Another exquisitly boring day in a high desert fire lookout tower
This was an "Incredible Sameness of Being" day. Flat .. two-dimensional. Hazy. Incredibly quiet. A few Stellar's Jays and buzzards flew around the lookout tower, but otherwise it was painfully boring. The ground squirrels got a kick out of the month-old stir-fry mix I threw down to them. The golden mantle ground squirrels (look like chipmunks, but - I'm told - aren't) are brazen this year. That is because I left their nemesis - NICK - back east with Nancy. I'm fattening them (the ground squirrels) up for the small Kestrel hawks that I so love to see around here. Ah, nature. Brutal nature.
Then there is the cat on my butte. That cat (a big mountain lion) is another story. It has been spotted several times. I've seen it once. Once was enough. Yellow eyes, and the most brutal shoulder muscles I have ever seen.
I read two books today. Both by the 60's writer (then eco-radical) Edward Abbey. Both fiction. Both short. Black Sun about a lookout guy and Fire on the Mountain about a land grab by the US Government near White Sands, NM. Both good, fast reads.
I'm a bit punchy. I am on my tenth day out here in the wilderness. I have at least two more to go. I did drive into Bend yesterday morning at 5 AM for water and re-provisioning. I dumped garbage and filled up several 5-gal water jugs at the USFS compound at 6:15 AM, got gas, shopped the aisles at the west-side Safeway for about 30 minutes, stopped at the Starbucks (why do I always think of Moby Dick?) next door, and boogied back out to the wilderness. I was back out here by 8:45 (with an on-duty time of 9:30).
The sun has just set behind the Cascades. It is not a photo-worthy sunset, but it reinforces my presence here. I am watching that sunset from the most wonderful perspective in the high desert. Edward Abbey understood the desert, but not as well as Rueb Long (the Oregon "Will Rogers"
. I'm beginning to understand the high desert and the small, ubiquitous life on it. The large life stays hidden, most of the time. I'm part of the small life, I fear.
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Beautifully written!
You have the heart of a poet, you do...
You're a good man DemoTex 
You should know that 2 days sounds better if you make it "one and a wake-up." 
I know you must miss Nick. And you must be practically persona non grata in town without him. We know who the real V.I.P. was.
Watch out for that cat, Mac. He's another year older and stronger. But he may be grateful for those fattened ground squirrels and cut you some slack. (Yeah, right!) I'm sure you're still prepared.
Have a great time on your break, Mac. One and a wake-up!
P.S.--Nice pic!
you are channeling one of my favorite actors, Will Patton!!! 
. . . in a big world. Thank god for that.
The utter infinity and immenseness of life around us is what makes our ability to perceive much of it up close and from afar such a miracle gift. it moves at a much slower and deliberate pace than we do -- a satisfyingly and sustaining pace -- and it's always a physical and emotional experience when we slow our own lives to try and match its languorous disintegration and partial rebirths into the future. There's both reality and hope in that view. Good to have you there watching over it all for us humans and whatever nature you manage to accommodate in your 'small' perspective.
Stay well.
I had to give the threads back. Bwaa haa haa!
Thank you.
