CLOUDLAND CABIN JOURNAL - August 2005

Cloudland Cabin Deck Cam, 8/31/05, 8:51am - cool and BEAUTIFUL in the wilderness today...

COLORADO WILDFLOWER GALLERY

CLOUDLAND CABIN JOURNAL, updated 8/29/05 three times a day...

The August Print of the Month

Its getting DRY here - we need some water!

8/2/05 When I stepped outside last night just before going to bed I was hit with a blast from the oven - it was after 9pm and still up in the 80's, which is quite unusual around here, even in August. There was just a touch of cool in the breezes though, so there was hope for a cooldown overnight. At least, that is what the whip-poor-will that flew by and landed in the tree next to me was saying. When I got up this morning, the temp still in the mid-70's at first light. It had been in the 50's and low 60's here for the past week. Oh well, it must be SUMMER in Arkansas!

As I eased my way on down the steep rocky trail towards the bottom of the canyon the air got cooler with each and every step - a most welcome feeling. Cool air does, of course, seek the lowest points and will gather in the canyons overnight. It felt just wonderful getting down into that nice air. The dogs didn't seem to pay too much attention - they were mostly focused on the swimming hole of theirs that was waiting at the bottom. But when we reached Whitaker Creek we found it nearly bone dry - there were small pools here and there, but nothing flowing, and the streambed in between pools was dry. Aspen was not amused, and immediately took off running downstream in search of running water. I was in a hurry to get back up to the cabin to get to work (can you imagine that?), so we didn't hang around long enough for him to find any good water, and soon we were climbing back up the hill. That meant the air got hotter with each step, and I was quickly soaked in sweat.

From the moment I stepped below the big bluffline on my way down to the bottom a rather large and bothersome horsefly began to follow me. August is the month when these guys come out and make a real pest of themselves. I can normally deal with the other bugs, but horseflies will bite right on through clothing and don't pay much attention to bug spray. When I get a single horsefly like this one following me, I typically will just stop and wait for him to land somewhere, then mash his guts into my skin. (the only good horsefly is one that has been liquefied, not merely killed) However, this guy was a smart cookie, and he refused to land where I could get to him, so I gave up and pressed on. All the way down the hill and all the way back up the hill this horsefly followed me, landing on my back every couple of minutes. He only got flesh one time, but that was enough to make me scream out loud in pain (or was that the steep hill and hot temps?). As I stood there at the base of the bluff waiting to lift Aspen up and over, the good old horsefly made a fatal mistake - he landed on my leg, and the mushing began...

I must confess that I spent almost the entire day yesterday inside the cabin. About half the day was spent on the phone, and the other half was spent working on ordering supplies for the upcoming selling season - you would be amazed at how many different types and sizes of boxes, envelopes, tubes, cardboard, bags, padding, and other shipping supplies it takes to run this book and print business. I was also taking a break from remodeling the warehouse (which all three of us spent most of the day on Sunday doing, along with Pam's parents) - we ran out of materials and Pam was in Missouri getting more supplies. By the time I stuck my head out the door last night my body had been conditioned to the cool inside air and that hot night air hit me like I had stuck my head into an oven.

It was sort of like a cold winter day around here yesterday, only just the opposite (heat), but it kept us all inside, which actually brought us closer together. Once Pam got back from Missouri, the three of us spent most of the evening together, dancing, playing, more dancing, and a lot of laying around playing with the dogs. Amber was in a country music mood, and so the sounds of Shania Twain, Don Williams, and Patsy Cline could be heard bouncing around the cabin - oh no, that was not the correct word (Amber was actually bouncing around the cabin) - how about "drifting" through the cabin. It was a lot of fun and we all had a good time, especially Aspen.

Today, once I get this update completed and posted, and we get a couple of book orders processed, we three are going to march back up to the warehouse on the hill and spend the rest of the day completing the remodeling of the warehouse. Amber is the head measuring guy, Pam cuts the boards, and I put them all together and install them. Amber is also in charge of our yearly inventory - she literally has to count every single book in the warehouse! This gives her some much-needed practice of her math skills during this non-school time. Plus she gets to climb up on the mountain of book boxes (think the Texas School Book Depository on a smaller scale and without the sniper nest). Once we get all of that completed, we can get on with the long list of other chores for this week. We've got a BUSY August ahead, and look forward to it all!

8/3/05 Just a quick update late tonight to tell you about some visitors we had here at the cabin today. The dogs and I were in town very early this morning for their annual checkup and shots - I was up and out before daylight chasing both dogs around the forest trying to get a stool sample for the vet. It was actually very nice out in the woods, and I returned with two steaming ziplock bags in hand.

After I got back from town and got a few cabin chores done, I ran out the front door to try to process a large book order we had just received from the University and get them packaged up before the UPS guy got here. Before I could get completely out the door I looked up and realized there was a deer standing right in the middle of the stream a few feet away. I came to an instant halt, and counted one, two, three, four, FIVE deer standing right there, munching on Pam's lovely water flowers. Such beautiful coats they have this time of the year! They took one look at me and turned towards the woods, but did not seem to be in a really big hurry to get away. They must have been standing there for a little while because as I took a look at the pond I found it muddy - they had been stirring the stream up!

Later in the evening, just after sunset when the forest is dark but there is just enough light in the open areas to see, we looked outside the window between the little garden and the house stood a MONSTER BUCK! This guy was not part of the herd I saw early in the day, and he had two ladies with him, one a large fawn. His velvet antlers were already trophy size, and he has a bit of growing to do. They were wide and very flat. None of the deer seemed to be browsing in the garden, but rather munching on the plants and wildflowers in the yard. I wonder if Don scattered some deer attractant around here? We have seen them in the yard a time or two before, and once in the stream (eating flowers), but never this many in one day, and never, ever a big buck like this dude was. Before I had a chance to get a photo of them all three of the deer had wondered off into the blackness of the forest and out of sight. But all three of us, plus Aspen, had front row seats, and our noses were smashed up against the glass to watch. It was a Cloudland Moment for sure.

Getting off-topic for a moment (who, me?), I just had to laugh when the new issue of BACKPACKER magazine arrived in the mail today. They did a story about the best floating streams in the country (I thought it was BACKPACKER magazine, not CANOE magazine), and, of course, the Buffalo River was mentioned in it (nothing about the wonderful HIKING AND BACKPACKING trails in the area, just the floating part). And in true magazine form published by folks who don't have a clue what they are doing, or care that they get any details correct, the photo they published that was labeled simply as "Buffalo River" was a photo of THE GLORY HOLE. It has nothing to do with the Buffalo River or floating, and is not even in the Buffalo River drainage. Don't know if I ever noted it here or not, but last spring I "wrote" an article for Readers Digest Magazine during several telephone interviews with the real writer - the author of this article about the "Top Five Hiking Trails in the US" had never set foot in Arkansas, even though one of the top five picks was the Shores Lake to White Rock Loop Trail here. Anyway, when the magazine called me to get a photo, they specifically asked for a CANOE FLOAT photo! Huh? This was a story about hiking trails. When the story appeared in the May 2005 issue, they did at least have a photo of a backpacker next to a waterfall - but it was taken at PETIT JEAN STATE PARK!

I am proud to announce though that at least our local phone company has a little bit of character left. They wanted to use one of my photos for the cover of the little Jasper area phone book this coming year. Two of the photos they picked out were not in their coverage area, and I told them they would have a tough time if they published either one. I lost a sale for sure. But they came back with another photo they did like even more, and that is the one they are going to use for the cover of the new phone book - and it is one that you all might recognize - it was taken from the back deck here at Cloudland! I'm not sure how they are going to crop it since it is horizontal and the phone book is not, but I'm sure they will come up with a nice design.

I just got a phone call from a cave diver over in Oklahoma. Seems that he has gotten a hold of a group of letters that I had written to a professor who owns one of the most remarkable cave systems in the Ozarks - those letters are from the mid-1970's when I was exploring a spring known as Clark Spring. My work to connect this underwater system of passageways to the upper cave system known as Alexander Cave proved successful, and along the way I discovered the only known population in Arkansas of an endangered species of cave fish. Anyway, the cave is now up for sale as the Dr. is getting long in the tooth, and I don't know if it is related or not, but the diver from Oklahoma is head of a group of cave divers in the Ozarks and they are doing some exploration in the cave currently. One of the items he was looking at was a very crude map I had drawn of the underwater parts of the cave that I was exploring. We talked this evening for a little while about all of that - what I had seen and what they had found during their first two extensive cave dives. He said he was really surprised to find that my map was very accurate, despite it being a simply hand-drawn map that I created and added onto after every dive that I did. They use some pretty sophisticated equipment to real cave mapping, and I guess I made a lot of good guesses in my little hand drawings. He said that my little beloved cave fishes were still there - surviving after all of these years of progress over in that area. Hoaary for the little guys! Anyway, what a blast from the past all of that has been. I used to do some wild and crazy things in those days - "Did you REALLY cave dive ALONE?" he asked me this evening. Of course - who else was nuts enough to go with me into that unknown system? All of these years that underwater cave system has been the one place on this planet where I knew I was the only person who had ever laid eyes on it, but now that is no more. Oh well, time to move on and let the young whipper-snappers progress and have some of the fun!

And it is time for me to go soak a little bit under the night sky - while it would be great to sit under a zillion shining stars, I am hoping for that cold front they keep talking about to push on through and leave a bit of rain for us. Stars or rain clouds - I'll take it either way. Good night John Boy...

Looking up Whitaker Creek after a rainstorm

8/05/05 We had a very noisy and long night - I've been up much of the night dealing with another problem bear. This one began to tear things up about 1:30 and refused to go away. The last time I saw him he was standing on the deck right next to the hot tub, and then he dashed off into the woods when I pointed my bear rifle at him and sent a couple of rounds sailing over his behind. (The game and fish commission left me with some special bullets made in Italy that are supposed to give the bear the message to stay away, but won't kill him.) All of a sudden a bear has been terrorizing homes all over Cave Mountain this week, in the middle of the night, and in the middle of the day. It seems like a problem bear has just been dumped out here - problem bears always remain problem bears no matter where they are relocated. One neighbor asked if I would come move the body if they shot one that had broke into their cabin Wednesday night (if he returned) - this neighbor normally would not hurt a flea, and has lived here for more than 30 years. Normal wild bears don't do that sort of thing. Folks out here are on edge. My girls are understandably shaken by all of this. Let's hope mr. bear got the message.

I was out roaming around at first light today. It was VERY warm - felt like the middle of the day almost. But there was a nice breeze blowing so it was not too bad. Lots of spider webs hung up between trees and brush - these are not the plump and juicy orb weavers, but still the thinner and ragged-looking spiders. Most of the time they fall off when you get tangled up in their webs and they hit the ground, ready to scramble back up and begin the construction process all over again. I wonder how many webs a single spider builds in his lifetime? And are the webs built by the males, females, or both?

Squirrels were REALLY active this morning, running and jumping and crashing all over the place. And while they may be in the process of storing up nuts for winter, I found quite a few places where the squirrels were chowing down on their supply a little early! Some of the big hickory trees are releasing their fruit right now - I saw one area of forest floor about twenty feet long by ten feet wide that was nearly covered with bright green hickory nuts - we'll have some nice fat squirrels this winter.

I was supposed to have left the cabin at 4:30 this morning to work on a new project I have to get done this month, but the bear issue put that on hold. So instead I spent most of the day installing a new computer system on an old computer and moved it all onto Pam's desk. The one she was using was nearly six years old, which is pretty old in computer years.

It remained dark and warm all day, and by mid-afternoon the skies were filled with black clouds and were making a great deal of noise. Radar showed us getting pounded with heavy rain, but not a drop had fallen. I sat on the swing in the back with my bride and we watched an army of little swifts patrolling the skies below the clouds - GO BIRDS GO - EAT BUGS! And we dodged about a dozen hummers that were attacking each other over a feeder a couple of feet away. Only one boy in the bunch - the rest all ladies.

Finally after a long and warm day the clouds could no longer hold it in, and it began to rain. Pam and I were out in the forest when the first drops fell - such a lovely sound, and feeling! Pam ran around trying to catch those magical drops on her tongue. Soon more drops were falling, and we got to watch an honest to goodness summer thunderstorm, although there was not any lightning. It was GREAT to have the water coming down, and I know the forest and the critters loved every single drop. It lasted about 20 minutes, and got about a half inch of rain.

This evening, as the woods began to darken up, I went out for a hike around the loop - half looking for mr. bear, and half for fun. I felt like Davy Crockett as I crept through the thick brush and out into the open forest - followed closely behind by the Fat Cat, screaming at the top of his lungs! Yup, I was some bear hunter alright!

As I snuck into the East meadow I saw movement - it was way on out there, and the color was not black, but rather brown. It was Darla, our resident doe deer, and she was surrounded by not one or two, but THREE fawns! The youngins' were growing out of their fawn stage, but still had faint spots. All three kept a close eye not on me, but on what mom was doing - they watched her every movement, and when the signal came from mom, they vanished in a flash.

On one of my rounds today I discovered a large apple tree that was covered with apples! It must have been part of an orchard a long time ago, but not tended in quite a few years. Don't know why I had never spotted this old tree before, but I am going to make it a part of my regular rounds now for the next few weeks as the apples ripen - some of them will need to be tested before the deer eat them!

The forest and meadows were really quiet this evening - kind of like everyone was holding their breaths. More rain on the way? Boy, I sure hope so. I'm going to TRY to head out of here tomorrow at 4:30am to get to that work project I played hookey from today, and am hoping for cooler temps than we have had the past couple of weeks. And let the rains come down - I don't mind working in the rain at all.

Oh yes, just a couple more things about mr. bear and his visit early this morning. Seems that he spent a good bit of time wandering around here tearing things up - we only noticed the new fence I had just built around the fish pond (to keep Aspen out) - the bear had ripped into it in three places. He seemed to slap things around at random all along the decks here - not going after food, just wanting to mess things up it seemed. Next time I think I will send that Fat Cat out after him!

Right after I sent the bear running off into the woods at 2:30 this morning, I stepped back into the cabin and grabbed a flashlight (and a camera) - I wanted to follow him out into the night and see if I could push him along. I heard him take off and head down the steep hillside in the woods to the north of the cabin, but he did not go very far. I moved slowly and tried to be as quiet as I could., although that is tough to do when everything in the forest is listening for your footsteps. I had gotten perhaps 200 feet on down the hillside when my flashlight gave out. Oops. So there I was, out of reach of the cabin lights, on a moonless night, with a pissed off bear nearby - perhaps up in a tree right behind me! And I could not see a darn thing. And oh yes, I was standing there equipped with rubber bullets! Served me right. Needless to say my heart raced just a little bit, and my breathing got kind of heavy. What I did have going for me was the fact that I could also hear any move the bear made as well, and if he came charging at me, I could, well, heck, at least I could say a little prayer before he got to me! I started for the cabin very slowly, trying NOT to make a sound. Seemed like my vision got better with each step, but still the most I could ever make out were the trunks of the trees and nearby boulders - of course most of those boulders looked like bears to me! My wife was glad to see her hubby return safe and sound a little while later.

Here is a photo I snapped of the bear as he was running off:

It is getting pretty late tonight and I still have to go outside and take a shower - I hope mr. bear is not out there waiting to take a slap at me. (no light on the shower and it is very dark outside)

Oops, one more thing I wanted to note - can you tell the lack of sleep is making my brain skip just a little bit? I spent a couple of hours this afternoon working on the first print of the August Print of the Month, and I've got to tell ya, it looks REALLY good! That is one of those scenes that only lasts for a split-second but yet conveys a great deal of emotion that can last a long time (the horse was walking as I shoot the photos, and I only got ONE that looked right). I have just started adding a title to the bottom of these special prints, and this one will have the title of "Little Horse on the Prairie, a Sunset in Kansas" - sorry for the pun, but I thought it fit!

I am weary, and have a rough weekend of physical work ahead, so will sign off for now and head out into the night - I hope you enjoy your weekend!

8/7/05 The sun is dipping into the western horizon behind the trees this evening, casting long shadows out into the wilderness below. There is a slight breeze, pushed on perhaps by all the racket going on in the trees - summer bugs and other critters are at their peak tonight and it is LOUD outside! I just got back from spending a delightful hour sitting up against a moss-covered rock in one of my favorite spots in the woods near here. The sun had long-since left that dark forest, and the evening bugs were coming out in full force. Sometimes I like to just sit and be quiet and watch and listen and think and see and hear what all is going on around me. The girls were on their way back from Missouri, the dogs asleep up in the loft. One cat followed me about half way, then got interested in a log and I left her behind. So it was just me and bugs and the critters and the wilderness.

When you first walk through a forest and sit down everything is pretty quiet - the wildlife has been all scared off and in hiding. Sometimes it may take a little while before the shy critters begin to come back out, but eventually they do. Squirrels are usually first - they seem to not mind humans too much - or actually they are the most curious and come out and run across a limb and come crashing to the ground just to see if you will move. Larger critters left the area already and don't come back soon. Birds will fly through and begin to work the dead limbs around the area pretty quick. And goodness the frogs and crickets and other bugs get started pretty quickly, and it doesn't take them long at all to be back up to full chorus strength.

This evening there was a pack of coyotes over on the other side of the Buffalo River Canyon and up on the hill that were having quite a party. They howled and yipped and carried on for the entire time I was sitting there. The sound did not seem to move, so they must have been on a kill or something, or found a fun place to play.

I said the sun was already down in this area - not quite true. It was dark in there for sure, but every now and then a stray sunbeam would find its way through the treetops and lit up a tree trunk or boulder out in the forest. I could tell the sun was getting low because the light was yellow at first, then orange, and finally red. The little breeze that was blowing moved the limbs around, and the shaft of sunshine too - that warm light had a grand old time dancing alone in the vast dark forest. And then in a few minutes it was gone.

On my way back to the cabin to meet up with the girls I found the Trail Cat, still standing on the very same log where I had left her behind. She seemed ready to come home with me and so we hiked on the rest of the way to the cabin. The girls have not returned home yet so I am taking this opportunity to write a little - if I stop in mid-sentence you will understand...

I got started with my new project over the weekend - I'm building a new hiking trail that will connect some private property to a new dock that is being constructed at the edge of Beaver Lake. While this is in the middle of a populated neighborhood, it really is still in the woods, the thick woods, the STEEP woods, and the going has not been easy. This is a short trail, but it is a difficult trail to construct. Normally, a trail will have something like 50% mostly level trail construction and the other half of the trail has to be "sidehilled" - which means it goes across a steep hillside and you have to literally dig out the trail tread to make it level - that takes a great deal of work - all of it by hand - and the steeper the hillside, the more you have to dig into the hillside in order to make the trail tread level. NONE of this trail goes across level hillside - it is all steep, and some of it is REALLY steep! So the side-hilling part of this project is going to be a burger.

Cutting out the trail corridor to a width of about 6-8 feet wide is normally the easy part of trail construction. But not so with this particular trail. Some of this trail goes through what I can only call the thickest gosh-darn JUNGLE I have ever seen in Arkansas! I'm talking about a tangle of briars and wild roses and grape vines and other vines that form a solid wall of thick vegetation that is at time 10-12 feet high! Solid - no way a human can get through it. I knew this was the case, as I am the one who designed and laid out the trail a couple of months ago - in fact even then these sections were so thick we could not fight through them - and they have grown denser over the summer! So that was my big challenge this past weekend - to attempt to fight my way on through the jungle, cut it back however I can, and establish a ten-foot wide corridor through it. I was successful, but there were times I was not sure I was going to make it!

You will not find this in any trail construction manual - and I have been part of writing several different trail construction manuals. But it was the only way I could figure out how to get the job done. At times after I had worked on a section of the jungle and gotten a foothold I needed to widen it out, so I would place my entire body up against the wall of vegetation and hurl myself backwards into it, and at the same time hack away at the base of the wall with one tool or another, trying to cut into some of the vines. Eventually I would move the mass a few inches, then a foot, then two feet - what an incredible rush every time I got the mess out of the way entirely!

You would have laughed a lot if you had been watching me work some of this trail. I have never seen so many vines per square foot anywhere - and not all of them were grape vines - in fact most of the smaller ones looked like dead vines, but really were quite alive, dug deep into the ground, and did not want to give up easily. These vines had engulfed many small trees in this area, killing them out. Sometimes when I would crawl into a section on my belly with my clipping tools cutting out the vines, and would finally reach some poor tree and cut it off at the base, I would then be faced with literally hundreds of vines still attached to it that all had to be cut away! The progress was slow, very slow, but when there was progress, it was GREAT progress!

Part of the trail corridor runs along in the bottom of a steep and narrow ravine, and there are houses on both sides, part way up the ravine. One of the houses is within 50 feet of the trail, and the spot I choose to set up my resting station is right below their screen-in porch. I had been working for about an hour on Saturday before that household woke up, and when they did, their little puppy dog noticed me right away - and spent the next couple of hours yipping like crazy every time I came by, or sat down to rest. Probably the most exercise the little guy has had in a long while! I can't wait until tomorrow morning when I fire up my chainsaw at first light.......On second thought, I will try to do some other type of quiet work at least until the sun comes up.

One of the great things about doing this sort of work at this time of the year is the fact that I lose a great deal of weight (I have gotten really fat and out of shape this summer) - I lost six pounds the first day. Of course, most of that loss is water loss, and even though I try to drink all I can hold all day long, I simply sweat it away so fast - I am pitted out from head to toe in a matter of minutes, and by the end of the day my work clothes (long sleeve shirt and pants) are pretty filthy. I've been going through three or four pairs of leather gloves during the day as they get sweat-soaked too and won't hold onto the tools well. Thank goodness I have a pile of gloves.

Monday morning I will begin the really tough part of this construction project - doing the actual digging of the trail tread. I won't be physically able to work every day this week, but I hope to be able to get a good part of the tread completed by the end of the week. The hot and humid conditions won't help much, but at least the highs are supposed to be a few degrees less than they have been. It is great exercise for me!

Oh yes, one really frustrating thing about working on the trail over the weekend was the fact that the lake was very close by, and I could hear folks playing in the water and boats running back and forth - it all sounded so COOL! Yet I was stuck there in the woods sweating it out. It would be easy for me to simply go over to the water's edge and jump in, but for some reason I seldom ever do that when building trail near water. I have built three hiking trails around lakes before - all during the summertime - and not once have I jumped in! Must be the sun that affects my thinking.

It is much later tonight now than when I started, and I am ready to put this to bed and follow myself - after a quick soak in the hot tub. I can only hope mr. bear is not standing next to it like he was the other night....

8/8/05 Just a quick update before I collapse from exhaustion. It was another day to leave at 4-ish something for the two-hour drive to the trail project I have been working on. The temp is always much cooler then, and I can normally get in some good trail work before it gets really hot. Today was my first day of sidehilling, and within 30 seconds I realized that I had made a big mistake taking on this trail job! I vowed several years ago that I would never build another trail from scratch, and this is my first one since. The issue has been that along with a special technique that I have developed over tens of thousands of hours of solo trail construction from scratch to do heavy sidehilling quickly and efficiently, comes some serious nerve damage in my arms that remains with me for months after I put away the tools - not permanent damage, but very annoying just the same. Thankfully it does eventually go away. The damage happens from the constant chopping/pounding that I do with a specially-modified cutter mattock tool and a McLeod fire-fighting tool - that one-two punch has allowed me to build some great trail over the years. But it is the heavy sidehilling that takes the toll. Well, with this new trail project, I figured that much of the sidehilling would be through gravel hillsides, which is much easier than normal sidehilling. OH BROTHER was I wrong! Back to this morning - it only took me a couple of swings to realize that there was not gravel hillside, but rather tightly-compacted rock and dirt and clay and roots, which created a nearly-solid hillside. My heart sank. And the sweat began to pour off, even though the sun was not up yet.

After an hour of toiling away pretty hard on one section of the hillside, I had completed about 20 feet. And I was darn proud to have gotten that far! The rest of the day went a little bit easier, and I got into my second and third winds and hit my stride. The temp reached up into the mid-90's - the hottest I have ever built trail in. I consumed nearly two gallons of liquid, including water, Arizona tea, Gatoraide, and Propel, plus three PBJ sandwiches, a peach and a banana, and two cans of V8 juice. And with all of that, just to give you some idea of how much sweat I produced today, I lost 7 pounds! But I managed to struggle through and complete 75 yards of really tough trail - in fact the trail tread is really good along that route, better than most. This trail will be used by an older couple to access their dock on the lake, so it needs to be in pretty good shape. I also managed to blow off the entire trail with my backpack blower (got all of the leave and pine needles and other duff out of the way), plus used a chain saw to cut out about half of the trees and stumps that I could not get at with the loppers over the weekend. All in all not much actual trail constructed, but it was a good day in the oven, I mean the woods!

It is well after dark here this evening, and I just returned from a good long soak in the hot tub. Aspen and Lucy were off chasing bear ghosts or toads or something, and I was left along in the tub with the stars and a whip-poor-will that was perched in the top of a tree nearby and calling out loud to some unknown mate out there in the dusky darkness.

I'm too beat up to work again tomorrow, so will take the day off and try to catch up a bit on some cabin chores, and a quick trip into town to get a slow-leaker tire fixed once again. The rest of the week looks even warmer than today was, but what the heck, it is only sweat!

8/10/05 Just a quick update on the state of the wilderness around here. The trees and forest in general seem to be doing pretty darn good - still lush and green and plump and not too many complaints from the trees or the critters. I take that back - we have had the largest number of critters hanging around our stream and pond out in front ever - all of them after water, or fish, or flowers, or just want to be photographed. We have been seeing a LOT of deer all over the place in the Upper Buffalo River area. Still lots of large fawns with spots on them, and their moms and pops are just the most beautiful golden color! Quite a few big bucks in velvet as well. I have not been down through Boxley in early daylight hours to see how the elk have been doing, but hope to do so perhaps next week.

Speaking of the trees, we are having an incredible hickory nut crop this year, and the squirrels are eating them up like crazy! One reason the squirrels seem to be enjoying them so much is the obvious lack of acorns this year - I have not seen hardly ANY on the trees! This will be a major blow to the wildlife all over the place. The past few years the mast crop has been tremendous, which make the critters eat and play and LOVE a lot, which produces a lot more babies - and those babies grow up and need even more acorns. Then when we have a down year like this one, all the wildlife species that rely on the big mast crops of the past will be stressed. It will be a good year for deer hunters - when there are a lot of acorns the deer don't need to move around much to feed and so hunters can't find them. But when they have to move around a lot for food they are easy targets. It all goes in cycles.

Pam saw the very first copperhead here of the entire year yesterday. I have not seen but one all year, and that was way back last spring. Only one rattlesnake as well. Guess I should not have mentioned that - now I will get bit by both tomorrow!

I have not seen a SINGLE TICK in two months here! Can you believe it! I think they dried up and blew away. And while the dogs get covered with burrs every day, no ticks come home on them either.

Not too many wildflowers blooming, other than the lonely woodland sun flower here and there. I am about to get my tractor fixed and will be mowing the meadow down below the cabin - hopefully some new species will come up for the fall season. LOTS of tomatoes in Pam's little garden, however Bob's and Benny's garden didn't produce much this summer - the crows ate just about everything before it had a chance to grow, and I do believe both Bob and Benny are packing shotguns!

Pam saw a beautiful COAL BLACK bear at the far end of Cave Mountain this afternoon. We have not had any more trouble with them here since the incident the other night.

I probably should NOT have looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow - it is calling for 96 degree temps, and I'm headed out at 4-something to go build trail in it! That will be a new record for me for sure. The heat has not bothered me as much as I though it would this past week, but the concrete-hard ground sure has. Supposed to be cooler temps starting this weekend, but I may be dead by then!

The air is heavy, warm, and LOUD out there this evening - lots of night critters up and about and making all sorts of noise. I guess they are enjoying the coolness of a summer evening in the Ozarks. Or perhaps they saw the forecast for tomorrow as well and are screaming about it! No matter - we'll get through it just fine and then will enjoy what I think is going to be one spectacular fall color season here!

Here are a couple of snapshots from our recent Colorado trip taken by Mark Hardgrave - he always has a camera in his pocket!

Ernst and Ray Scott (on the ground) trying to break into our vehicle as the sun rises and moon sets around us

Ernst shooting in the rain - my standard setup - you can get some wonderful, rich colors when it is raining!

8/12/05 It is warm and breezy this afternoon but very nice outside. Sounds kind of weird for the middle of August, but true. The wildlife around here is just going nuts. I want for a quick hike around the mountain last evening and saw three sets of does w/fawns. All of them fat and happy, all of them just gorgeous color. When the girls pulled into the driveway from being gone they saw another bear in the front yard - a different one than was here a few days ago, and both different from the one who was here early in the summer. So that is three bears at our cabin in the same summer. That has only happened once before, when game & fish dumped too many problem bears out here.

This morning we woke up to find a beautiful doe standing right in the middle of the creek in the front yard - she was thirsty and spent about five minutes drinking as much as she could hold. It was just a wonderful sight seeing her standing there surrounded by wildflowers (she had already eaten all of the domestic flowers!). SO MANY deer this year, as I have noted before. I did see a few acorns last evening, but only a fraction of what we have had in the past.

Yesterday I spent eight hours building trail on the hottest trail day for me ever. Normally after just a few hours of this I am exhausted and ready to drop, and often do. But yesterday my strength built up and I got better and better as the day wore on. I have always looked for some sort of drink/food that I could eat throughout a working day like this where I could maintain my strength, but have never found one, until yesterday that is. I got ahold of a can of Cytomax that was recommended to me by a lady who had walked the entire Colorado Trail last summer. You mix the powder with water and drink a liter of it each hour, from the very beginning, and continue drinking it the entire time you are working. It was developed for serious runners/cyclers, but I am here to tell you it WORKS wonders for someone like me who is putting out at the top of his ability - I was able to maintain that ability and even get stronger as the hours ticked off - more than once I stood there in the middle of the new trail and was literally stunned at how GREAT I felt out there in the blistering heat and humidity! This stuff is for real, I am hooked.

One little story about the trail construction. Here is the way I do it. After I have prepped the section (cut out the corridor with first a pair of loppers, then with a chainsaw, then removed all of the "duff" from the forest floor), I use a special cutter mattox to chop along the upper edge of where the actual trail treadway is going to be. I do this chopping back towards me, and dig in from one to five or six inches deep, depending on how steep the sideslops is, and how deep I can actually do this. This is the most difficult part of the entire trail process as you are having to hack into and break the actual earth's crust - sometimes not an easy task at all. In fact it is brutal at best, and much more difficult than that at worst, which was how this entire trail is that I am working on - the absolute worst.

Once I have this upper ditch dug, then I make a second pass with a narrow McLeod tool to widen the ditch. Then I come back and make a third pass with a wider McLeod tool, all the while I am digging and hacking directly towards my legs - I must use a baseball catcher's shin guard on each leg or my legs would be shredded in a couple of minutes from the flying rock. This particular hillside that I am working on is composed of compacted rocks, dirt, and roots, and I am finding myself often having to hack several times just to get an inch of ditch dug out - I have been literally busting up rocks in the process.

Anyway, it typically will take me 4-5 passes to dig out and level a given section of trail. The tougher the hillside is, the more passes I have to make in order to get the trailtread dug out and leveled enough for a good trail. To give you some idea of how tough this particular hillside is, once yesterday I had to make 16 passes in order to get the trail just right! YIKESSSS! And each and every swing of the cutter mattox or McLeod requires full strength or the tool just bounces off the rocks/earth. By the time my Cydomax had run out, I had crafted more than 300 feet of new trail!!!!!

There were several times during the day when I stopped to catch my breath, and I just stood there in the middle of the woods, with sweat pouring off my entire body, and I was literally steaming, yet was covered from head to toe with rock dust (you should have seen the clouds of rock dust my tools were throwing up into the air!), and I thought to myself - "What an incredible place to be working in, and how much I am enjoying this incredibly difficult work!" And the 95-degree heat - I really didn't mind it at all, and hardly even noticed. I have been reborn with this Cydomax stuff. At the end of the day my muscles were a bit sore, but still had plenty of umph left in them, and my legs were tired but still ready and willing to go (as I mentioned I took a hike after I got home!). Of course, the constant pounding continues to damage the nerves in my arms, so I cannot do this sort of thing very often, but now when I am faced with lengthy physical labor, I know what is going to be in my drink can!

Oh yes, and when you catch me saying something about how large the horse flies are here, please stop me in my tracks and remind me about the Beaver Lake monsters! At one point the other day I thought there was a humming bird buzzing my neck, but I discovered it was a HUGE HORSE FLY! I'm talking MORE THAN two inches long! It would probably only take a half dozen of them to carry me off. And these guys are smart - they don't bother with anything near the front of your body, only your backside, where they know you cannot get them. And they will not stop until they are stopped, or they fly off with a bloody meal. When one begins to attack, I am helpless to do anything else until I stop what I am doing, and concentrate all of my efforts on getting him. I have been successful, but at a cost of perhaps five minutes per fly. Thank goodness there are only about 4-6 a day that come attacking.

I have about half of the trail completed, and hope to finish up the rest of it next week - lots of chores to do around the cabin.

We three are heading into town tonight to enjoy a rare night off and dinner with some friends. No rush, rush, rush around to hurry and get back home. We don't get to do nearly enough of that, but then one reason is because we always are in a hurry to get home - back to the deer and the bears, who I bet will be dancing around while we are gone.

Saturday will be a major cabin work day for us - we'll be trying to get about six months' worth of chores done in one day, both inside and out. It will be great to get some of those chores done at last....

8/15/05 We just had a very nice sunset - the sky in the west was very odd, both the blue clouds above as well as the mixture of warm colors below, and that new baby cloud in the bottom of Whitaker Creek that was created from a passing rain shower a little while ago. But first, back to the weekend...

We had a great weekend that was indeed full of chores in and outside the cabin. The girls were busy outside most of the time, but also inside when it got really hot. At one point what looked like a horrific storm rolled in and began to dump some heavy rain - that put smiles on the faces of all of us, and also the trees around the cabin! But it was almost all for naught - the rain only lasted a few minutes and we got about 1/10th of an inch, that's all. We'll take anything though.

The storm moves in and puts smiles on the trees!

I kind of felt like an old farmer since I spent most of my weekend up on the tractor mowing around the cabin, Mom's and Aspen's meadows, and the powerline right of way. I would come home and brush off the dust and sit down to a lunch made by Amber, and then at night a really terrific treat fixed by my lovely bride. Then it was back up on the tractor once again to go up and mow until dark. Early next morning I was back up on the tractor for more of the same. By the end of the weekend I had mowed everything that I needed to! My tractor has been busted since last fall (actually just the bushhog, and I have been too lazy to get it fixed until now).

Had another large print order come in yesterday - actually it was an order for large prints - five 30x40 inch prints. I can't do them on my printer here but the Bedford's Camera store in Rogers has the same type of printer and paper only much larger, so I send my files to them via internet and then make a trip up there to pick the prints up. After I got the file ready to send, I spend most of last night - literally - trying to get the file loaded onto their server. I finally gave up at 2:15 this morning and went to bed. Then the alarm went off at 4:30am and it was time to get up and go build some trail. Since the trail project was near Rogers, I burned the print file to a CD (at 2am this morning), and planned to drop it off at Bedfords after the trail work.

So I left the cabin after only about two hours of sleep, but made it to the trail just fine. The radar showed heavy rain moving through the area all day, but I only got sprinkled on a couple of times all day long and no real rain at all. I must say that while it was a lot cooler this morning than it had been in days past for this trail work, after about three or four swings with my trail tool I knew I was in for a very long day - only two minutes on the job and I was EXHAUSTED! Not only had I gone without sleep and was physically worn out, but the section of trail I started to work on was the WORST of the entire trail - it would become a nightmare for me and my trail tools and I dug in and chopped away. An hour or two later I had about 8-10 feet completed, but I was feeling better - the joy juice (Cydomax) had already begun to kick in.

I put in a full nine-hour work day, only stopping for no more than three or four minutes at a time all day to slug down some juice - I never eat lunch when I am out on a work project like this - mostly just liquid (like V8), and those PBJ sandwiches that I cut in quarters and munch on throughout the day. I remained mostly physically exhausted most of the day, but I was able to kick it into high gear whenever I needed to - and I needed to most of the time with this darn trail!

I discovered something very interesting about horse flies that may just level the playing field - or at least this is what the giant ones at Beaver Lake do. Sometimes I would spend an entire minute getting one of them to land in a place where I had a chance to swat it - I long ago gave up actually trying to swat one of them, but rather what I do is clap my hands just above the fly in hopes of getting him as he is taking off. Anyway, what I discovered today is that they suckers take off BACKWARDS!!! You would think they would fly to the front, and plan your "clap" accordingly, but you almost always miss them that way. I noticed they always escaped out the back, so I started placing my hands in the air to their rear, and then clapping, and son of a gun, my success rate went up to nearly 100%! Just something to keep in mind.

I had no idea what time it was, but I was running out of my joy juice - still had plenty of energy left, but I knew that would be gone soon. And I was WITHIN SIGHT OF THE END of the trail! Well, actually, only about 20 feet from the end. But that was across some of the absolutely WORST trail of all. But I had decided I was going to finish the digging today no matter what. Only problem was that after about two feet I discovered - much to my horror - that the last 20 feet was nearly all SOLID ROCK! While I had been busting through individual rocks all day long, I had not been faced with this much before. I spent some time knocking into the rock, but didn't have much effect, so I decided to make a little change in the course of the trail to go under the lower edge of the rock, and that seemed to work OK. I made it to the END OF THE TRAIL - yippie! I will have to go back and spend most of an entire day on the trail smashing some stubborn rocks with a sledge hammer that I could not get out, digging/chopping out some large roots, cutting out a few more trees and branches, widening the trail in several places, and in general just putting some final polish on what has become a very nice trail - one of the best I have ever built, yet one of the most difficult! And while I have loved doing this trail and all the great exercise, I will not miss the constant pounding my body has been taking - my muscles are nothing but hamburger at this point. Oh yes, and I made it into Bedford's by closing time to deliver the CD, then made a run through Taco Bell for my favorite Chicken Grilled Burrito and a giant cup of raspberry tea.

On the way home I drove though some tremendous thunderstorms, and up on Cave Mountain the Boxley end of it was actually flooded - the creeks and waterfalls were running full tilt! As I made my way on home I began to see deer - lots of deer. Lots of deer with spotted fawns, and one group of five big bucks all together. And there was one group of five does - not a single fawn in the bunch. In a normal year I have seen two or three spotted fawns. This years I see that many almost every day, sometimes a lot more. Goodness we have a LOT of baby deer this year!

After I got home and got cleaned up the sky opened up and we had quite a light show off of the back deck that included a double rainbow - I got a photo of it but it is nothing special - nothing quite like getting to stand hand in hand with my wonderful ladies watching it.

I am growing weary tonight and will put this to bed, with me shortly to follow (after a good long soak in the tub).

Oh yes, our rainfall total here at the cabin for the past several days is only 1/4 inch - we missed the bit flood this afternoon that hit the other end of the mountain....

8/17/05 Rain, rain, rain - will it ever end? Ha, ha, just kidding! We woke up to a lovely, delightful, WONDERFUL rain shower this morning, and it lasted for hours. Not a hard rain, but steady. Clouds down in the canyon were being born and moving all over the place, rising up and engulfing the cabin and Beagle Point, then drifting off to parts unknown to cast shadows on folks who would be getting hot from afternoon sunshine. We got a total of almost an inch and a half, in the middle of August - yippie! (you should see the smiles on the trees now)

Later in the day I went out in search of some bright red and yellow and orange maple trees that have popped out this past couple of days - fall color, in the middle of August? I guess so. And not just black gum trees that began to turn some a few weeks ago, but lots and lots of maple trees. Mostly just young ones, but I found two or three pretty good sized ones that really stood out with their bright warm colors against those green greens of summer growth on the rest of the forest. I shot a few photos just so you would believe me. I think we are going to have one very special fall season here this year, so you had better get ready!

And all of a sudden, NO DEER! I have not seen a deer in two days, either around here or out on the road out of here. Even before the rains they just disappeared. I suspect we will see more of them in the days to come though.

It is late tonight - almost midnight - and I just came in from a nice long soak in the hot tub. I could not see hardly any stars above - not because of clouds, but due to the MOON being so darn BRIGHT tonight! It is not quite full yet, but sure was producing plenty of bright white light. Lots of night bugs out making a lot of noise as well - how do they expect us to sleep with all that racket going on? And I could not, which is why I was out soaking in the tub and why I am here at the computer now.

Speaking of the moon, I know some of you have heard or read about the giant Mars that is supposed to appear "as large as the full moon" later this month. If you have not heard by now, this is all bunk - there is no way Mars could be even 1/100th as large as the moon to our eyes - just not possible. It may be bright, but nothing in the world like that. I continue to be stunned that some very prominent newspeople have been reading the story about it, word for word, not realizing what a gigantic mistake it is. Mars as large as the full moon - come on, wake up....Or actually go to sleep, and I do believe that is what I am going to do now. Nighty night...

8/19/05 Just like the franticness surrounding the moonset early this morning, I only have a few moments to type this and get the heck out of here to start the day. The moonset a little while ago was quite wonderful - big and orange/yellow dropping into a very dark western horizon. There was a great view of it from the upper back deck, through the middle of the big red oak tree, but the wind was blowing and so the image I shot was a little blurred (a 5-second exposure). Then I switched to a longer lens and ran down the steps to the lower deck to get a close-up shot of the moon sinking into the wooded hillside way off yonder. Man that sucker moves FAST when it gets to the horizon! I only had time for three shots before the moon disappeared.

Today is the very first day of school, and our little lady was already up and running around when the alarm went off at 5:25am. She kind of likes school, and has been waiting for it to begin again since last May (as opposed to me, who LOATHED the beginning of school, always!). So that meant that yesterday was the last day of summer for her, and we tried to make the most of it, riding bikes, swimming, and oh yes, Amber got fitted for BRACES yesterday, oh boy, what a great way to end summer vacation! She will have them installed in two weeks and so will have a new smile for the next two years. She has moved over into the high school part of the Jasper school this year - things will be a LOT different over there! But she has some of the same teachers, so that will be fun. Our child is a joy to have around, something I never expected out of life, and we will miss her during the long days without. However, I am kind of fond of her mom as well, and now we will get to spend a day or two ALONE at last!

First day of school!

But not today - Aspen and I are off to the beauty parlor in town this morning for a hair cut (his, not mine), then I've got a ton of work to do before returning to our wilderness retreat. Pam will remain behind at the cabin, working on the OHTA newsletter and a bunch of book business items. It is FRIDAY (my worst day of the week, but I know most of you love it!), and I hope you enjoy your day, and the weekend...

8/24/05 Gosh, it has been a long time since I have written, but I guess time flies when you are having fun! Actually we have been filled up with business stuff around here all week and have not had much chance to get out and do anything other than work from well before daylight until way after dark. Last week Pam was on the road nine days in a row, and this week does not look much better. I just came in from a quick soak in the hot tub, and now will try to make a little update before hitting the sack, which I desperately need.

I left the cabin at 4-something yesterday AM to get the last bit of trail construction done. I had planned on about four hours of work to finish everything up. The worst part of the morning were the giant horse flies - I don't seem to be putting a dent in the population at all! However I have upped my aim to nearly 95%, although I have to come to a complete stop from working and just stand there and wait on them to land on the front of my body someplace - once they do that I have got them! The word must be getting out though as most of them most of the time land on my back, which leads to me swinging my arms and body around wildly trying to dislodge them from their perch. I'm sure it looks pretty funny from a distance!

While some of the work was difficult and the heat and humidity were high, I was able to get the trail completely finished and still have plenty of energy to spare - thanks to my new-found go juice! After I changed clothes I went and took my very first jump in the lake, and man that water was WARM! I needed to clean up a bit as I had a couple of meetings with VIP's in Eureka Springs to get to on my way home, and I didn't want to stink too much.

As I was approaching Eureka I found out that I was not finished with the trail after all, but had to return and build an additional 30 feet of trail - bummer. After taking care of business in town I headed back to the trail - thank goodness I had a duplicate pair of all necessary clothing as what I wore in the morning was completely trashed. So I loaded up all my tools and headed on out to the far end of the trail.

Have I mentioned how difficult this trail construction was? Well, forget all of that! This last 30 feet was much WORSE than all the rest! It took me nearly four hours of very tough work to get that last 30 feet completed. And it all was made much more difficult I'm sure because I did not have any of my special go juice to drink - only water and gatoraide. I was physically drained most of the time, and had trouble even keeping my balance on the side of this VERY steep hillside. But I did manage to make it to the very end, and did so without cutting my foot off - and the trail looked great! A job well done if I do say so myself.....I didn't get home until after 9pm - so from 4 to 9, then I had some business to take care of at the cabin once I got cleaned up. Just another typical work day at Cloudland!

Oh yes, and during the day we had several really bad storms roll through out here, which dumped more than TWO INCHES of rainfall - YIPPIE! It was hard rain though, not the slow soaking kind that we really needed, but what the heck, we'll take anything we can get. Where I was working not a drop fell all day long.

A couple of notes from the book business world. We had an official ceremony of sorts out here on Sunday for the famous Ray Scott and his new picture book - we got three copies from the printer, and we presented Ray and his bride, Susan, with the first copy. It is a very nice little book and we can't wait to get the full shipment of them so we can present this new book to you.

And just TODAY, I got advance copies of my new book, ARKANSAS PORTFOLIO II, and I must say it is a very nice picture book as well - it will become our flagship Arkansas book for the next several years. We did the cover on both of these books differently from the standard, and I think you will like them. The shipment of books. calendars, and posters left Korea on Monday, and we should get them in stock soon after Labor Day. I'll keep you posted. And oh by the way, the new POSTER is really neat - four photos from the different seasons of the year in Arkansas all on a single poster. Oh yes, and the new 2006 wall calendar - it is just wonderful! Stay tuned......

Amber has been doing great in school, and I suspect she will be in terrific physical shape by the end of the semester - she has basketball practice actually 7-9 times a WEEK! Including a couple of days after school after having it during school as well on the same days. Reminds me of when we used to have three swim team practices when I was in high school - one before school started each day, one during the athletic period, and one after school. With all of the chlorine they used back then in the water I used to run around with green hair - I realize this would be considered normal in this day and age, but not back then - I used to get a lot of strange looks!

Pam was at the school volunteering all day today. She stumbled onto two different rooms in another building that were crammed full of computers and large TV screens. Advanced students where there taking "classes" from other schools around the state that the local school system could not afford to teach here. They were watching the teachers on the TVs and communicating back and forth via the computers - technology is wonderful!

It is kind of cool outside tonight, with lots of stars out, and a slight breeze blowing. I'm beginning to see a few more deer of late after them being absent for a week. Speaking of deer, and the lack of acorns this year, I was sitting in a bank president's office in Eureka Springs yesterday (Community Bank), and though it odd that she had a bowl of acorns sitting on her desk. Acorns, really? Turns out that is their business logo, and the reason why I had been summoned there - they will be using prints of one of my acorn shots in all of their banks (in Pea Ridge, Berryville, and Harrison). And the image will perhaps even grace their Visa card (one of my Hawksbill photos is there now), as well as billboards and other places. The more I learn about this bank the more I like them - very down to earth and no "suits" running around all over the place. And, of course, they have my prints all over the walls! So if you are in a local bank and you look up and see a pile of acorns in a photo on the wall, they were probably taken on the front porch at Cloudland many moons ago!

I have been putting in a lot of time researching new equipment and software I will be using for our slide programs this fall. Seems like every year things get better and better and I just have to keep up in order to provide you with the best show. I have posted a few of the programs I'll be doing this year on the "slide programs" link here. More will be added along with specific time and direction info as time goes on. Since some brand new software that I want to try won't become available until early October, I won't be doing either of the new programs until then. But I will be collecting and testing the new equipment. One item will be a very large projection screen that I can bring along to places that only have small screens but large groups - the new screen will be 9' x 12' and I will be able to fill up the entire screen. I'm also collecting several hundred royalty-free music cuts that I will be able to use in the programs - this will allow me to sell DVDs of the programs for the very first time! That is if I can get the reproduction quality good enough to suit me - reducing down to DVD resolution destroys a lot of the fine detail of the photos, but I'll be working on getting them to look just wonderful before we ever sell a single one. Some of this music is very nice. Stay tuned, in more ways than one!

OK, time for me to post this and try to catch a few winks. I didn't not get much sleep last night as every muscle in my body was cramping up no matter what position I was in. What I needed was a giant tub of ice water to go sit in, which would have made my muscles feel a lot better, however I don't think I would have ever crawled into it!

8/25/05 My lovely bride started buying me underwear that looks a lot like normal shorts some time ago, and that move has paid off many times. Early this morning I headed out into the woods, just wanting to give the dogs a place to pee that was away from the cabin. The moment I stepped into the dark forest I knew I would be there a while longer. The air was not crisp, it was almost warm, but it was on the cool side of warm, with a slight breeze blowing in from the east. Also from the east came bright rays of sunshine that penetrated into that deep dark forest. Everything was very quiet, save for a few last notes from distant crickets. The forest floor was so soft and delicate and inviting - the thick bed of leaves had soaked up all of the glorious couple inches of rain we had recently, and was holding onto that moisture.

Other than the deep browns of the forest floor, and the yellows of the new sunshine, everything else was green, GREEN, green! So lush and green all over. Who would know the trees had been gasping for water only a few days ago? Now they were all plump and shiny and full of life and color. It looked more like early summer than the last weeks of it. The lushness drew me in and I walked on, out of sight of the cabin by now. The hiking was easy, with no particular place to go. I walked underneath towering maple trees - not a single leaf any color other than GREEN. Hickory. Oak. More maple. All green, green, green. Just two weeks ago so many maple trees had begun to turn brilliant reds and oranges and yellows in the hot summer days. But now all was green. All this time I figured that raindrops were clear water, but now I know they are really green!

I walked past sumac bushes - their fruit had turned a bright crimson, but the leaves were still green. A little while later there were wild plum trees on both sides of my trail - the plums were still pretty small and mostly green, none ready to eat yet, at least by me. And then I had quite a surprise when I began to inspect one of our groves of pawpaw trees - the fruit had begun to materialize and grow and now some of the fruit was several inches long - looks like we'll be having some pawpaws for breakfast in another month or two! I remember with great fondness my hikes last year each morning when I would stop by and have a pawpaw or two on my way around the loop to start the day. And as I was walking off this morning I realized that for the very first time I can recall, the photograph of a flower - one of three pawpaw blossoms - will be published in a book and on the store shelf BEFORE the exact fruit from those very blossoms is ripe! (a photo of mine of these blossoms is in my new ARKANSAS PORTFOLIO II picture book)

Before I knew it I was over at Bob's cabin talking with Bob and Benny and Francis (the backhoe guy). There has been this little mud hole near Bob's cabin for many years, nothing more than a rut with clear water in it, but that water is always there, all summer long, even on the driest days of the year. So Bob decided to have Francis dig it out and see if he could construct a small pond there. All three of Bob's wells have gone dry, and he is looking for another water source. It was when I was standing there talking with all of them - more than a mile away from my home - that I realized I was wearing nothing but my underwear! When you live in the middle of the wilderness and you head out early in the morning to let your dogs go pee, it really doesn't matter if you are all dressed up or not. Normally. Oh well, I wished them well and turned around and headed on down a different lane that I had arrived on. It was a delightful walk this morning, one that lasted more than an hour - and when I returned to my computer I found that all the urgent business I needed to be working on was still there waiting for me, no problem. I plan to take more hikes this fall, perhaps sometimes I'll even put clothes on.

While Pam's parents were here this evening for dinner the sky rumbled and crashed and opened up and we had a very nice rain shower - a full half inch of beautiful pure water came out of the heavens - not sure if it was clear or green, but we loved it just the same...

8/26/05 Just came in from a nice long soak in the hot tub under starry skies, but skies that were being flashed and lit up every few seconds. There was a tremendous thunderhead in the southern sky, just above Beagle Point (but actually probably 50 miles beyond), and it was one of those that sheltered and incredible amount of lightning - the kind that you never hear a sound from, but it lights up the inside of the thunderhead and you can see right into the belly of the beast. Seemed like someone over there was taking flash photos.

This afternoon there were a bunch of those giant thunderheads that flew right on past us on to the north - Pam said the Boxley end of Cave Mountain had been flooded sometime during the day, yet we did not ever get a single drop here at the cabin. The power kept going on and off (actually that happens just about every day out here - Carroll Electric always has problems somewhere down the line, although most of their real problems are in the front office in Berryville), and with the loud bangs and crashes and rumbles the dogs kept running for cover. The wind was blowing a little bit, but not too bad, and the sky to the north was BLACK. However, looking to the south I could see nothing but blue skies and a few white puffy clouds floating around - we were right on the edge. On the wrong edge since we didn't get any drops out of it. Since the dogs were so worked up, and I was having trouble getting any work done with the power going on and off all the time, I decided to just grab the dogs and head right out into the middle of it and show them how fun these thunderstorms could be. Naturally I didn't take a jacket with me, hoping to get caught in one of those magical summer showers. But it never happened. We did get to see quite a light show though, especially for in the middle of the day. We hiked up to Aspen's meadow where we could see far to the north and look past the end of Cave Mountain and on into Boxley Valley. The dogs didn't seem to mind the crashes quite as much since they were outside. Nice cool breezes all the way.

Early this morning I got up and wandered around in the forest again - this time wearing striped underwear. Didn't see anyone today, but the forest was just a lush and beautiful as it was yesterday. I found a bunch of dogwood trees - their clumps of berries have begun to turn red, although their leaves are still green. It will be a great red-berry crop this fall, but still no acorn crop to report, and I think the squirrels have nearly eaten up all the hickory nuts.

Back at the cabin I finished up work on the OHTA newsletter (it is now posted online), installed a new projector screen in the basement "classroom" for our photo workshops we have coming up this fall, and conversed with a software developer over in Germany about a hack he is working on that will enable me to do some things with my slide programs and new computer gear this fall (maybe). The girls had gone up to Missouri, so it was just me and the dogs and the cats and the other pets. Milancy McNamara came by and we scanned several McNamara paintings into the computer and burned to CD for them to give to a prospective client. Billy McNamara is really one of the great watercolor painters in the country.

Speaking of artists, my lovely bride is in charge of collecting all of the entries for a heap-big art show in Springdale, and the entries have been rolling in. She designed a special file on her computer using some software I had never even heard of before in order to keep track of everything - the entries are coming in as both 35mm slides and digital files. And tomorrow we will be spending the day in Springdale photographing art work that is brought in for the competition - for those who don't want to mess with producing a slide or digital file of their own. It is a pretty good deal for them, and I hear there will be pizza on the menu for the photographer!

I need to go rest my eyes so that I can focus all day, so am off to the loft. Hope you have/had a terrific weekend!

8/29/05 For some reason I spent a great deal of time today just sitting out on the back deck, sipping stuff. Three times I was out there. Early this morning, while the ladies were off to school, I put on a sweatshirt in the dim of pre-dawn light and had a steaming cup of tea and cream. The canyon below was filled with a sea of bright-white clouds that were swirling around all over the place. Beagle Point and some of the other tall ridges were poking up out of the clouds - all of them nothing but black silhouettes. And behind Beagle Point there was another bank of clouds, only these were very dark clouds, almost black clouds, yet lighter than Beagle Point itself. The light, what little there was of it, seemed to swirl around with the clouds. It was kind of weird looking, as things tend to be out here often. Lots of bats flying around and having a grand old time with the bugs - go get them guys!

Looking over at Beagle Point early this morning

After a long day of meetings and printing and computer work, the dogs and I took off and headed down to the river - first hike down there for me in a long while. It was cool in the afternoon, with a nice breeze blowing, but very humid. I began to sweat about half way down the steep slope. My steps were very careful all the way - lots of loose rocks down under the weeds and flowers and assorted plants that were growing next to and bent over and covering the trail. It was quiet, and very serene, and even the dogs seemed to sense it all as they remained right on the trail just ahead of me. When I left the cabin the sun was shining with blue skies above. But that all changed quickly, and before long the sky was dark and it began to fall - HUGE raindrops came falling down and splattering in the forest. It wasn't really "raining" - but rather the sky was tossing out a few of these giant drops just every now and then. The tall trees and towered above me reached out to grab as many drops as they could, but at least three of them made it all the way down to the top of my head - man that cold water felt GREAT!

The drops soon stopped dropping, but the dark sky remained. As we got to the bottom of the hill both dogs took off in a dead run, and then I heard splashing below - Whitaker Creek had water in it once again! The creek was not actually flowing, but the pools were long and deep, at least for this little mountain stream. Deep enough for Aspen to swim around. Deep enough for it to be too deep for Lucy - she waded out until the water almost covered up her back, then just stood there enjoying it all. Aspen on the other hand began to swim laps, first in one pool, then he splashed up into the next pool upstream, hunting, fishing, always moving around. The water was perfectly clear, and I could see dozens of small crawdeads perched on top of rocks under the water surface. Many of them at first would disappear as soon as either dog came near; but soon the crawfish realized they were in no danger, and then they simply stayed put and watched the show.

There were lots of bright yellow leaves floating on the water surface - some of them were maple leaves, but most were some other species - I did not pay close enough attention to make an ID. I did not see any yellow trees up above. Since the water was not flowing, the leaves remained motionless in the water, that is until a breeze blew them around, or the wake of a splashing dog sent them swirling on along. It was great to see the leaves on the water, and the water, and the leaves moving on the water - something about these sorts of scenes take me back to my childhood, or rather remind me that I am still there.

Before long I left the creek and headed on up the hillside. By the time I had reached the cabin I was soaked to the bone with sweat. Wanting to cool off a little bit first, I poured a big glass of bourbon and coke and put my feet up on the rail along the back porch and sat there and admired the wilderness for a little while. Still some clouds swirling around up above, but never another drop of rain. Our back porch is just a wonderful place to sit and watch or read or, heck just to do nothing.

After my shower in the Ray Scott memorial shower (we have a feeling that Ray's SECOND outdoor shower that he constructed at his beach home in Gulf Shores was destroyed today, and we're hoping he will put in a third one - no chance of high water getting to our outdoor shower here though), I took the dogs on a little walk up the hill to the warehouse and to the Faddis meadow. Still hardly any acorns around, but the hickory nuts are getting quite huge - just the right size for me to twist off a handful of and practice my pitching. It remained a cool afternoon, with just a touch of crispness in the air.

Just before dark the girls appeared, and after dinner my bride and I returned once again to that good old back porch just as the sun dipped low and lit up the clouds in shades of pink and yellow and red. My glass was once again full, this time with good old Cave Mountain ice water from the well. Bats returned to the airways, and the wilderness began to spin down for the day as the color and light faded. It had been a great day out here in the wilderness, as they almost all are.