Public land acres leased to oil/gas companies for exploration and development from January 2017-April 2019 total 7.3 million, according to a report by The Wilderness Society. Continue reading
With leases being sold for gas and oil exploration and development on public lands, it seemed that author Edward Abbey saw it all coming. In his 1968 book “Desert Solitaire,” he wrote:
“Until a few years ago, a simple, quiet, primitive place on the shores of the Colorado, Lee’s Ferry has now fallen under the protection of the Park Service. And who can protect it from the Park Service?”
Of course when he wrote this, he was railing against what he termed “industrial tourism” and infrastructure development at national parks and forests. But it rings very relevant with the public lands sell-off taking place under William Perry Pendley, who, unfortunately, was reappointed by the interior secretary on Sept. 30 to oversee the Bureau of Land Management. Continue reading
This photo I took yesterday in Kyle Canyon, Nevada, reminds me of Close Encounters.
I am learning this for my weekly travels in the nearby Spring Mountains. Will be posting more often about my outdoor adventures. (be warned)
Grackles engrossed in nonstop quibbles like tweens in a schoolyard. Their predatory clamber across tree bark, clawing like cats on carpet. Grackles and the way that they crow and cackle! Torpedoing from bush to rock to tree to fountain, dumpster-diving, whizzing past your head like P-140 bombers. Fluttering low like bats in Victorian homes, perched on hilltops and awash in fog and sickly lamplight, their nefarious flight charged with purpose, bulging from their green button eyes.
Passing the fragrant pines, they seem episodic today
I am intoning for the clouds to stick around
A flycatcher makes swooping casts from a branch like a fly fisherman’s line
A male robin is at rest on a low bough while its mate babysits the nest above
Man on camp chair w/ obedient mastiff, unleashed and lounging in the grass
Finches on trees like holiday ornaments, branches bobbing like rafts in a rapid
The smoke & scent of BBQ and the sound of the Wailers
Bob Marley chirping about his single bed
In the distance, a Harley like an aboriginal didgeridoo & chant
