Tag Archives: Washington

The Thing About Badgers

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ThingAboutBadgers8095

The thing about badgers is that they do not make good house pets. I know this is a surprise what with all those slick ‘adopt a badger’ ads you see on TV. The close-up of their beady little bloodshot eyes, the slow motion shots of the badger running towards its supposed loved one, the way it seems to want to be cuddled and held. However many people have found to their dismay after the fact that badgers, although taciturn and often grumpy, also have many other unsavory habits that tend to make them an undesirable pet.

Unfortunately they don’t have good prospects to be your new best friend because they are not genetically predisposed to be friendly loving creatures. Their background  includes being related to polecats, weasels, and wolverines and we’ve all known people who have been raised by weasels and how that didn’t work out. Breeding shows. I know that is a harsh statement but you will see as you read further that this condemnation is usually proved true. If it makes it any easier to accept think of them as being like politicians, they seem ok until you elect them and then their true colors come out.

First in a long list of problems is that they are very short. Squatty, actually. While shortness is not a bad habit in itself, it is what one does with that shortness that causes a problem. Several unfortunate pet owners have stated that everything was fine with having a badger for a pet until they introduced them to the household cat. The badger feigning friendliness quickly grabbed the unoffending tabby, and being short, easily dragged it under the heavy divan in the sitting room and made a short meal of it amidst much contented grunting and snorfling. There was the usual screaming and caterwauling from everyone involved of course, as the men in the family tried unsuccessfully to lift the heavy couch to rescue the poor feline. But this was too little, too late as badgers are known for taking hasty meals. Besides losing fluffy, what seemed to bother the new owners of the badger the most, was the unrepentant attitude of the badger after the fact. It was if the badger didn’t care.

Another problem is their reticence towards public speaking. It is difficult if not impossible to get a badger to make a speech or even carry on a casual conversation. They will sometimes answer a question with a single syllable grunt or a high-pitched squeaking sound if the question surprises them, but if you’re looking for a witty dinner companion do not choose the badger, they will constantly disappoint you.

But by and large the biggest problem and by biggest we mean freaking huge with having a badger around is their tendency towards drunkenness. If you think badgers are a handful sober try having them around when they’re hammered. In the wild you can often find drunken badgers sprawled out around the edges of an orchard where they have eaten fermented fruit for its alcohol content until they pass out and become nuisances of the first order. Often fighting, and scratching rude messages on the apple trees, they show a total disregard for others personal property. Farmers often have to circumnavigate their orchards in the morning, dragging the besotted creatures to a safer place to sleep it off so they don’t get run over by the farm machinery and gum up the works. Alcoholism and homelessness in the badger population is a huge issue in States that have large fruit crops such as Washington for its apples, and Wisconsin because it has cheap beer, to name just two.

In the home it becomes a more personal problem for the owner of these pets as they will raid the liquor cabinet and consume everything in it, often just before you plan to have a large party. They are particularly fond of fruit liqueurs but will even drink your most expensive Cognac, badgers don’t care. If nothing else is available they will drink beer having no problem pulling the caps off the bottle with their strong forearms and long claws which act as built-in church keys. The real problem comes when they wake up as they have ferocious hangovers and are completely unmanageable until much later in the day. It is best to simply coax them outside with an empty liquor bottle and lock the doors.

While it may seem like a good idea to have a badger as a pet it often doesn’t work out. Don’t be fooled by those slick TV ads where they show young children holding a homeless, bedraggled looking badger with the message of ‘give a badger a home, make a friend for life’, or ‘save this animal from a life of misery in the heartless out of doors’,  or ‘Open your hearts, open your home’ (and open your liquor cabinet) is often the hook used to get you to take in a seemingly innocent badger. Remember, the thing about badgers is, they don’t make good pets.

Spa Day

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It’s Friday again, I know, how could that happen, it was just Monday a minute ago but it is. And as you know this is the day we give you ideas on what to do over the weekend. This weekend we thought we might offer something a little different. Last weekends suggestion of jetting off to Cape Disappoint on the Washington coast in your private jet was a big hit with some of you. Actually very few of you but the ones who went said it was great.

This weekend we decided to scale it down a bit and offer something for the ladies out there. That’s a big fat Spa day! Guys can go along too, but I’d recommend skipping the pedicure session Saturday morning. Ladies and some who aren’t really, like spa days and find it a big treat to go to them and have stuff done to them that they can’t get done in the privacy of their own homes.

So what can you do at a spa and more importantly what can be done to you in a spa, you might ask. Well lucky for you, you’ve come to the right place for answers. Listed below, in no particular order, are spa treatments you can order at your local spa, or if they’re unavailable there, where you can go this weekend to get them.

First is a Snake massage.

Hop over to Israel where you can get a massage from several non-venomous snakes as they slither up and presumably down your spine. Cost $70 US.

Or try your choice of the Tea, Coffee,red wine, sake, or Ramen noodle bath in Japan.

This is one is a little closer to home and I’ll bet to ladies hearts. That’s the chocolate wrap you can get at the spa in Hershey, Pa. They will wrap you or more concisely smear chocolate all over you and they mean all over and then leave you alone for a while. As a guy I have to wonder why they would leave you alone for a while but women do some strange stuff so we’ll just leave it at that.

Gold. In Japan, they give you a gold facial. That’s gold painted on your face for as long as you want it there. The cost, a measly 250 bucks, and I gotta say that if you can afford the plane ticket to Japan and back that’s pretty darn reasonable.

How about a cactus massage? In Mexico you can get rubbed, whacked, stroked or whatever with a spineless cactus paddle and pay for it. The cost $245. It doesn’t say whether that is in peso’s or dollars

And for those of  you with more agrarian roots there is a Wet Hay Wrap in Italy where you get wrapped in wet hay harvested from the meadows of Alpe di Siusi between mid-July and early August then lie on a special 100° waterbed until they harvest you I guess. As a special bonus for those of you who make it you receive a foot treatment where a fish named the Garra Rufa eat away whatever may be lurking on your feet.

I saved the most special treatment for last. That’s the Fanny Facial.  I know it seems like a contradiction in terms but that’s how it’s listed. In New York City, like where else except maybe most of California, can you get a fanny facial? I mean it’s strange even asking the question. What happens is you go in and ask for this deliberately, obviously they don’t just give you one without asking, then they perform a exfoliation of the fanny areas with a papaya-mint scrub, followed by a micro-current therapy where they apparently zap your hiney with low-voltage current to remove in their words, “any lumps or bumps from your butt”, then the whole business is finished with an organic spray tan so your fanny glows like the noon day sun. This has got to be special people. The cost was not revealed but I got to say it has to be worth it.

So those are just some of the treatments available to the Spa goer. Yes they may seem a little irregular to those who don’t frequent spas regularly or that only go to low rent ones where these special treatments aren’t available but our job is to bring you the newest and trendiest things out there, and these were certainly out there.

The ladies pictured above have just completed Yellowstone’s interpretation of a spa which is, as you can see, a snow spa, where you can spend a leisurely hour or two in the sub-zero waters of the Yellowstone river, then be rubbed down by brawny park rangers with snow before finishing the day next to a warm geyser. Upon asking we found that the Fanny Facial is not offered in Yellowstone.

There you have it. That’s the special weekend activities for you ladies. I’m sure you can’t wait to “hit the spa” as they say somewhere I’m sure. For you guys I might remind you that there’s a game on almost every minute of the weekend and beer in the fridge. Just give her the credit card and don’t ask.

Sometimes Simple Is Better

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Portland Japanese garden

As a photographer one of your jobs is to always look for the different view, the unnoticed detail, the obvious seen in a new light. But that isn’t always simple or easy. We get trained and accustomed to seeing the overall picture, the big view and forget that it is the details that add life and meaning to what we’re seeing.

While visiting the Japanese garden in Portland a few weeks ago I found myself after two days of intensive shooting realizing that I had spent most of my time getting the big picture, the wide views of the ponds and paths and trees and the larger scenes the gardener had designed for us to notice as we strolled through the garden, and although they were breathtakingly beautiful I found that I was seeing the garden from a distance, I was missing the details that add character and texture to the garden. I wasn’t as immersed in the experience as I wanted to be.

I needed to go back through and find the small things that made this extraordinary place unique. I needed detail. When you’re visiting a place like a Japanese garden there is so much going on that everything you see is blended together. The overview and the details are blended together in such a way to make the total picture complete, that you don’t focus on the small parts that complete the view, they’re just there. There would be an empty space you would feel more than see if they were gone, that is by design. Yet that is part of the photographers problem, he has to be able to notice those details then isolate them in a meaningful way. That’s where the photographer’s eye comes in.

To do that we have to borrow a phrase from the politicians handbook and use the “KISS” method, or “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. All this means is that as you observe various details that your eye may have glanced over before, you begin to isolate that particular part of the overall view and try and present it in a way that makes it meaningful and interesting at the same time. And the best way to accomplish that is to keep it simple. Remove anything that may distract the viewer from seeing the essence of the detail and let it speak for itself. The resulting picture can often give the viewer an emotional connection to the place that isn’t always in the larger views.

I chose this image of a broom leaning against the wall for several reasons. It is iconic to a Japanese garden, I love the mood it sets up against the wall, and the third is for a more personal reason. When I was in Japan visiting the various temples and gardens there, I would notice the monks sweeping the temple grounds with these brooms. It was usually an older monk or a very young one doing the sweeping. Never a monk in the middle, if you will, I asked one of them about it and was told that they didn’t use a younger man because they did too good of a job. The result was too perfect, there wasn’t the missed leaf laying against the stone to catch your eye and draw it to the beauty of the individual, or the build up of them along the walls and walkways left there by the sweeper as he made his way along the path. The details that we would take in but not see if you will, but made the whole better, more complete. The older monks knew it didn’t matter if they missed a few and the younger ones didn’t know the difference yet. The overall effect completed the harmony.

Seeing that broom against the wall brought back those memories. A simple view but a good one.

Taming The Columbia

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There is an area of the Columbia river that is bounded on one side by I-84 and the Mosier-The Dalles highway and by the Lewis and Clark highway on the other side. It is a narrow spot on the river made more so by the high cliffs on either side which forces the river to run faster and have very choppy water. It also forces the wind, which blows through here screaming like a banshee, to funnel through this valley at a very constant rate. It is located in the Cascade Locks area of Oregon and the border between Washington and Oregon runs right down the middle of the river, invisibly dividing it in two.

I saw these individuals on the river performing activities that I had never seen before, so as an investigator of new phenomenon I was duty bound to stop and, well, investigate. I wanted to find out as much as I could about this strange waterborne behavior. Luckily there were local experts there that were eager to fill me in on the facts.

My questions were quite pointed. “Why do people do this?” “Is there any useful purpose being accomplished here?” “What kind of glue do you use to hold your feet to the board when you leave the water?” “Does it bother the fish to have someone jumping up and down on their roof?” Amazed at my questions and after learning that I was on a fact-finding mission and would be reporting their answers to the world at large through this blog, they virtually fell all over each other to give me the straight story. Setting down his 40oz can of Olympia one thoughtful fellow looked at me and began to tell me about how they were involved in a major environmental struggle to contain the mighty Columbia river and prevent a catastrophic event that could endanger half the western Pacific.

It seems that in times past the Columbia ran down to the sea completely unchecked. There was nothing between its origin and the Pacific ocean to control its riotous, mad dash to the sea. As it did so it’s level would rise to startling but dangerous heights. Countless times trees were uprooted and sand bars washed away, creating mini-environmental disasters. Fish were disoriented and couldn’t tell upstream from down and consequently were swept out to sea to die a horrible death by drowning. Native Americans were fearful of throwing their nets into the river, less they too, would be dragged down to Portland and suffer the fate of being exposed to the white people’s sinful ways in the strip clubs and gin mills of the inner city. It seemed that natural chaos reigned and something had to be done.

The answer was obvious after a fortunate accident occurred. A carpenter named Phil, fell while carrying a plank across a dock and landed on the river astride the wide board. Knowing of the dangers in reaching Portland he immediately removed his shirt and by holding it by its arms to try and flag down help, watched in amazement as it filled with the strong winds of the Columbia gorge, becoming a sail which he could safely guide his way back to shore.

Soon carpenters were falling in the river with their planks at an alarming rate until all you could see was a field of flag waving, wide board carpenters filling the gorge from one side to the other. It was then that the real discovery was made. A waterman whose main job it was, was to watch the water for suspicious activity, noticed that the more carpenters they piled on the river the lower it got. It was one of those eureka type moments that those Oregonians are noted for. It wasn’t long before the discoveries of jumping up and down tamped the river down, as it were and packed it to a more acceptable level. It was also noted that you didn’t need carpenters to do this. Almost anyone with a minimum level of brain cells could be trained to strap on a sail and go out and ‘Tamp the River’.

Today, right now in fact, if you’re driving down the gorge you can see swarms of maintenance crews out there, sails in the air, boards on their feet, tamping the river for all their worth, keeping it at acceptable yet safe, levels. Yes their gear has changed. No longer do they use the heavy old pine planks of days long gone, nor do they rip up perfectly good shirts to make their sails. Everything is poly-this and Poly-that and the brighter the better although I think that is more due to them not wanting to be hit and sunk by the pesky freighters that sail up and down the channel.

The old salt that was telling me this looked me in the eye and said with a perfectly straight face, “and that’s why we do what we do”. I couldn’t write fast enough. To be able to get the hidden story that isn’t shared with the public at large was an honor. It isn’t often that the truth gets shared as honestly as this and I was more than glad to pay for the next case or two of Oly’s as they called them. The old salt simply smiled at me and I almost felt as if I were taking advantage of them because now I had a story that I could tell that hadn’t been heard before and how could you put a price on that.

Light In The Meadow

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After a mind-clearing journey of over 4000 miles through the Pacific Northwest and Canada I’m back in the Director’s chair here at the Institute. One of the largest conclusions I have come to is that there is an incredible amount of green out there in the Pacific Northwest. Everything is green, from the mighty trees that grow right down to the ocean’s edge to the green eggs and ham I got at a local eatery, it’s green. Many, many shades of green, almost too many if one were forced to make a judgment about it. I like green. Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of my favorite colors, but I had never been inside a green explosion before and it took some getting used to.

The trip was fantastic. The Bokeh Maru seemed to respond to the lighter touch of just one person at the helm instead of the four-hour watch routine we had on our Montana adventure where almost all of the crew took their turns at the wheel. Consequently she performed flawlessly. No hesitation, no refusal to go a where ever I directed her and she seemed to enjoy the new scenery as much as I did. I even began to suspect she may have been there before but being a gentleman I didn’t ask. A lady must have her  secrets.

There were new things to see nearly every minute of the day and it was pure bliss to camp next to the ocean with only a small sand dune separating us from the ability to turn left and head for Japan. The waves were relentless and the sound of the rain on the roof during the night was mesmerizing. As a treat I let the Bokeh Maru wet her wheels in the incoming tide and you could hear her squealing in delight as the salt water washed the remnants of the long road trip from her undercarriage. After we left I watched her closely so that she didn’t surreptitiously try and turn back to the sea.

We traveled through the Columbia gorge, then along the seacoast of Oregon and Washington using the famous highway 101 until we could go no further then loaded on to a car ferry aptly named the USS Scratch and Dump to go to Vancouver Island in Canada. Upon entry I had a chance to visit with the charming and polite customs official who was most interested in whether I had a gun aboard, or owned a gun which might not be aboard, and whether I kept guns in my home here in the USA. An interesting question asked was whether I supported the right to own guns. I answered all the questions as truthfully as I could with, No, No, No, and Hell yes. I t was enough to get me into the sovereign country of Canada but not without some suspicious looks as I slowly eased onto Canadian soil. I was asked about the gun thing by Canadians at several of the campgrounds I stayed in while in Canada. It something that our Canadian friends seemed to be very interested in.

I took a whale watching boat out to see if we could locate Orcas or Killer whales as the more bloodthirsty among us like to call them and we did, plus Humpback whales and a rare white-sided dolphin that had the boat crew all excited. Apparently seeing one of them was akin to seeing a white buffalo here.

I also took the opportunity of making a surprise visit to the new managers of the eastern Oregon satellite office of the Institute. Things are progressing somewhat slowly there as far as the remodeling and refurbishment of the old site goes, but I was assured that as soon as Spring hit they would begin the transformation in earnest. Meanwhile I was fed and watered as one of the family and soon forgot why I had even stopped there in the first place. I even had to stay a second day after the promise of a meal of free-range, fresh cooked fish, Steelhead or it might have been Halibut, that had been swimming freely in the river moments before. I even tried the old trick of feinting extreme malnutrition by sucking my cheeks in and holding a pillow in front of my less than svelte stomach, hoping to get more food the next day but although my new management team lives in a backwater of the Wallowa valley they are smart enough to quickly catch on to my ruse and went out for cigarettes and didn’t return until they saw the end of the Bokeh Maru turn on to the highway. Disappointed but impressed with their ability to spot a flim-flam man I headed back towards Colorado.

We, The Bokeh Maru and I, had been out for nearly three weeks and it was time to get back to work. Before that work could commence however I had to change the color palette in my head from the greens and greys of the Northwest and replace it with the local one so that I was reoriented again. That a meant a quick trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park to firmly plant the yellows and reds and gold that was the aspens and meadows of Fall back in the front of my mind.

The image above is the late afternoon sun streaming through the aspen grove at the edge of Moraine meadow. It was enough to get my mind right again. As time goes by I will be posting images from the trip to the Northwest with the usual accompanying stories that a few of you find interesting. The rest of you that simply look at the pictures then go do something interesting will also not be forgotten as I try and post something to stimulate your attention span. It’s good to be back.

A quick note. As this is a busy time of year for me with the fall color change and the rut happening I will be not be posting every day until I’m home and winter has me locked in. So although I will try my best to get posts out there I will be gone several more times as I try and get the photography done while the opportunity presents itself. Thanks to all of you who patiently put up with my inconsistencies. I will make sure all of  you get entered in my will.