Crazy Woman Creek

I woke up in the middle of the night several times because I didn’t want to oversleep and miss doing my bird points. The coyotes woke me up around 3:30 am with happy yelps and group howling. I remember so many years ago when coyotes use to scare me, and I would have dreams of being ripped apart by a pack of them while camping. The unknown often scares us, lurking just out of sight. I’ve see so many of them that now they don’t scare me, they usually run the other way.

Nick and I hiked over miles of sagebrush after reluctantly climbing out of our somewhat warmer sleeping bags into the cold damp air. I had a hard time putting contacts in my eyes before 5am. We heard lots of Brewer’s sparrows, as well as too many loud meadowlarks calling out songs to defend patches of grass and sage, attracting females into their lonely lives. Rock wrens clung to the small scattered chunks of rock, and I wondered if they knew that better cliffs and rocks are across the earth. A sage thrasher sang his adorable song from a dense group of the fragrant sage bush and a great horned owl nest could be seen in the only tree within miles of rolling hills.

We discovered a freshly killed deer by the coyotes we heard, it head and spinal chord intact but all the meaty parts ripped to pieces and devoured. Fur was left all around it, all that was left was the rib meat, maybe the coyotes couldn’t eat without a knife to cut them into neat BBQ slathered pieces like civilized humans.

A thick blanket of clouds covered the sky completely and they occasionally sprinkled small rain drops on us. I heard something weird, and looked towards a hill just in time to see a sage grouse fly out of some sage, giving us a good view of her black belly. A deer cautiously watched us as well as a coyote later in that morning. Cows could be seen on hilltops and a large group of deer silently passed by just as our survey was ending.

Nick and I drove to Gillette, WY and went into the library. He started to read a book and fell asleep on the comfy sofa, and the librarian told him to wake up or leave. We looked horrible covered in mud from the morning and my hair looks greasy if I don’t shower every night. We parted ways, him going to Ten Sleep, WY to meet up with Erin and me going to Buffalo, WY , but only after a bored cop gave me a speeding ticket. I fibbed and told the cop I was new to the area, and he reminded me that I stayed with Kari for several weeks after leaving the 20 acres behind. He was such a bored cop, he must have been stalking me, the outsider. I then remembered that he had rang the doorbell one afternoon to remind us of a $5 parking ticket that needed to be paid. Was I in Mayberry?

I got to my bird point and was furious when I realized it was behind private land, I would never drive down a private road without permission. I will have to take tomorrow off and figure out all the landownership stuff to reach the point.

I passed down a long winding road outside of Buffalo that follows Crazy Woman Creek, thousands of black Angus cows were eating fresh spring grass with a back drop of hills topped with red dirt. I gave up finding public access to the public Bureau of Land Management Land and went to bed early after setting up my tent on Petrified Tree on BLM land further west.

Muddy Slugs

I lay in my tent with a headlamp strapped around my forehead, and even though it’s dark, a Brewer’s sparrow calls across the sage brush. He is so emotional about spring and having a mate he can’t stop singing in these late hours, his song sounding sort of insect like. In the distance calls a great horned owl and several frogs giving me a feel of almost being in southern California, camping next to a lively riparian area.

Today started at around 5am where I rolled out of bed, grabbed my binoculars and a scoop of peanut butter, then went out to a Buffalo Gap National Grassland for my last day of job training. In the grasslands the mud was so bad the whole group collected mud on the bottoms of their shoes then scraped them off while scooting across the highway, looking like slugs leaving a slime trail. My cowboy boots didn’t collect mud, probably that is why they are George Strait approved. We all cleaned the Whitney Preserve house, Nick sweeping the kitchen floor, Anica vacuuming, Erin using the big broom in the dining room and living room. Dried mud was everywhere from the wet and snowy week we had. We divided into groups by which state we were working in for final instructions, then we all went our separate ways. Me and Nick used the Hot Springs library for hours, and didn’t get to our first points at Raven Creek south of Upton, WY till long after dark.

Wind Cave and Solitude

Buffalo were grazing on a far hill of Wind Cave National Monument while we did practice bird point counts through the grassy hills spotted with small patches of ponderosa pine forest. There was so much gear hanging around my neck, it felt like it was strangling me. Binoculars, compass, timer, range finder, clip board and my hand knit scarf all dangled and clanged against each other while I walked. Jay was in my group and he doesn’t miss any birds, little ships, chirps, calls, and even wing noises reveal themselves to his trained ears. The coolest display of love for the day were a couple of upland sandpipers flying around our last point. The best moment though was taking the gear off and wandering around the park freely in search of red crossbills. I climbed through pines to see a beautiful valley below, buffalo in the distance and wind rustling the trees.

When I got back to the house, I didn't feel like going to town like everyone else. Just me and the guys that were stressed and in charge stayed at the preserve. I wandered off by myself and found hills and cliffs that no one bothered going too as I listened to the robins closely to learn all there confusing songs and calls. It was very peaceful, sometimes I just need solitude, especially after being around so many people in one house. On the way back I took pictures of deer and mountain bluebirds hunting around an old cabin on the preserve.

Friends and Snow

I woke up and looked out the window to see the ground covered in snow, no outside birding that day. We spent the whole day cooped up inside, taking bird quizzes.

Some new friends that I have made are Quick, a tough girl with a shaved head and a lot of camo in her wardrobe, she also makes chain mail out of soda pop can tops then makes them into purses or art. I love how she would sit at the table every night and write her friend with post cards, and she would write in a journal for another friend. She said "This is how I let this person know I care." I was really touched by that, and thought of my friend Ellen's hand made envelopes and handwritten letters that I got from her. I promised to knit her a skull cap in camo colors, and will buy some post cards to mail her.

Erin is a surfer girl that just moved back to Wyoming after living in Humbolt, CA for a while. She showed up with long neat braids on both sides of her head and a beanie on top, then let her braids down later to reveal wavy long hair. She said she had a friend braid them, and she can't do it herself. She has the cabin room next to mine, we were both lucky to have beds when so many people had to sleep in their tents.

Whitney was also a northern California girl, with short artistically styled hair. I think she is a vegetarian. We all gather in Erin's room on her bed and study birds every night from the Thayer's software on her laptop, and we have a lot of fun doing it together even though we might not learn as many birds that way.

Another person I get along with is Jay from the Idaho Bird Observatory. He is the most skilled birder in the group and was just there to learn about my organization and maybe join up with them as partners in his state. We were all bored at a plant veg training as some people argue too much over percentages of stuff. I didn't care at all, knew what I was doing already, I've done so much plant stuff. Jay started throwing juniper berries at people out of boredom and was surprised when I threw a few his way. We all went to the booming town of Hot Springs, SD for internet, beer, and a hockey game and we had a nice chat.

The Black Hills

Instead of following the major highways, my GPS took me through several back roads through the Black Hills of South Dakota to my bird training. Along the way I passed forests, lakes, and Mt Rushmore. I had to stop to get a picture of four presidents carved into a mountain as cheesy as it is, but was disappointed when they wanted $10 to get in. I got a crappy shot from the side of the highway instead, then went through the tourist trap of Custer, SD. I recommend looking at the comparison of old photographs from an 1874 Custer expedition and the modern day photos of the same spots at the Forest Service (also very free!). My favorite was a picture of a wagon train through scarcely covered forest and the modern photo of a road in the same spot winding through thick fire suppressed forests. It was like seeing ghosts in the old pictures.

I've been at the Whitney Preserve south of Hot Springs, SD for the last few days without phone or internet or internet on my blackberry! The place is quit beautiful though with a backdrop of tall hills covered in ponderosa pine and juniper, and so many new birds to be discovered. Clay-colored sparrow is abundant, giving a constant insect like buzz coming from grass and bushes, and I saw my first Harris sparrow this morning with a bright white throat unlike any other sparrow I've seen before.

When I saw my bird transects for Wyoming, I was really disappointed though. My organization gave me all the northeast Wyoming points which include some pretty spots, but I was looking forward to exploring western Wyoming. I might still get to a few western spots to survey for birds, and I plan on spending my days off looking for a place out there to move to.

I'm surrounded by biologists this week and I should be comfortable and in my element, but I can't stop thinking there is something else out there for me than bird statistics. I've been thinking I should go back to school for photography and writing classes. This is the dream...to have forty acres and a cabin, while writing novels and taking photos and making a real living out of it.

Lady Gaga Inspires Me to Follow My Dreams

The day I left Cowboy I read in a Cosmopolitan magazine a quote from Lady Gaga "Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams.", and went immediately to the store and bought one of her CDs for more inspiration. I had no idea where the CD was about to lead me that afternoon as I drove to the next town over just to listen to the whole thing. I didn't know that she would give me the courage to leave the house of tears that afternoon. A few weeks later, on the 11th anniversary of my brothers death, the lure of my Lady Gaga CD had me driving all over Gillette to occupy myself, and I went to the spot where I met Cowboy and the city of Gillette the first time. If I was a smoker, I would have been puffing a cigarette at that gas station listening to one song in particular as I imagined that cold February night in the same place. I texted Cowboy that I missed him and told him where I was, and he texted back that he was herding horses in Montana and included a phone picture, it was a trip I really wished I could have gone on with him. I really liked his family, and wish I could see them again too, they live in Montana.

I started driving again, and Lady Gaga led me to some kind of frontier museum. I walked in to the museum and started looking at the vast collections of guns, spurs, and wagons. They had a restored sheep herders wagon from the turn of last century, and I loved how cozy it looked inside with a neat bed, table, and stove. It just might be the first RV ever made. I wish I could take that wagon with me on my state-wide camping this summer when I look for birds. Nearby was a research library, which made me curious enough to ask the guy at the front desk about it. He handed me a book full of local families and said the library had all the raw documentation for them in it. I started studying the book, searching for interesting stories of pioneer women who I might be able to use in a novel. Someone who worked at the museum walked up to the front desk and the guy behind the desk pointed to me, parked on an old white couch with the book in the gun room, and he told her that I had been looking at the book so long that she should help me. She walked over, introduced herself, and I explained that it is my dream to write a historic fiction novel. She was so helpful, even going as far as researching stories of women she has heard of in the local library. She gave me a list of books to start with and I have since fallen in love with the story of Elinore Stewart, told in letters that she wrote to her former boss in Denver. She talks about everything from the ranch, to the neighbors, and the beauty of Wyoming, but doesn't mention her relationship with her husband much. I think that is where I can weave a beautiful love tale, and use her letters as the background of the story.

I have to wonder why I hardly chose to write when I lived with Cowboy, for months I really had nothing to fill my days except his laundry and what I was going to make him for dinner. I feel lost on what my future is after my bird job, but I will still have half of the summer to explore Wyoming and maybe make a home for myself up here before the ice covers the highways trapping me inside the state for the winter.

Tears and Fears of Moving On

For the past few weeks, my life has been pretty stagnant. It still hurts to think about Cowboy and I haven't seen him or the dogs since the day I left. I moved in with Cowboy's friend from work, she was the only other person that I knew in this town and I might have moved back to Albuquerque without her help. Little things around her house like small tools and notebooks remind me of him, because I was always picking up his tools left everywhere around the house. A large Cat truck like Cowboy's, belonging to her husband, sits in front of their house and he also works with Cowboy. He was glad when I moved in because I started cooking up the elk and moose in their freezer into dishes like lasagna and tostadas. I would cry in my room for hours at first, but now that pain only brings occasional tears and every blue dodge truck I see makes me panic a little until I see it doesn't have Cowboy's custom features on it.

I was reading an American Cowboy magazine left on the pine coffee table one day at my new place, and in the back there was an add for an equestrian dating site. In an effort to replace him and get over him already, I logged on and made a profile. Cowboys all over the country and beyond liked my pictures and started emailing me and it was really overwhelming. I started ignoring emails and have kept in touch with just a few that interested me, but I came to the realization that I didn't want any man in my life right now. Men just seem to get in the way of my dreams by forcing me to focus on them instead.