Beware the Black Hatted Buffalo Nudger

Yeah... I didn't know such a thing existed either.

So there I was after a few days of fighting ee-lek-trawn-icks... struggling to get a book published... The sixth western novel and the first to cause difficulty uploading...

Well, after multiple crashes, regroupings, re-Nuking and reformulation I surrendered and sent the manuscript to a computer geek lady who had it fixed and back in the time it takes to write a couple emails... and refused compensation claiming it was too small a job to bother.

One tiny little missed "click" in the formatting process on a used to be clear and open and now hidden screen... crashed the whole deal. ALL attributable to Microsoft's penchant for taking working software and improving it into cumbersome, awkward NON-intuitive malware...

SO! with the thing fixed, uploaded and published - FINALLY - I decided to reward myself with a drive through the northern end of Yellowstone before I pull out in a day or so...

Hmmmm... traffic has thinned considerable__but there's still plenty. I came to a patch of it where folks that normally live in concrete pastures were busily building a Buffalo Jam. Now__sitting on the asphalt for who know how long watching townies take pictures of Buffalo cows silhouetted against somebody's church van is not my idea of a well spent afternoon... so I kept moving.

Yup... if you idle along the Buffs will generally move out of the way. 'course if they stop you've no option but to stop too.

Well, these didn't stop... I moved... and they moved and I was on my merry way... for about 15 miles... and then the flashing lights behind me said; "Tsk Tsk Tsk... you were a bad boy!" except, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done... seeing as I was rolling 10 miles under the limit.

I pulled into a wide spot and this dang near 6' blonde Amazon Ranger walks up and wierdly... was really looking at and all over the truck.

"How are you doing?" she asks...

"Well... I -WAS- doing ok. What's up?" I say.

"I stopped you because we got a report phoned in that you were "Nudging Buffalo" ...

"Um... " I friggin' cracked up... "Are you serious? ummm... if I HAD BEEN you wouldn't be stopping me HERE! You'd be responding to the disabled truck sitting in the middle of the road with it's front end torn off!"

"If you Nudge Buffalo... those buggers Nudge Back!"

Well she grinned and laughed... and Agreed. "That's why I was looking at your truck so close... looking for damage."

Fact is... I DID... exactly what the Park Boys and Girls WANT you to do... keep moving... NOT cork the road...

We talked for some little while and she checked out my "Papers" to ensure that I wasn't some heinous jihadi looking to terrorize not only the american sheeple but a deviant terrorist hoping to sneak around NUDGING BUFFALO...

Laughed my way all the way back to camp... Walt Disney educated nature lovers are like somebody walking on a treadmill... they put out a lot of effort... they just don't get anywhere.

- Brian

P.S. Leather and Stone is now working through the distribution channels and is or soon will be available for Pre-order at Smashwords (and it's retailers) and Amazon! (I'll get an Amazon link up as soon as it's live)

Bears, False Hysteria and Mountain Realities... Get a Grip...

Almost got in trouble last night...

Was nigh on to ten O'clock when a guy came stumbling up to the fire. His voice was approaching the pitch of a scared old woman's... as he told us...in a panicked rush; THEY SAW A BEAR! DON'T LEAVE ANY FOOD AT ALL ANYWHERE AT ALL OR THEY WILL BE IN YOUR CAMP!!!

Besides spooking the kids for no good reason... getting all cranked up about such things and wetting your jeans is a thing that just twists my shorts...

"Where did they see it?"

"Down on the other side of the lake coming across the damn..."  ... so... probably nigh on to a mile...

Then the camp host came around... knocking on doors to warn ever'body!!! seriously? Why not call out the friggin' National Guard?!

People!!! It was a black bear... in the woods... in Colorado! Wow! What a rare freakin' thing to see!!!

I'd just about bet both my kidneys and half my liver that right then and there... you could find six bears within' five miles of where these boys were wettin' themselves cuz somebody SAW one!!!

So... How'd I almost get into trouble? Cuz me bein' who I am... I was havin' difficulty checkin' my laughter at the town folk cowering behind their tent flaps cuz Yogi was gonna come rampaging through their camp... Sound carries in the night air of the mountains you know! ;)

Here's the deal... Keep a clean camp... exercise that grey stuff 'tween your ears... and you'll be just fine.

Put it into a reasonable perspective... How many campers actually, truly got fed to a bear in the last... oh... ten years? three? maybe four?... and how many got shipped to the mortuary by a lil blonde girl racing down the road texting to her girlfriends with her knees holding the steering wheel? ... in that same time period??? a thousand? Four thousand??? More? Get a Grip folks!

Your bowels don't get loose every time you climb in your car to run down to Safeway for some cole slaw do they? You're about a thousand times more likely to have something bad happen there... on the road... going where ever...than you are in the mountains... if you Keep A Clean Camp...

So... prior to the Yogi assault... that uh... Never happened ... what a let down ;) the kids played around in a lil feeder stream that flows down to the lake... and... they made another attempt to capture one of the elusive trout...

Which is frustrating lil' Jillian. She desperately wants to catch a fish... and most she's gotten is a good solid bobber dunking... while folks fifty feet away using the same bait drug in three... Explain THAT to a five year old. :)
 

*Belaire Lake*

Shhhh... we're waiting on the bears... are the doors locked?

Yeah... I know... I'm not a terribly sympathetic mountain cowboy...
Brian...

Even Along the Mogollon... I Can Find the Boot...

Knock Knock Knock! "Hello! Fish and Game!"

I look out the window and there stands a fella with one hand pounding on the wall of my rig... the other caressing a pistol butt...

Does a knock on the door from a man with a gun set your teeth on edge too? In a society ruled by the force of law... the law being whatever somebody else decides, in their infinite wisdom, is what you'll do... and having zero to do with what is right, wrong or reasonable... Freedom is a sad facade.

Camped a few hundred yards from a stock tank... the young guy with his bullet proof vest, big gun and an easy smile claimed we were "bothering" the wildlife and preventing them from getting to the water... and we'd have to move on...

I remember those delicate creatures, so fearful of people... bringing their twin fawns three hundred yards inside the ranch fence to chew the flowers out of the pots on our porch steps, while a 180 pound Great Pyranees barked at them from the end of his chain, six feet away.

But, me parked quietly in the trees the same distance from a stock tank... is the great tribulation that will end wildlife in Arizona as we know it.

I guess nobody told these neighbors they were supposed to be traumatized by my presence...

Or the Falcons living on the sky scrapers back east...

I wonder; Will the contamination of human thinking inculcated by Walt Disney and his ilk ever be overcome? or must man plummet into the abyss of his own stupidity first?

We live in a society and a world where Freedom is a curious, obsolete,  anachronism... and those promoting it are dangerous and must be marginalized... demonized even...

I expect I'll watch that conflagration from some high spot out on the desert... watching the smoke in the distance... and just shaking my head... history marches on, repeating itself for all those who refuse to learn from it...

So for now, I moved on to another week of work here in Avondale. The NASCAR partiers start moving into their PIR camps in a short while and starting Thursday we'll start hauling their butts on the trams. Till then I've got a few days to work some leather, and scribble some words.

On the Arizona Desert
Brian

Tragedy in Zion - a Popular Blogger Has Vanished

The popular blogger, writer and ne'er do well, BK Gore, Vanished last evening while on a hike in the Temple of Sinawava area of Zion National Park with his wife. Little is known and His wife was found wandering aimlessly and in a deep shock.

Our contacts tell us that Park Officials are confused and suspicious. They have asked that everyone remain calm while the investigation proceeds.

Local Police and Park Rangers patrolled the area throughout the night and found only a camera and a bloody boot several yards from where the man was last seen.

While police stated they do suspect foul play, they will make no further statement until the investigation has been completed. Their final statement was that they have made no arrests, have few leads, and have as yet not found Mr. Gore.

The only real evidence of what may have occurred was in the camera officers found soon after arriving at the scene. It is believed that the camera they located may have recorded the doomed mans final, terror filled moments...

Reports of several brutal and mysterious attacks throughout the area by an unknown and as yet unidentified and never seen creature are being described by authorities as "Total Fabrications and the crazy ramblings of loony Bigfoot fanatics".

The contents of this video seem to argue otherwise.

Officials are warning all campers to keep their doors locked and those sleeping in tents have been advised that they may wish to evacuate until it is known what actually occurred and what the situation in the Park is.

~ On the Scene in Zion