I’m in Montana this week chasing after birds with my dog and taking in the sights along the way…
…and what sights they’ve been!
I’ll have more photos then you’ll ever want to see once I get home to my computer and quick internet but until then you can check out Instagram (link in sidebar) for occasional updates!
We woke this morning to single digits and sun.
I step outside, eyes squinting, to find the world unwrapped from it’s veil of rain and clouds. Nothing but crisp lines and clear skies as far as the eye can see. What was recently soggy ground now crunches beneath my boots and the little ponds have frozen solid. Smooth, dark ice that captures the blue of the sky and reflects back a deeper hue than the one above.
The sun, sitting low in that field of blue, is lacking in warmth but making up for in light. Photographers talk of the golden hours, but now, as the year turns, we have golden days. Shadows are long, colors are rich and the dogs running through the fields are surrounded by a constant halo of light, backlit, even at midday.
Clouds from dogs’ breath trail behind them as if they were small steam engines and milkweed pods burst open as they fly past. Seeds lit golden by the sun are caught by the biting wind and swirl off out of sight.
As I walk, my cheeks stiffen from the wind and cold – a small price to pay for a morning out in single digits and sun.
Someone once told me that there are people who can jump out of bed and right into rational thought. But they told me about these so called “people” early in the morning and I was unable to determine over the course of the conversation if this is in fact true or just some fairy tale to further confuse those of us who have an extra hard time in the morning.
Today my foolish morning brain said, “Self you don’t want to wear your good jeans*, put on those old holey ones instead.” Had my afternoon brain been available it would have replied, “Dude, what are you nuts! I’m going bird hunting on the edges of a marshy mess known for it’s terribly thick cover that I will no doubt want to dive into because that’s where everyone else will have chased the birds to. Lets put on the good jeans*!”
Sadly my afternoon brain was sound asleep.
I wore the jeans with no knees.
Hours later I was doing my best human bulldozer impression. Having already become fed up with the terribly thick cover catching my hat, whistle, shock collar remote, game vest, sunglasses, shirt, neck, face and bare knees I was now pushing backwards, through the forest of ten foot tall, dried out plants. Each time I stepped back I would feel the tug of the 3/4 inch round stems, as their 60 grit sandpaper coating caught on my game vest and then I’d watch at my feet as they pulled out of the ground, each connected to a four inch plug of mud. Sometimes I’d get lucky and they’d snap off and stab me, occasionally I would tangle my feet and slowly, supported on all sides by the forest of stalks, sink to the ground in an undignified, swearing heap.
The vegetation behind my dog in no way resembles what I walked though. The vegetation behind my dog is like a golf course in comparison. In fact the only things that are similar between this picture and the experience above is that my dog is running and the sky was just as blue and beautiful.
Today was my first bird hunt of the year and I feel the dogs, the gun and I have left ourselves wide open for improvement. The dogs- will not wander off in the midst of a horrid forest of sandpaper stalks. The gun – will stay in one piece when I shoot it. And I – I will find my hunting clothes the night before.
* “Good” in this case has nothing to do with fit, wear or stains, only the absence of very large holes.
Behind the Willows 