Going from 5-on/2-off to 13-on/1-off for remainder of fire season (PIC HEAVY)

[DemoTex]

1. Learning how to shower again at the lookout. 2. Hawks are back (watched me shower naked on the catwalk). 3. Evening shots, with an eye on my "six" and a police whistle lest the big mountain lion spotted last week shows up.

I'll explain the new sched later. Too tired and too pissed off tonight. Just n-joy the pics!


Now I'll have to bathe on the catwalk more often. Today was great - hot and no wind (and only my second shower at the lookout tower in three years)


I mix boiling water and tepid water for a bodacious hot shower at 6500-feet MSL


I'm tending to think this is another Rough-legged hawk


Got tired of my shower singing


Moonrise from on the ground near the lookout (99% full)




My last life

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Beautiful mac

[Suich]

2. Great pics, Mac!

New schedule sounds grueling...I guess that why you paid the big bucks, eh?

Hang in there...



:hi:

[pinboy3niner]

3. That's a grueling sked!

Don't blame you for being unhappy with it, but my faith is in you. After VN, you can do this standing on your head, right?

Great pics again, Mac. My best to you, and a nuzzle for Nick...

Love & Peace,
pinboy3niner

K&R

[DemoTex]

7. I'm OK with it

The last two relief lookouts - both firefighters on
the injured list - have been released for normal duty. That is why
they are switching me from a 5-on 2-off schedule to a 13-on 1-off
routine. At first it doesn't sound so bad (LOTS of
overtime), but in reality it is.

I've done a couple of 10-11 day stretches, and it is not pretty.
Mark Twain once said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds; this
new schedule sounds better than it is. But I can do anything for seven more weeks.

Nick-Nick sends lick-licks back!
Mac

[pinboy3niner]

10. Hard to believe it's only 7 more weeks

What's up next? Another gallery showing, or an announcement from your publisher?

If your return trip home should bring you down to the L.A. County area, I have a couch with your name on it. :)

[sethgrogen]

4. awesome pics!

[shanti]

5. beautiful!

always love to see your pics. :hi:

[bluesbassman]

6. Great shots!

Love the hawk.

Hang in there on the schedule my friend.

[DemoTex]

8. More time in the lookout, fewer shots missed!

I'm the eternal optimist!

[mrmpa]

9. I'm always glad to see your posts..your photos

are magnificent. The schedule sounds like a grind to me. Will you be seeing any of the meteor showers over the next couple of nights?

[stevedeshazer]

11. Dude

Wow.

I think that hawk is one of these, but you might be right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferruginous_Hawk

Hope you are enjoying Oregon's month of summer.

[DemoTex]

12. I'm now thinking Ferruginous Hawk, too.

Very brown, feathered legs .. etc.

:hi:

[stevedeshazer]

13. And it's big.

Hard to tell, I'm not quite sure. But it's one or the other.

Seeing meteors? The Perseids should peak tonight, but the moon is near full. Should be quite a sight from your vantage point.

[DCKit]

14. But no hi-def pics of you showering. Pity.

Thanks for the show. Beautiful pics.

I'll trade you pics someday... got three of a newly hatched, wings still drying Luna moth from last year, as well as some bizarre and incredible mushrooms (we ate the good ones).

Our place (for now) is in western VA, and I didn't cut anything beyond the grass and weeds around the house this year. It's different where you are, but we don't need our places to look like golf courses out there, despite what the rest of my family might think. And we're filthy with milkweed. I'm hoping I've done my bit to replenish the stocks of all sorts of butterflies this past year after my BIL mowed the entire property last summer - late in the season and without permission.

I picked up a tick on a trek to somewhere I don't usually go, and got him off quick, so I don't care. Whenever I'm away, the wild turkey come in and eat 'em up. Even when we had the dogs on the property, we never had a tick problem.

While I didn't have my camera out that morning, I went out early one day to have a cigarette and noticed the grass at one gate (about 100 yards away) moving funny. I kept watching (and smoking) and saw a turkey hen walk in and out a bunch of times. After about twenty minutes, she got tired of my surveillance, and two hens and all their chicks broke off in all directions. The two hens went in (exactly) opposite directions, two of the chicks (which you would think were too small to fly) ended up on the roof of the barn, with several in the trees all around. A Wild Turkey explosion.

When I'm there for an extended period of time, I can shoot off the 12 gauge and the deer don't budge. A week or two away, and they're skittish if they even see people. White tail deer aren't the smartest animals.

When I have a place that's my own, you and so many others will have an open invitation to visit. I can't help but think you'll appreciate our "wetter" forests.

Kit

[pinboy3niner]

15. Are you near the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Nat'l. Park?

When I lived in Northern Virginia, going out there was a real treat. When I was working 80+ hours a week in D.C. and had no time for a vacation, just getting a cabin there for a weekend melted it all away and made it possible to go on.

Coming from the urban D.C. area to having white-tailed deer walking up to your cabin made a real difference. Not to mention all the wildlife encountered on hikes to local Shenandoah waterfalls.

I still have a Shenandoah National Park anniversary print with an image of--what else?--white-tailed deer.

:toast:

[DCKit]

17. Even farther out - Highland county VA, population ~2,500.

We're surrounded by national parks.

And yeah, I get what you were dealing with. I've been in DC for 22 years now, and I really don't want to be here anymore.

[Scuba]

16. Thanks Mac, love your posts. n/t