 common raven - 2 yellow-headed blackbird - 19 marsh wren - 5 American avocet - 30 Clark's grebe - 1 snowy egret - 2 black-crowned night heron - 1 great blue heron - 3 western grebe - 3 white-faced ibis - 5 gadwall - 1 common tern - 1 savannah sparrow - 1 American coot - 3 Wilson's phalarope - 3 ruddy duck brown-headed cowbird Franklin's gull pintail redhead great egret common yellowthroat pie-billed grebe mourning dove Forster's tern spotted sandpiper

Jenny trying out the pochade painting box I make for her for the first time in Alta, Utah near Snowbird resort outside of Salt Lake.     Pencil sketch of mountain above Alta, Utah.

5/23/08 Friday

As I lay awake this morning, random thoughts and things to do running through my head, the first sounds of dawn came to life in the darkness - a robin sang. It was 04:43, I looked at the clock. From beyond, the din of a still raging Yellowstone River welled up from out of the gash in the Valley that bounds its waters. The river is brown in the daylight - tinted with silt, sands, clay, mud, flotsam and thumping boulders. I wonder if there are backcountry robins singing at this hour? Is is just the 'towney' birds and their skewed view of the world and time beneath orange street lights and front-door beacons from neighborhood homes?

5/19/08 Monday

Joe and Natalie headed home this morning and I'm catching up on some work at home in the studio. 

Doing some chalk studies of our friends golden retrievers named "Moose" and "Willow".

 This is one of "Willow," 18x24".

5/16/08 Friday

Edward Suthoff found a female American kestrel that had been hit by a car

the other day and I took the opportunity to make some sketches and measurements.

5/15 - 5/16/08 Thursday - Friday

 Friends Joe Dembeck and Natalie Jones arrived yesterday and we went out for some birding/wildlife watching in the Park. we had some great viewing at Blacktail Ponds just east of Mammoth Hot Springs. We spotted a total of 39 species before the day was over... and a few additional species on the 16th. A complete list of birds seen, in the order they were observed, is given below.

Species from birding in the Park:   birds from 5/15 common snipe yellow-headed blackbird sandhill crane American coot readhead duck northern flicker killdeer Canada goose western meadowlark cinnamon teal hooded merganser Barrow's goldeneye ruddy duck ring-necked duck white-faced ibis - unusual sighting for Yellowstone mountain bluebird Common raven mallard ruby-crowned kinglet red-winged blackbird green-winged teal eared grebe white-crowned sparrow red-tailed hawk American robin Clark's nutcracker Common merganser harlequin duck tree swallow black-billed magpie American crow lesser scaup Cooper's hawk Townsend's solitaire American kestrel dark-eyed junco American widgeon Rock dove _____________ additional birds from 5/16 - not seen yesterday   bald eagle - chasing lesser scaup on Blacktail Ponds -  with successive dives the scaup managed to evade the big predator... not before the eagle drenched itself in the water and had to swim to shore. violet-green swallow red-breasted nuthatch spotted sandpiper red-napped sapsucker lesser yellowlegs

A young grizz digging for roots in Little America (left) & a sandhill on her nest at Floating Island Lake (right) - they have 2 eggs this year. An older grizzly with a bent left ear crosses the road amid much fan-fare in Lamar Valley... We repositioned as older grizzly passed by at a distance of ~80 yards... The famous bull elk #6 is growing his new crown of antlers near Lava Creek in the Park. He has already added a few more inches to his antlers since the photo I took next to the house on May 1st.

5/12/08 Monday

 It's snowing here this morning - not much is visible above the level of town. Two black wolf pups have been seen at the Slough Creek Wolf den so far this season. I also heard from friends that the sandhill cranes have laid two eggs on the nest at Floating Island Lake in the Park.

5/11/08 Sunday

 Took a few minutes up in the Park around Mammoth to do a small oil study of some juniper trees I've been eyeing for some time. Some recent research has shown these trees to have attained amazing ages... one tree in fact, was aged at ~1500 years old. One small juniper removed during a sewer line installation in the Park was ~800 years old - it was only 6" in diameter! To read an article on the findings of researcher John King relating to trees and climate change research, click HERE.

5/9 - 5/10/08 Friday-Saturday

 Jenny and I went for an overnight backpack down into Hellroaring Creek in the Park. This was the first backpacking get-away we'd had just to ourselves in a while.... will fill in details and sketches from the trip when I get a moment.

5/8/08 Thursday

 Jogged with the pups this morning... they don't like my pace. Either I'm going too slow for the gear they have allocated to that speed range or I don't stop enough to sniff the local marking spots. It's amazing how many points of interest a dog, much less two dogs, can find along a 3-mile stretch of road. Needless to say, there are several bison still in the Gardiner area who have yet to go back up into the Park. The bison researchers were sitting on watch over a cow they had radio collared. One of the big motives for marking these bison is to get a sense of their birthing behavior as this is one of the major avenues for the disease brucellosis to be transmitted (through the fetal material). They started up the truck and drove off about the time I turned around; sitting and waiting for a bison to birth is about like sitting around to watch water boil...

5/7/08 Wednesday

 The skies opened up this evening... pouring down rain... you can almost hear the grass and trees sucking up the moisture. Snow levels in the Park are beginning to retreat, especially on south-facing slopes. What was, the previous day, a settling embankment of white is little more than a plot of wet soil today. Jenny and I walked the pups up at Eagle Creek on the National Forest and had to divert around a few bull bison about mid-way along the hike. Back near the truck was a nursery herd of cows and their new calves - the calves are just so much fun to watch with all their excited, reflexive movements.... at one moment they are stock still - flat out on the ground, the next they are leaping strait into the air or jouncing about on all four legs. Then the rain started - and we continued walking at our usual pace enjoying the heightened sense of smell that spring rains bring, finding out where our raincoat hoods leak, watching the dogs shake themselves out of a halo of water droplets and seeing the veils of rain sweep up the Yellowstone Valley and merry the low-shot clouds to the ground.

5/5/08 Monday 

Spent this morning in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone with friends Deb and Jason from Virginia, and their friends Ron and Margaret. We rendezvoused at the Midpoint Pullout in time to see a long-legged grizzly strolling away towards the south side of the Valley. We expected the dark furred bear to 'post hole' through the snow banks as he crossed them but they must have frozen enough over the night that he had little trouble. Work 'had it' that the Druid Pack yearling wolves were digging out another coyote den to the east (we later did hear that they did get on of the pups and carry it back to their den area), but once the bear went out of sight we scooted westward over to Slough Creek to see if we could spot the first pups emerging from the den. No one had yet seen a pup from the Slough Pack's litter outside of the den and we were determined to put in some time watching. From ~07:30 until ~11:30 we stayed with our scopes on the den area and scanning the surrounding landscape. We watched as 4 different female adults entered and exited the den hole in the slope north of Slough Creek Flats. At one point we had 3 females all in the den together with the pups. the alpha female, 380, would alternately go into the den, come out, say at the entrance then lose interest. Her white feet and muzzle showed up distinctly as she lay in the dark den entrance (see sketch to right). At a few other times we saw what looked like an adult coaxing the pups to come out but the most we got as these girls poked their heads into the den was a slight tail-wag on the part of one adult... no pups though. I did hear later that at ~1pm the first pup did emerge into the outside world - a black one... damn! I missed it by an hour and half... We did see the balance of the Slough Pack out to the west near Mom's Ridge moving  some elk herds around. At one point they had about 20 cows and calves backed right up to a granite outcrop but carried on with their travels without testing this group.

Sketches including s study of William F. Buckley from a magazine image (for drafting practice) and field sketches from watching the female wolves of the Slough Creek Pack around their den. Note: the sketch of the female with her head & shoulders in the den- rump in the air (below and to right of Buckley) and that the date in the sketchbook reads 5/6... actually it was the 5th... I tend to lose track sometimes.

5/4/08 Sunday

 Two of the Druid wolf pack yearlings were close to the road this morning... way too close... In other words walking within 15 feet of people parked AND outside of their cars. The to wolves were trying to cross in order to feed on a carcass that was just north of what's known as the Midpoint Pullout in Lamar Valley. I did stop in order to do some sketching but what folks along side me don't realize, is that this is could be a death sentence for these two pack members; getting this used to being this close to people is unhealthy. They are planning on hazing them with cracker shells (noise-making bullets) or rubber bullets. If this doesn't work, they could go so far as removing the wolves (according to the Park's habituated wolf management plan), but this has yet to have happened in the Park with wolves doing similar things. More likely is that they may be hit by cars because of their road-tolerance like the previous alpha male of the Slough Creek pack.

I made these thumbnail sketches of the gray and the black yearling wolves as they crossed the road amid a sea of cars on either side of the road and amid loose crowds of onlookers and photographers. The backlight was divine!

5/3/08 Saturday

 Spotted the first white butterfly of the year today - this means, unlike the other species seen to date that overwinter as adults, this species has come out of the chrysalis (the butterfly equivalent of a cocoon). It was frosty this morning but the skies became clear and warm and lingering snows gleamed from the high country. I took some down time around the house today and did this oil paint study of Electric Peak from our deck for about 30 minutes.

A palate knife study (6x8") of Electric Peak - the tallest Peak in the Gallatin Range at 10,992' as seen from our deck.

5/2/08 Friday

 The Druid wolf pack tried to catch a bison calf this morning near Crystal Creek in Little America.

The wolves (that we initially though were Slough Pack members, then Agates, turned out to be Druid Pack Wolves) were hot on the heels of a group of about six bull elk that were sprinting in a tight cluster, along with about a dozen pronghorn that got mixed up in the fray. We initially spotted them from the Slough Creek pullout with friends Deb, Jason, Deb and Dave. We then sped down to the Crystal Creek Pullout where we could hopefully see the outcome of the chase... no luck. They went out of view and came back minutes later looking tired and empty handed. At this point they went back to the bison herd they were harassing before the elk chase. There were about 5 cows and 4 calves. The wolves, five of them, approached from different angles as the bison clustered and

place the little red calves in the middle. Female bison took turns lunging out at the wolves as they got too close. The poor little calves didn't know what to do as their mothers left the safety of the formation - you could almost sense the "oh, no! do I go with momma or stay in formation?" These rusty colored bison babies were only days old. All the bison, including these tiny calves had their tails in the 'full alert' posture - which means strait up. With steadfast determination, and experience of instinct and years past, the female bison managed to thwart the wolves attack after about 5 minutes and once again the hunters left with nothing to show for their efforts. They headed east back over the divide south of Lamar Canyon, spooked another and much larger nursery herd of bison along the way before dropping back into their own territory and out of sight.

Some very quick memory sketches of watching five of the Druid Wolf Pack members try to catch a bison calf.

5/1/08 Thursday

 Guess who was at our front door this morning.... none other than the budding Bull Elk #6! Jenny was up before I and yelled downstairs "come and look, there's an ear-tagged bull elk!" She was right. The image below shows this very well-known and unique bull sprouting his 2008 antlers. It is good to see he has made it through another winter and I just wonder if he will reign as supreme as he has in past years during the Mammoth Hot Springs rutting season. This year he already had to share the spoils with his old enemy Bull Elk #10 and the the newer guy on the block know as "Moose" aka "Brutus" (who coincidentally is the bull that I sculpted from life in September 2007 for the bronze "Intermission" - see the Gallery link). It is worth noting as well that #6 is developing his antlers much earlier and faster than other bull elk - most of the elk in the Park only have budding antlers the size of light bulbs or with minimal branching beyond that. To see Bull #6 with is full set of anters on AND off this year, click HERE.

Bull elk #6 near our front door this morning... friends had seen him about half way to Mammoth Hot springs a couple weeks ago and I had assumed he had made his usual journey back to his summering grounds near Blacktail Plateau. Maybe he saw the snow accumulations that are still lingering and had second thoughts...

4/30/08 Wednesday

Storms roll in and out all day... as I write (8:30pm) a heavy squall of flowery white flakes drift to the earth on a slight angle from above and west... this shot is from this morning as a snowy front moved through around 8am. This view westward down the Yellowstone River Valley includes the Roosevelt Arch and the old Cecil's Fine Foods building - now owned by the Yellowstone Association.

  Went out birding this morning around the Blacktail Ponds area of the Park from ~06:30-07:30. The bird life was quite boisterous for what there was - especially the wailing song of the northern flickers, screeching bald eagle perched behind me, crows, ravens, mallards squawking, Canada geese honking, rails sounding out from the hidden corners of the marsh grass... a complete list of the ones I saw or heard in the hour or so I was there amounts to the list below.

Crayon studies for an upcoming falcon sculpture done this afternoon.

4/26 /08 Saturday

Continued with my monthly sunrise photograph this morning to track the sun on its journey across the horizon through the seasons... actually the journey of the earth around the sun and the change of the sun's angle of radiation.

A composite photograph of the sunrise, starting with the winter solstice, as it crests the horizon as seen from our driveway in Gardiner, MT

  Relaxing at home doing some larger sketches (18x24") from some reference video footage... this is a young grizzly kicking back and relaxing as well.

4/25/08 Friday

  Snow seems to be keeping many of the bison down around Gardiner where some are giving birth at lower elevation... those that survived being rounded up and sent to slaughter, anyway... flocks of juncos everywhere!

  Our first bison calves! Since being out of town we haven't seen some of the newborns ourselves... there were 4 calves with their mothers near the Roosevelt Arch loop in Gardiner, MT.

4/18/08 - 4/24/08 Friday - Thursday

  Whirlwind tour of the the northern US Rockies... from home through the snow-swaddled Park to Salt Lake City Utah where Jenny and her friend Rachael Gray ran the Salt Lake Marathon. Jenny did the half marathon in lieu of the fact that right after the run we departed for Moscow, Idaho where she defended her thesis... successfully, I might add, then it was off for home with a short stop to visit George and Pam Carlson at his studio in Harrison, ID.

Two happy runners before the start of the Salt Lake City marathon... Rachael on left, Jenny on right.

4/16/08 Wednesday

  Chilly out, snow blanketed the ground from the level of town, all the way up to the top of Sepulcher and Electric Peaks this morning. Ran the dogs in the snow, gave a talk for a Yellowstone Association class at mid-day and got to handle a dead wolf from the Park. The "light gray male" wolf that has been hanging around with the Druid Pack all winter (actually the last 5 months, and who bred with a few of the Druid females) was found dead about 2 days ago - the field crew just went in today to recover his carcass. Apparently he went up into the den area and the pack turned on him. Erin from the wolf project was kind enough to let me take a series of measurements of this wolf before they "collected" his skull for research measurements and disposed of the rest of his remains somewhere in the Park. The bite wounds that he sustain were quite severe including bite marks to his belly, chest, back and neck. Although the largest hole in the skin was only ~1.5" wide, the hemorrhaged tissue, indicative of wolf kills on any animal, extended both broadly and deep into his body. It amazes me how big these wolves can be at times... the feet especially. He weighed in at 49 kg (108 lbs) and was 6.2 feet long from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tailbone.

Yet another spring snow squall coming over the mountains to deposit on Gardiner.

4/15/08 Tuesday

  Tax day... did you get yours in? Drove up to Bozeman and Livingston to run errands amid a true spring snowstorm. I felt sympathy for the motorcycle driver I saw heading south amid the blizzard conditions and gusting crosswinds... he had no facemask on his helmet... if he had a helmet on at all...

Experimenting a bit more with conte' crayon... sketch of an Alaskan brown bear 18x24".

4/14/08 Monday

  Jenny and I took a walk up at Eagle Creek with the pups... Lots of bison in the drainage gobbling up the newly arrived green. Also spotted our first kestrel of the year after hearing the whoosh of a tiny jet plane... I looked up to see the little falcon stooping down on a flock of songbirds - it missed though.

4/10/08 - 4/13/08 A short visit to California

A view eastward to the ridges near Morgan Hill, CA, from Aunt Sally's porch swing.

  In California... Jenny and I went to help out with a Yellowstone Association event in the San Francisco area AND to visit with her aunt Sallly in Morgan Hill. I must say that the warm temperatures and the green hills of the region were quite enjoyable... so much so that Jenny and I rode up the highway with the top down on Aunt Sally's BMW convertible on the way to have breakfast with friends in Redwood City.... there was more than one other commuter, clad in winter jackets, hats, etc. that shook their heads at us as we motored along :) I guess that is what living in Montana does fore ones 'cold tolerance'.

Just the chickens... one of Sally's roosters (left), Jenny ready for a ride in the BMW (center, left), Jenny and Aunt Sally on porch swing (center, right) and one of the egg-laying hens from the coop (right).

4/8/08 Tuesday

  Yesterday afternoon and early evening was blessed with the most marvelous snowfall over our little town. With scarcely a breath of air, there came out of the sky broad, cottony flakes of white that settled to all things below with a quiet grace that leaves one spellbound - unable to leave the window... low afternoon light filtered through ether festooned with white, and off-white and for many of these large flakes, they actually blocked the sunlight that did make it through making them appear as dark freckles overhead.

Took a run with the pups this morning... for our twice-weekly, 3-mile jog. Poor pups... I'm still getting back into shape and my pace is about 1/2 way between a trot and a walk for them. They may be burning as much or more energy then I... at least the distance that their tongues begin to stick out, on would think so... I'll get there Jasper and Casey...

Made this conte crayon sketch (18x24") while working on the buffalo sculpture.

4/7/08 Monday

  Sounds like the Slough Creek wolves have yet to give birth... despite remodeling the den site in preparation, the alpha female 380, at least it still billowing at the seams with pups. Word has come of a bison calf spotted near Mammoth 2 days ago...

Carolyn Duckworth called yesterday to report that she had seen her first osprey of the year down on the nest atop the old pole north of Gardiner along the Yellowstone.

4/6/08 Sunday

  A cow bison was found dead along the Yellowstone River Trail by Jenny the other day while going out for a jog. I walked down there today to examine the carcass. Sadly, I saw the cause of death as I walked through the fetid cloud of air around her... it was a strand of barbed wire that had become ensnared around her right, hind foot - just above the hoof. She must have died of exhaustion from the long winter and then this. Her remains lay sprawled out in a muddy seep of water and I had to stand on a couple rocks as to not get my feet wet. From there I put on my latex gloves and felt her fur, and limbs, and tail. Someone had already removed her head, presumably for the skull, and left a paper coffee cup and top next to her tail. I'm working on this bison herd sculpture so any additional info is helpful, SO I pulled out my folding knife and opened the skin over her left shoulder in a line all the way down to her hoof - so I could examine her upper leg shape, muscles and boney points... poor old girl, at least she will in part be immortalized in bronze after her passing. A small bit of homage I can pay, I suppose, for the >1400 who have been shipped away to their demise this winter.

4/5/08 Saturday

  Tom Torma and I went out into the Park this morning at 06:30 just to see what we could see... or hear... We did hear the first sandhill cranes of the year in the Park in the Slough Creek area - we never did see them. The Slough Creek wolf pack is digging its den for the year - apparently the alpha female 380 had been digging/remodeling the old den in view of the Campground road... the one that they were besieged in in the spring of 2005 by the "Mystery Pack" as depitcted on the Nature program "Valley of the Wolves".

Sketch of a bull bison in deep snow (along with two thumbnails of a wolf kill scene with scavengers) from near the Lamar River/Soda Butte Creek confluence area.

4/4/08 Friday

  Took a jog by myself this morning (no dogs... Jenny took them on a run up at the Travertine Mine north of town). Clear blue skies, still chilly and windy out. Winter does not want to let go of the Yellowstone Plateau just yet. Some green sprigs are beginning to show up, almost imperceptibly, in the nooks and crannies of the Gardiner area. More bison coming down out of the Park, several thin elk with necks nearly bare from itching/scratching and ticks.

4/3/08 Thursday

  Spent the early part of the day working on the bison sculpture until it was warm enough to take the piece out into the areas of town where the bison were hanging out. There were two very gaunt cows and a herd of ~10 bulls that I used for subjects over the course of ~3 hours today. I sculpted mainly using the bull of the group as reference as they offered the best subjects. Their winter coats are still in place though a few are starting to show rub/bare spots on their hips and shoulders. Sadly, the bull group kept moving downhill and west toward the capture facility run by the Park Service... I followed them from the Arch Loop, to the Arch Park and then to the Gardiner High school football field. Each time they would localize to graze would position the truck around to that I could set up the sculpting stand and slide the sculpture out of the bed of the pickup - all 70" of it. At times I was as close as 20' to the bulls (though I had the sculpture between them and I and the open back of the truck to my back in case a quick dash to cover was needed). Being this close to them, one really gets to see the individual differences in their coats, horns, hooves, noses, hairdos, eyes... than the temperament and position on the sliding hierarchy... amazing creatures. Given the wanton destruction of these animals this winter by the Park and the Montana Dept of Livestock, I will likely title this sculpture in a way that reflects the events of the winter of 2007-08 for the bison of Yellowstone.

Sketch of one of the two gaunt bison cows at the Gardiner High School athletic field. She seemed so exhausted from a long hard winter... her head kept nodding and her eyelids would fall, her posture slump until she was shaken back to consciousness by her own flinches.

First Butterflies! I spotted on Milbert's Tortoiseshell butterfly as I drove down our street to observe the bison and another flew by as I was sculpting at the Gardiner High School athletic field. AND I observed some frisky cottontail rabbits... the classic courting behavior of the rabbits chasing one another, leaping into the air, then spinning around on a dime to face one another before making another mock charge and leap!

Panorama shot of snow piles and coverage on Blacktail Plateau, Yellowstone.

Jenny and I went out into the Park this evening... no bears were to be seen, though our main goal was to find sandhill  cranse... couldn't find any of those yet either. The Blacktail Ponds area, as with most of the Park above 6000' is still swaddled heavily in snow... more than we have seen in several years, but alas, in the broader perspective, this amounts to what is really only a "normal" winter based on the past several decades.

4/2/08 Wednesday

  Blustery cold, east wind this morning. I was up at 5am working on the bison herd sculpture and had breakfast with Jenny and the pups when they got up to start their day. Winter still seems to want to hang on despite the onset of April... The first bison calf sighting should be not too long into the future. Many bison are going back up into the Park, but not nearly enough.. this winter has been the greatest bison slaughter by the State of Montana and the Park Service to date. A friend saw sandhill cranes in Paradise Valley this last week. It won't be long before they are in the Park - if they aren't already.

Instead of drawing last night I decided to try my hand at a bas relief sculpture of John Lacey - the U.S. Representative from Iowa who drafted the very first legislation protecting wildlife in this country (inspired by the wanton destruction of the last wild bison herd in the lower 48 states here in Yellowstone) in the late 1890's and early 1900's. It is still a work in progress and needs some more refinement...

A few photos of field work on the bison sculpture taken on March5, 2008 by Jim Halfpenny from A Naturalist's World.

3/29/08 Saturday

  Keeping up the hand-eye coordination... with a sketch of a sculpture Jules Dalou, by Auguste Rodin, pictured in the National Sculpture Society's, Sculpture Review Magazine," Winter 2007 Issue.

3/27/08 Thursday

  Spent all of yesterday in the studio getting a new sculpture ready for the foundry... a moose. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turned out. Today was largely spent inside the park watching wolves with Bart Walter. We had some pretty amazing views of If any of you have a chance to visit the National Museum of Wildlife Art before June 23, Bart has a one man show there entitled "An Eye Toward Africa: the Art of Bart Walter," including ~50 bronzes and some works on paper. He also sculpted the monumental elk bronzes, "Wapiti Trail," that now permanently graces the entry way to the Museum in Jackson.

We took a short hike down this this bull bison carcass to take some measurements (left) down along the Yellowstone River beneath the bridge near tower and afterward took a short walk upstream of this point and spotted this amazing iron-rich stone (right)... what COLOR!

3/25/08 Tuesday

  Had a great day out in the field with sculptor Bart Walter from Maryland and film-maker friend, Sava, from Jackson.... We has some good opportunities to watch the Druid, Slough packs as well as a wonderful ivory flock of about 12 trumpeter swans. The three of us stopped for lunch at Buns-N-Beds in Cooke City. Afterwards we stopped at the Hartman's in Silvergate to see any of the pine martens were visible... they weren't... I have terrible luck with the marten sightings... AND Bob and Holly of Silvergate Cabins were kind enough to rent us a Swarovski spotting scope for the duration of Bart's stay... Do check them out if you are in need of high-quaility optics or lodging at the NE corner of the Park... these guys are great!

3/24/08 Monday

 First bear of the year! A grizzly on a bison carcass. first bluebirds and redtail hawk too...

My first bear of 2008... a grizzly on a bison carcass as seen from ~1.5 miles through the spotting scope... yep, a long ways off but definitely a bear, and a big one at that (upper left), a bull bison photographed from at ground level... I was along side the Yellowstone Bridge at Tower photographing the River when this guy made his way a cross the bridge... we met as I walk up to the road edge (upper right) and a trio of white-tailed deer in the same area - these characters are a rarity in the Park believe it or not. Mule deer are most common member of the genus Odocoileus in Yellowstone (bottom).

 A wonderful bit of sunlight over Lamar Valley and Specimen Ridge.

3/23/08 Sunday

  Happy Easter! First red-winged blackbirds???? I ran the pups in a game of fetch over at the Arch Park... until the small group of 6 elk took over the field... and I thought that, between the sounds of dog feet and wind through the spruce, I heard the songs of red-wings... though the starlings are known to imitate all sorts of things - they would have had to have picked it up somewhere... Pronghorn and more elk watched our game and ousting by the other elk from hills just over the park border to the south.

  Sounds like a grizzly was visible on a bison carcass at Hellroaring overlook yesterday morning and that the Hayden wolves were in the hills south of the road and high bridge near Mammoth/Bunsen Peak.

3/22/08 Saturday

  Finishing up the details and cleaning up the studio after making the mold of new moose sculpture... stay tuned... pics will be up on the gallery page once the bronze is out and photographed. Walked the dogs with Jenny up near the travertine mine north of town... Jasper and Casey were quite taken with all the carcasses/animals remains in the area... Casey found herself the most scrumptious bison trachea and Jasper found what I can only guess was a dehydrated bison urethra... ah, the simple delights of a dog's life...

3/21/08 Friday

  I have been taking photos at sunrise each month since the winter solstice from our driveway in Gardiner... we all know that the tilt of the earth combined with the earth's rotation around the sun gives us the seasons but to really know is what I'm after. My plan is to carry this little photo series out until the summer solstice in June... and who knows maybe back towards the winter solstice after the summer wanes. It is part of this very change in day length and sunrise/set that is bringing our spring greenery, antler drop by the elk, bear emergence from hibernation as well as brining our bluebirds back... Jenny and I saw our first this afternoon! Chickadees are singing the "seeeee saaaaawww" song of their spring nuptials.

Got to see the Oxbow wolf pack this morning - 15 strong from Hellroaring overlook in the Park. The pack was feeding on a bison carcass. I had been looking for elk, actually, I was watching one large 6x7 bull elk in hopes that maybe, just maybe, I'd get to see his antlers drop off (many of the larger bulls, including those around Lava Creek and Blacktail Creeks, among them #10, have dropped their antlers in the last week). No such luck on this day...

A photo series taken each month from our driveway of sunrise on the eastern horizon since the winter solstice.

3/14/08 Friday

  I had great visit with friends Kris and Ray near Billings today. They invited me up after meeting Kris on a program in the Park this winter. The two of them are falconers and have a bison herd on their place too. I was able to take some shots as the herd came in for their daily treats at the gate near the house. Ray was also kind enough to bring their 2 year-old female gyrfalcon so I could take some photos... what a beautiful bird! Their male gyr/peregrine hybrid was beside himself with affection for the female - now that we're nearing the breeding season - he called and danced his way around the perch for his fair maiden... she wasn't impressed... at least not yet.

Kris and Ray's group of bison come in for their treats.

One of the cows... maybe #27? comes in for her share of what Ray's about to hand out.

Ray with their 2 year old, female gyrfalcon.

3/11/08 Tuesday

  The first bears are out! A Yellowstone Park press release noted that the tracks of an unknown species of bear - probably a grizzly in my estimation - were spotted in the Park's interior over this past weekend!

  Doing some study sketches while putting some of the finishing touches on a moose sculpture that I'm working on.

Study sketches of moose from photos; facial and torso details (left) and view of bottom of a dried moose hoof from Jim Halfpenny's track museum in Gardiner, MT.

3/9/08 Sunday

A bed-time drawing of Jenny.

  I had the opportunity to see Bull Elk #6's shed antlers today! I stopped back by the property where #6 supposedly dropped his mighty crown this year... and had the good fortune of catching JoAn Winters at home AND, YES, he did in fact drop them in her yard and she was kind enough to show them to me and allow for a few pictures and some measurements. She is going to keep the sheds, rather than sell them... as well she should, she's had a wonderful time watching this bull over the last few years in and around her yard. Number 6 dropped his antlers in the adjoining yard last winter. ¶ People are always curious when watching this massive bull in Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone as to the weight and dimensions of these antlers. JoAn said that she had weighed the rack on a bathroom scale while holding them in her hands and reported that they added 20lbs to her weight. Both main beams to the antlers were 54" long and each of six points per beam measured between 11 and 19 1/2" long... the G4 points, or "dagger tines", as they are sometimes known, measured 19 1/2" and 16" for the right and left antlers, respectively.

Bull Elk #6's antlers being held by JoAn Winters just a few yards from where they fell off the bull on March 2nd.

3/8/08 Saturday

  On the Trail of Bull Elk #6's antlers- As with past years, Bull #6 was one of the first elk to drop his antlers - usually around the first week of March; this year it was on March 2nd... and I'm presently trying to get my hands on them in order to measure/weigh them for the sake of curiosity. We have been watching him for the past several years as he has been one of the prime players in the Mammoth Hot Springs elk mating season. Many of us have assumed that the pattern of older bulls dropping their crowning headgear earlier than the younger bulls was a factor of the weight of those antlers pulling down on the ever-weakening union with the skull... As we have observed in the past, when Bull #6 had his antlers sawn off by Park officials, he still dropped the remaining stumps at the same, early time. The conclusion from this one case would lead one to believe that the drop time is physiologically-related; in other words, it seems that the need to begin growing the next year's crown necessitates the disposal of the old. Unlike one of this past rivals, Bull Elk #10 who winters on Blacktail Plateau in the area of Blacktail Creek, Bull #6 has wintered in Gardiner... so we have a better diary of his late-winter doings.

Here is a shot I took through my spotting scope of Bull #6 in velvet on May 9, 2007 on Blacktail Plateau - you can already see the extraordinary width of his rack taking shape even at this early stage of growth (left) and two shots of Bull #6 in Mammoth shot by artist Kyle Sims on September 19, 2007.

A shot of Bull Elk #6 on March 10th, 2008, just 8 days after dropping his crown (left) and another shot of Bull Elk #6 in velvet a little further along this past spring 2007 growing the very same rack that he just jettisoned (right photo by Kevin Leatham- as posted on www.Yellowstone.net)

  This afternoon I spoke with the woman, who, while walking to work down the back alley of Gardiner, watched Bull Elk #6 drop both of this antlers. Apparently a van drove up and #6 leapt up into a adjoining yard which directed him between two lilac bushes which cleanly plucked both sides of this headgear from their seat on his head.

  Additionally today, artist friends Shirl Ireland and John Stacy reported to me that John witnessed a pack of wolves kill a pronghorn buck right across the Yellowstone River from their house yesterday afternoon here in Gardiner! John got to watch the whole thing from his perch high above on the upper levels of some construction he is working on next to the house. This is quite a rare thing to have happen in the first place (only ~ 0.5% of ~3000 kills made by wolves recorded to date in Yellowstone have been kills of pronghorn) and even more unusual for someone to get to see it... congrats John! John, Shirl and the kids took a walk over to that side of the River today and found the carcass of the pronghorn... it was completely cleaned. There was some speculation as to whether the pronghorn may have been sick or injured as it was all by itself and as Shirl put it, "it didn't go into turbo speed," when the wolves were in pursuit. Usually, a pronghorn with a top speed of 60 mph is no match for a wolf with a top speed of 30 mph.

3/5/08 Wednesday - Sketching and sculpting bison from life in Gardiner.

  I'm working on a sculpture of a herd of five bison going through deep snow. With the bison traveling through town today, as they have been doing a lot this winter, I simply put the sculpture (all 70" of it) in to the back of the truck with my sculpting stand and followed them around town.... amazing to watch these creatures, and, as a bonus, one gets to find out where all the best grass is in town at this time of the year....

  Studies from life of geometry and forms of cow and calf bison faces.

... and another bed-time sketch of Jenny...

3/3/08 Monday - Watching with Kirsty & Alan Peak and friends from the UK

  It was one of the best views I've had at the Slough Creek pack in quite some time. The pack had made a kill on the western side of Lamar Canyon. We had good luck in that the pack came back down to the carcass of the elk for another meal before going back up onto the hills to the north to rest and wait for dark... the people along the road were scaring them from their hard-won feast.

Sketches of the Slough Creek wolf pack from life.

3/1/08 Saturday

  It was a great day in the Park with Kirsty and Alan Peak and their friends Jo, Sheila and Iris from the UK. They were here for wolves and wolves we saw... as well as a few other things...

2/28/08 Thursday

  It's another day catching up on errands and things in the office... including working out an illustration for the cover of Ursus - a journal dedicated to international bear research.

Doing some preparatory sketches for a bear illustration for the cover of Ursus.

2/27/08 Wednesday

  Spent the day out painting on location in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone Park with friend Aaron Schuerr....

Bison herd near where we were painting at the confluence of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek.

Aaron with his last piece of the day as our light slipped away with the sweeping veils of snow above.

Hard at work, Aaron steps back to check his painting... as a group of cow bison have a look at he and I... don't worry... Soda Butte Creek separates them from a up-close visit.

2/26/08 Tuesday

  It was a day for foundry work and errands in Bozeman. While walking the dogs this morning down on White Lane in Gardiner, Jasper, Casey and I were 'pushed off' of our game of fetch by a herd of 14 cow bison... beautiful creatures, yet sadly doomed to be sent to the rendering plant if they cross back to the south side of the Yellowstone River. As I drove down the highway towards Livingston I had to pause as a caravan of government vehicles, rangers, horse/cattle trailers and a county sheriff squad car entered the highway at Corwin Springs - they were transporting another load of bison from the Stephens Creek Capture facility in the Park, bound for the rendering plan. I followed them all the way to Livingston where they entered the Rt. 90 going east. Wish there was a better solution to this problem... I almost rather see them hunted in greater numbers than trucked for how-ever many hours, just to be killed elsewhere after they've had a chance to batter each other around in a stock trailer.

 On the ride back into Gardiner tonight, near dusk, two young bull elk sparred in the road near the Forest Service Office as big bull elk #6, of Mammoth Hot Springs renown, grazed and quickely put the youngsters in their place as they got too near to 'his' grass in the lawn. Bull #6 still has his antlers on BUT, very soon the crown will fall... a thought not lost, I'm sure, on the person sitting, you might say waiting, in the parked car across the street from the bulls.

2/19-2/21/08 Tuesday-Thursday - True to Life Drawing Class in Yellowstone at the Lamar Valley Buffalo Ranch

  What a day to finish the drawing class - True To Life: The Art and Science of Drawing Animals... We went out for some watching this morning, as we did yesterday, bypassing the wolves and wolf watchers on the hunt for red foxes and moose. The weather continued to be chilly, about 1-2 below zero F and cooling a bit more as the morning sun rose, before warming the valley and breaking up the temperature inversion. As luck would have it our eagle-eye spotter Ivanie spotted two moose, cows - one near Silvergate bedded beside the road and the other standing and feeding near the Barronette Peak  area inside the Park. AND, while driving back to Lamar from the latter cow, we came upon another cow moose standing in the road... this one with a calf! What luck - I haven't seen a moose a several weeks and here we find 4 in one morning drive... if this weren't enough, back near Soda Butte cone we found our ever-elusive red fox... amazing little fellows. They have been seeing up to 3 different individuals on the elk carcass north of the Hitching Post pullout in Lamar... but we've just missed each one until this one. We watched as the fox walked in the tracks of a bison until it got as close as it deemed appropriate to the maker of those tracks, then veered off for points untrammeled - floating across the deep snow like a water-strider over a pond top.

2/18/08 Monday

  An incredible sight with friends Aaron and Lynell Schuerr and boys in the Park at Blacktail Pleateau.... two intruding male wolves get in a fight over the ladies they've lured away from the home-town, aka Leopold, wolf pack... the cartoon below recounts my recollections of the scene that unfolded right before our eyes at a distance of 200-800 yards.... in fact, the main chase of the losing male came right toward us at the road pullout where we were parked.

Cartoon of the events surrounding one male wolf chasing off another, then stealing his girls...

2/11/08 Monday

  Jenny and I were slaves to the office today but did break away to go for a ski up in Jardine,~ 7 miles up the road. Just before leaving the last few houses in Gardiner we, or I should say, Jenny spotted 3 bighorn rams right down near the road (3/4 curls or better)... and quite low in elevation too I might add. The usual elk and mule deer girded our route as well as a few bison up in the Eagle Creek campground. Folks from the Buffalo Field Campaign reported that the Park has capture 53 bison at the Stephen's Creek capture facility. Four additional ones were killed in and around the campground as part of the Montana State bison hunt in the last few days. The place is alive with eagles, ravens and magpies. I'd much rather see those bison shot here than shipped to a rendering plant hours away, which is what will happen to those in the capture facility - it would be a much more compassionate thing to do if these animals are going to die.

2/10/08 Sunday

This was a very quick sketch in oil on canvas using only a palate knife very thick paint. This 6x8" study is of sage and fir trees on slope on the west side of "Yankee Jim Canyon" 14 miles north of Gardiner, MT. I was waiting the truck for Jenny to finish her longest run to date in preparation for the Salt Lake City marathon... 16 miles.

2/9/08 Saturday

 A day at home together after a spell of traveling. House work, office work and all the rest gladly slid out of the way as Jenny and I loaded up the pups and took off for a ski up in Jardine... the snow is wonderful and the dogs were in seventh heaven. Each black dog took turns diving into the airy white stuff and immerging, leaping or swimming out more alabaster than black. With a shake they become our familiar black dogs again and turn for more of the white stuff. Driving home the mule deer along the road took turns leaping up the drifted banks to graze on some of the south facing slopes. I stopped the truck so they wouldn't be rushed and burn more energy than required. Does and fawns alike waded, and at times, partially bounded through snow that reached part way up their bodies.

2/5 - 2/7/08 Tuesday - Thursday

 A great time was to be had the last few days as I and Brad Bulin taught/guided a group from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition in Lamar Valley. With a comfortable bed and great food at the Buffalo Ranch we were treated to 3 days of amazing wildlife viewing including 'doorstep' wolf watching of the Druid Peak Pack. On our second morning the Druids spent quite a bit of time chasing off one of the two intruding males that has been in the Valley for almost 3 months now. Later that morning they made a new kill not 1/2 mile from the back porch of The bunkhouse... in full view of the Buffalo Ranch and the Road. Another unique sighting, which I caught a lot of grief for, was a group of 6 white-tailed deer along the Yellowstone River; all females. This is a very unusual sighting which I tried to convey to the group, which had amassed from all corners of the US where white-tailed deer are certainly in no shortage, they weren't as impressed as I. Truthfully speaking, white-tailed deer, raccoons, skunks... creatures that are common as "common" gets are actually quite rare here in the Park - this is probably related to the severity of our winters.

A memory sketch from this morning's view of the Druid wolf pack on a kill... an elk calf... we had just gone inside the Bunkhouse at the Buffalo Ranch for breakfast and word came that the Druids had just chased this calf over hill, right into view and made the kill with remarkable swiftness; it fell not 1/2 mile from the Bunkhouse and the road... quite close viewing. The beta male, wolf 302 (the black wolf on the bottom of the sketch), was the principle player in bringing the calf down.

2/1 - 2/4/08 Friday- Monday  A Family visit in Maryland... and a conference for Jenny.

Man waiting at counter to reschedule a missed flight... we were in the same boat.

 A proud "Pappy" aka John Golding Sr., aka, Jenny's dad, with Ethan and Bella (left), the Joey "the Glenelg Slugger" Buscher - Jenny's nephew (middle) and John Jr. with Ethan - Jenny's brother and his son Ethan.

Sketch of old aqueduct along Potomac River at Cushwa, Maryland.

1/31/08 Wednesday

Sketch of a golden eagle pair perched over one of their favorite duck hunting spots

at the confluence of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek in northern Yellowstone.

Yawning alpha female of the Druid Peak pack, 569F, and a simple sketch

of the entire pack of 15 wolves stretched out along the Valley.

1/29/08 Monday

  Love is in the air... wolf love that is. This is Day 2 of a program out in Lamar Valley with the Montana Wilderness Association. The mating season for Yellowstone's gray wolves is upon us and the wildlife viewing has taken a turn for the 'peeping tom' variety. We spotted the Druid Peak wolf pack south of Soda Butte Cone this afternoon and as one would expect, the Druid alpha pair were parallel walking (a sign of pair bonding that has both animals walking in unison with their flanks pressed together). The first observed "tie" between the pair did not come until February 2nd but we were getting close none the less. Afternoon conditions were still blustery but the amount of snow in the air has thinned out to the point where we could see the surrounding hills, as part of the group from the Montana Wilderness Association and I, skied the road out toward the Slough Creek Campground. We tried to make a loop of the ski but the alternately crusted and powdery snow made for difficult navigation as we all kept falling through up to our knees, or more, the further we ventured from the road.

1/28/08 Monday

....well.... nobody got out into the Park as the winter weather has become so severe that the entire Park is closed, over-snow travel (including snowmobiles and snow coaches) and automobiles included. The snow and drifting has deleted visibility and outpaced the snow plows en route to and from Cooke City. This is a far cry from some of the past winters that we've had that scarcely cover the sage brush... The Park's automated road report says that no one will be able to get in until after 10am tomorrow.

 Blowing like the dickens outside! A front is moving in and bringing with it snow and promises of more cold temperatures. Jenny and I drove home from Mammoth last night and could scarcely use the high-beams on the truck for all of the snow in the air... big poofy flakes of it. Luckily though we were able to spot the red fox sitting in the middle of our lane in time to slow an allow it to disappear in to the sagebrush. I'm heading out to lead another class for the Yellowstone Association/Montana Wilderness Association in Lamar Valley... a great place to get snowed in!

1/25-1/26/08 Friday & Saturday

 Had a wonderful time out leading a two-day trip into Yellowstone for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. The weather was much more amiable as of late now that the sub-zero Fahrenheit temps are over. The group was staying out at the B-Bar Ranch up in Tom Miner Basin, a 45 minute drive west of Gardiner. My partner and Brad and I drove out, picked up the group each morning than drove out into Yellowstone's Northern Range for wolf viewing. The first morning was a success almost off the bat as we found the Oxbow Creek wolf pack (with the help of a wolf watcher named Alan) lounging after its meal of fresh elk meat. The carcass was quite close to the road, and covered with birds, which probably resulted in their leaving the area as soon as the first cars began driving by. Five or six of the pack were clearly visible out of the 17 in this group right now - all gray with one black individual in the pack. From there we had good luck finding a break-off group of the Slough Creek pack known as 527's group. This female wolf for which the group is named has apparently gotten tired of the harassment by the Slough pack's alpha female and separated from them with the company of the female known as "Sharp Right", another black wolf and her new beau, a large gray male. Minutes later we were able to watch one of the unknown gray males that has been hanging around the Druid Pack on a carcass in the south side of Lamar Valley. There were actually 2 carcasses not far from one another... not sure if they both were wolf kills or not. Despite the wolf presence there were coyotes at almost every turn. Ravens, eagles, magpies and more filled out the cadre of scavengers at the carcasses. A couple bighorn sheep were visible near the confluence on Friday - though only a single ram and a ewe. There has been many fewer sheep on these hills to the north of the Lamar River/Soda Butte Creek confluence area in the last couple years.... not sure why either. The ram, as seen through the spotting scopes, looked to be a 7-year old with a slight bit of brooming to the tips of his horns (brooming is an attempt of the bighorn rams to get the curling horn tips out of their peripheral vision by smashing and breaking them off on rocks and other hard surfaces which results in a shattered/broken look to the horn ends). On Saturday we had a wonderful view of the Druid Peak wolf pack along Soda Butte Creek where they have been making so many kills this winter... yet again, they had a downed bull elk and, by the time we arrived, had filled their bellies and were sleeping it off on the far side of this small valley. It sounds like all 16 were there though we could count only 13 initially. AND the grand finale was finding a Barrow's golden-eye duck for Carol... all these wolves and stuff were nice BUT she had never seen a Barrows SO look and look we did only to find Common golden-eyes until FINALLY we stopped at the new bridge at Corwin springs just north of the park and found a raft of ~75 golden-eyes- of which, about half were Barrow's! Mission accomplished!

1/21/08 Monday

 Happy Martin Luther King Day! When Jenny got up this morning to let the dogs out the thermometer read -17°F. By breakfast it was a staggering 0°F... and ultimately got up to a high of 12°F at about 3pm before beginning to dip down again. The blustery winds of yesterday have ushered in a fine front of cold weather to compliment the last few days of snow we've been experiencing. Walking the dogs up at Eagle Creek today the snow gave forth a symphony of sound that only super dry and cold snow can have. As one plants the heel of a boot or shoe into this dry whiteness it gives a grunt, not unlike that of a little piggy, and as the ball of the foot follows through with the step there emerges a high pitched squeak - the mouse of my gate. As the dogs bound by the powder shooshes across more powder with the the whisper of beach sand amid the hot afternoon sun. So our afternoon walk went with slanted light, shadows of blue and purple on the hills and mountains and pigs and mice, pigs and mice and the conversations of winter sands underfoot.

1/20/08 Sunday

 A weekend day together... sort of. Jenny was supposed to run a 15 mile training run for her marathon preparations. The winds were choked with snow and howling from the west and the temperatures were frigid. After driving the Old Yellowstone Trail through Yankee Jim Canyon (through drift and clouds of snow) we realized that the conditions were just not conducive to a long distance run today. She opted for a 7-miler and called it short at that... the cold had soaked through to the point at which J made the 'alright-come-get-me-now-I've-had-enough' cell phone call. I on the other hand, passed much of the day pouring waxes for pieces that are due at the foundry... the dogs and I erred on the side of warmth. Before bed I made a quick oil painting sketch of Jenny asleep in bed (shown below). I am really enjoying playing with these oil paints... no aspirations of painting much, just having fun with it. They are so forgiving (compared to watercolors) and for me anyway, they are like sculpting with paint... color, texture, perspective, atmosphere... so many things that it can convey that eludes the medium of clay... If you see one you'd like to have, give us a call, we're selling these for a modest amount (prob ~$25-$30) so we can continue to purchase supplies. Each of those below are 6x8".

Experimenting with oil paints: Still life -vase and fruit and Jenny in bed (6x8").

1/18 - 1/19/08 Friday & Saturday  - Guiding the Websters at Old Faithful

Snow coaches are ready & waiting outside the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. They will soon be taking skiers out for their 'daily glide'. Jim and I opted to ski up the road to our trailhead for a ski out along the old gaited road to Lone Star Geyser.

One cannot beat the Yellowstone interior in winter. The mix if snow and thermal features - part of the "fire and ice" of Yellowstone, if you will. On the snow coach ride down to OF we drove past the Lower Geyser Basin where I snapped the photo to the left. The contrast of the dead tree trunks against the billowing steam of geysers and hot springs was just too irresistible to pass up. After darting through my over-stuffed day bag I was able to extract my camera for a few quick shots before we passed the basin by. Below is the 'parking' for the snow lodge. No one has their own vehicle down here and many of us get around the complex on cross-country skis.

1/15/08 Monday

 Images and sketches from the "Wolves of Yellowstone" program I taught in Lamar Valley. Photos are compliments of Regina Kolc.

We watched as the Druid Wolf pack alternately chased and waited for the elements to take their toll on this bull elk in Soda Butte Creek. He later fell to the wolves as did the bull who left his skull imbedded in the snowy bank to the back and right of the elk in the water... see the antlers sticking out? Photo by Regina Kolc.

1/14/08 Monday

 Preparing to teach the Wolves of Yellowstone Class out in Lamar Valley in the Park... so, this means a good bit of office work preparation... I did walk the dogs this morning and we had a hard time getting back home as the big bull elk #6 (because of the ear tag in his left ear) from the Mammoth Hot Springs autumn mating season melee, was in the road... just ambling along. For those who know him, or those who don't, his is the bull that had his antlers cut off a few years ago after ramming one too many tourist cars, Park service vehicles - some of which were parked AND goring a foolish tourist/photographer near the steps of the Mammoth Grill. SO, you can see why we chose to give him as wide a berth is possible. ie. he was on one side of the street and we squeezed our selves along the fence (with my hand on young Casey's collar) and back to the house.

A cow moose and a calf at Floating Island Lake in northern Yellowstone this evening! What a sight... they were side-by-side on the ice of the lake, standing there as the last remnants of evening light faded away. It is especially nice to see a calf alive and apparently doing well. Moose numbers took a big slide since the fires of 1988 and it will likely be a while before they recover to the point of pre-fire numbers ie. when the forests finally grow back... and in this country, it could be a long time.

1/5 - 1/9/08 Coors Art Exhibit & Sale at the Denver Stock Show.

 What a wonderful trip!... a great show, and great friends... this was my first showing at the Coors event and I was quite humbled by the outpouring of kindness from everyone involved with the event, along with the chance to be among so many outstanding artists, and the opportunity to see several friends from the Denver area and meet so many more new acquaintances. Our first night out Jenny and I stayed with John and Judy Scarlett in Johnstown, CO. John is one of our finest volunteers for the field seminar courses I teach in Yellowstone for the Yellowstone Association Institute. An added bonus of the stay with the Scarletts was Judy's otherworldly apple pie (seriously, I haven't had pie like that since my grandmother passed away some years ago) and learning to perform the impossible... folding a fitted sheet. Somehow the insanity of trying to fold these unruly bed coverings came up during our breakfast conversation and lo and behold... John and Judy knew how AND were patient enough to share this kernel of ancient wisdom with us... pictured below is my 'not-so-successful' attempt.

Judy, myself and John pose during my failed attempt at folding a fitted sheet (left)... and a photo Jenny took of Hugh and Nancy Grove and I with "Valley Vigil" - Wolf 42 at their home in Evergreen, CO.

 Jenny and I were very delighted to also have the chance to also stay with friends Hugh and Nancy Grove. We met initially during one of my wolf ecology seminars in Yellowstone and have stayed in touch ever since. An added bonus of staying with the Groves, outside of the superb dinner and great conversation was seeing the "Alpha Pair," - my life-sized wolves, installed for the first time at their home. If this was not a enough, the Groves have an amazing menagerie that comes through their yard and feeders including turkeys, mule deer, gray foxes, black bears, elk... below is a shot Nancy passed along of two tom turkeys sidling up to "Border Patrol" - the sculpture of Wolf 21.

Wild turkeys use the life-size sculpture of "Border Patrol" - Wolf 21 as a perch and display stage at the home of Hugh and Nancy Grove in Evergreen, CO.

 Following a wonderful stay with our friend Marilyn's in downtown Denver, Jenny and I donned our semi-formal attire for the Red Carpet reception for the Coors event at the Stock Show grounds. On top of seeing many new and old friends, we had the opportunity to meet Rose Frederick and Anni Bengtson (the hardworking women responsibly for pulling everything together for this event), several patrons and supporters of the Show and artists such as Ken Bunn, Len Chmiel, George Carlson, Jim Morgan, Steve Kestrel, Kent Ullberg, T.D. Kelsey, Walter Matia and many, many more...

Jenny and I at the Red Carpet Reception for the Coors Art Exhibit & Sale with two of my pieces on display.

1/2/08 Wednesday

 Blustery winds in Gardiner today. Blood in the urine of a coyote, up at Eagle Creek this morning while walking the dogs... this means the female is in pro-estrus, and the breeding season is drawing near for coyotes and wolves.

12/31/07-1/1/08 Spent the New Year with the crazy crew from Boise, ID.... the AUSTINS!

Sunrise in Lamar Valley in northern Yellowstone.

 It has become a bit of a tradition for this fun-loving group that we get together at the Lamar Valley Buffalo Ranch out in the north end of Yellowstone.

A snowshoe hike in a hidden nook, girded by cliffs of limestone, in the northern range of Yellowstone (left) and the 'gang' looking up the hills near the confluence of Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek (right) at...

...this magnificent golden eagle and bighorn sheep ram perched above us.

Sunset in Lamar Valley of Yellowstone Park.

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All material contained herein is copyrighted against unauthorized use and reproduction in any form
by George B. Bumann

© G.B. Bumann 2008