Between the Facts

My first clue should have been the masher’s inability to mash the potatoes. Yet it was plastic, after all, and the striations thick. I chalked it up to the masher being a cheap piece of crap, and improvised.

One by one I ran the still hot baked potatoes down the cheese grater, nicking my fingers occasionally on the sharp spines. I grated, and grated, and grated, until the large bowl was filled with sticky strips of starch. They looked like hashbrowns.

Thus shredded, I tried my hand at the masher once more. No luck. Yet still I was in denial. Surely once I add some liquid it will work better! Surely..

So I added the eggs, the only “liquid” called for in the recipe, then decided to forgo the masher altogether, and dove my hands straight in. The yolk broke and spread, a bright orange goo streaming across my fingers as I worked it into the potato shreds. A handful of flour, then turn and squeeze, turn and squeeze. So sticky!

I added more flour, worked the mess that I still hoped would eventually become a dough. The shreds were still hard as they squeezed between my gooey fingers. Was it getting any softer? Any more coalesced? I couldn’t tell.

More flour. Then more. This pathetic excuse for a dough was still nothing more than a sticky mess of hashbrowns, un-browned. My hands had doubled in size. Tripled. I tried to wipe it off, to wash it off, but nothing did the trick. It was that sticky. And still shredded.

Then I admitted my defeat. I realized the futility, the failure, and I gave up. I was upset by this. I took the failure personally. Face drawn, hands still a sticky mess, I scraped the contents of the bowl into the trash.

Alas, it was on to meal plan B.

As soon as I drive between the tall twin wooden pillars gating the two-track to Nebo, and dip down the hill toward the corral, I can see there’s going to be a problem. The cows are everywhere. Large black cows. Tough shaggy black cows. Momma cows and baby calves, lounging around all across the road. My path is undoubtedly blocked.

They stare up at me as I approach, eyes shining blank and uninterested in the light of my headlights. I slow. And slow. And stop. Hmmm…

I honk, and a calf balks. He stands in a huff, runs frightened but without logic. The large pink plastic earring quivers at his right lobe. The number thirteen is marked in large white letters on his side, a line across the top. The pink and the white tagging every cow here. Claiming them as someone’s own.

Somehow I manage to get through. To literally weave my way slowly through the herd, honking one calf out of the way at a time, using the little ones’ fearful flight as a way to convince the lazy mums to move as well. Slowly, careful, I get through.

Obviously a monstrously large, growling, bright eyed truck isn’t intimidating enough to these guys. Alas.

The truck shone in the light of the moon, glistening with an abnormal clean. It’s an unbelievable transformation. Jaws has returned.

And yet, this truck of ours, this Ford F250 Super Duty that we once called Jaws, is no longer Jaws. No. This truck, newly washed and white as the day we picked him up from Fleet Services, standing out now amid the mud-caked array of vehicles parked in front of our camp, is no longer worthy of that name.

No. This truck, who we’ve had from day one, this truck who has forged through packs of snow and powered through treacherous mud and bumped along two-tracks and across sage, can not be called thus. This truck, who has crapped out and gotten stuck on absolutely nothing, sad and unmoving with a broken 4-wheel-drive as the Durango blazes past in all her bragging glory, this truck who has spent day after day after day in the shop getting his 4WD “fixed” once, then again, then a third time, then in again a fourth to replace an axle that had come disconnected from the front wheel, is not tough enough for that name.

No. This is not Jaws. No longer. This, this is Gingerballs.

We sit on a bench a foot off the ground. A plastic bench attached to an equally low children’s table, red topped and cut with the letters of the alphabet. Two of us, Mike and I. A few feet behind is Chris, leaning forward from his seat on a slightly higher bench, attached to a table more suited for adult legs. All around us is the hum of machines. Row after row of washers and dryers spin and churn, full of strangers’ clothes.

It’s another afternoon out in Lander, and we have gathered at the Laundromat. To do laundry, of course. But, in addition, and more important, we are here to watch Lost. At least, that’s what Mike Chris and I are doing here, leaning close to my laptop, streaming the latest episode with the facility’s free wi-fi.

Too bad it’s the last episode for a month. However shall we spend our time waiting for the laundry now?

We hover around the table, tightly packed and focused on Harold. Above, a bright desk lamp has focused its light upon him, and next to it stands a tripod, a video camera gripped in its tilted jaws, its screen blatantly displaying his close-up. There are lenses everywhere, all focused on him. Lights flash upon him as photo after photo is taken. From every angle, at every moment, he is captured by us on film.

I lean close, hanging my arm over his exposed body, video camera in hand. I zoom in for a detail, out again for context, then back in. My eyes watch him constantly, flickering back and forth between his body in flesh and blood, and his image on my screen. I am fascinated. We all are.

Meet Harold. A juvenile Greater Sage Grouse. A male from the Arrowhead West area. Roadkill.

Meet Harold. An accidental victim of a guilt-stricken member of our crew. A salvaged specimen of our species of study. Dissectee.

We hover around the table he lies upon, cut open, breast muscles removed. We watch and record as Gail and Alan explore the syrinx, the esophagus, the tongue, in the hopes of shedding some light on how the grouse produce their distinctive popping sounds.

At one point, we even inflate that esophagus, that translucent yellow air-sac. We improvise, Megan blowing air into a Ziploc bag attached to a mechanical pencil sheath inserted into a hole cut into the upper portion of the esophagus. As the Ziploc is squeezed, the air is forced out and down and the esophagus expands. And expands. And expands. Harold’s neck has become host to a most impressive, massive, bifurcated yellow balloon. It looks precariously pressurized, fragile, ready to pop at any moment. And yet we know it can get larger.

That night, we honor Harold for his unfortunate yet selfless service. We toast him in thanks and apology.

Or…rather…we sauté him. Mike gallantly takes the reigns as cook and that night we try those thick breast muscles we had removed from Harold. That night, we taste our study species. The meat is dark and gamey, but oh so tender and tasty!

As the plain grey mass rises up from his hunker he seems to undergo a transformation. Slowly he lifts and fans out his tail, revealing a great arc of black fingery feathers dotted with a unique pattern of small white raindrops. He takes a step forward, and you can watch as the tail tilts back ever so slightly, revealing the white that rings his head, bobbing as he displays.

A moment passes with him unmoving, tail displayed peakock-like, though with less flare and length and color. Then another step that turns him to give you a sideways view as he puffs up and displays again.

The white of his chest is striking against the dull landscape of sage and dirt. It is usually large and bulbuous, an air-filled sac that hangs like an unwieldy burden, then lifts and moves and thrusts outward. And from that mass of white bursts forth twin yellow balloons, inflating and protruding outward, a product of an incredibly adapted paper-thin esophagus. They lift and slam together so quickly that your eye can barely tell how it’s happening. But your ears have no problem picking up on that crisp bubbly sound of the pop that is produced in time with that display.

A pause, a step, then another display, head-on this time. The wings pull forward, tight against his side, lifting and trilling the coarse feathers they rub against. And the white lifting, the yellow twins protruding, hiding, protruding, hiding. Another pause, the expectation for a display. Yet instead he turns suddenly, shuffles quickly across the lek with dedication and purpose, toward another male.

Dust wafts out suddenly in a cloudy plume, orange and glowing in the light of the rising sun. Their wings fan out and flap in quick brutal bursts as they whack at each other. Five, maybe ten second of this, and then they just stand, side by side. Threatening each other in a sideways showdown.

Then, just as suddenly as he approached, he runs off again, to chase a juvenile.

Every mug in the Trail Bag rests collected on the table, each filled with a different colored dye. The colors make a vivid contrast to the plain white of the mugs, pink and blue and yellow.Through the slight translucence you can make out the occational outline of a boiled egg submerged inside, soaking up the dye.

We are all gathered around the table, partaking in this Easter tradition. It’s quite a lively crowded little scene. Hands cupping eggs, drawing on them with Sharpies, writing invisible messages with a white Crayon. Spoons dipping into the mugs, carrying a pristine egg, leaving it behind to soak in the color. Spoons pulling out brightly colored concoctions. People waiting, patiently, for eggs to dye or mugs to become available.

Soon we have an overflowing carton full of uniquly decorated boiled eggs. Two per person. Twenty total. We have grouse eggs, speckled eggs, stickered eggs. We have an egg like the severed head of the stress monkey, an orange striped “Tiger Tripe” egg, an egg wrapped in a haiku. We even have an egg ironicly claiming that “Easter Sucks.” Even though it doesn’t

And of course, we have many, many photos of all these eggs

Happy Easter Everyone!

The mud sprays out from Hiphopopotomous’s front tires in shining arcs. It looks like fireworks. The small clumps shimmer a bright yellow in the headlights, a fast and constant stream. Last night it was supposed to snow. Instead, it doesn’t appear to have even gotten cold enough to freeze the mud.

The night’s strong wind did it’s job well, and most of the snow that had lain in the two-track the last few days is gone. I make great time. Perhaps too much so. When I arrive at West Car Springs it is dark. There is no sign of the nearly-full moon, its rays hidden behind a thick layer of all-encompassing black clouds. The lek is invisible to me, and yet I know the grouse are there, numerous and busy. I can hear them strutting, popping away with a brlup, brlup, brlup.

I set up the camera and scope by the light of my headlamp, even as the clouds begin to part and a haze of light slowly peaks through. Soon I can see the rough outline of the lek, the white blobs of the strutting males. Yet before I can make out the stakes, before I deem it light enough to record, the wind picks up.

It hits with an unexpectedly strong and sudden gust. It comes out of nowhere, fierce and hard and threatening. For just a few moments. Yet in those moments I hear the distinctive whoooosh whooooosh of the grouse rising up and flapping away. I try to count them as they retreat en-mass, 40-50 of them abandoning the lek for no other apparent reason than that strong sudden wind. I haven’t even started filming yet.

A few males remain on the lek, hunkered down and unmoving. Slowly they return, yet continue to skirt the edges, displaying mostly from the surrounding sage. I start the tape, do a few counts (I get 11 max), then head off to see how the sister site, East Car Springs, is fairing.

When I reach the ridge overlooking the normally large and busy lek, it is calm, and most of the clouds have already blown off. It is turning out to be a surprisingly and pleasantly warm morning. Yet the grouse must know something I don’t, for it is quiet. With my bare eyes I can tell something is amiss. I set up the scope and do a quick count. 2 max. 29! The last time I was here there were 107 birds! I’ve never seen it with less than 70 birds this time of the morning. 10 minutes later, there are only 2 grouse, hunkered down and barely visible. And yet stay, hopeful, and wait to see if any will return.

Sure enough they trickle back. 27 males. 34. 37. As the sun breaks free and shines down on me with full force, I began to hear them in full force too. Brlup. Brlup Brlup. Brlup. I even hear the occasional flurry and smack of a face-off come to blows.

That’s what I like about the Cars leks. As large as they are, it is always an impressive auditory show. Of course you can’t see the birds as well individually, you can’t ID with buttprints like you can at Preacher, yet still. I think these two leks are my favorite. I have a soft spot for the Cars.