upland hunting

Arizona Views

February 20, 2022 by The Noisy Plume

I’ve been away in Arizona! We had such a wonderful camping trip just north of the Mexico border in the sky island ranges that rise up out of the desert like stone crowns. I love this trip so much, we’ve been taking it for years! It feels so good to be in the sunshine after the deep dark icy cold of winter. We stayed in many beautiful campsites and, as always, we ate fresh on the road by hunting quail over our dogs which is such a pleasure and adds so much depth to a journey across a landscape — to take a place in with ALL my senses leads to such a deep understanding of an ecosystem. I highly recommend it. Go out, discover a place with all five of your senses and belong to it — breathe, touch, smell, see, hear and consume that biome. Nothing strengthens my heart and soul like belonging to a piece of land beneath a fathomless sky and having the memory of it pulsing in my veins and feeding the marrow of my bones. Too beautiful.

The highlight of this trip for us was seeing the sandhill crane migratory flocks just North of Douglas, Arizona, at a place called Whitewater Draw. We stayed the night and reveled at the miracle of thirty thousand cranes leaving a slough at dawn. Telling you about it, recalling the memory here with words, invokes awe and wonder. If you find yourself in Arizona in February next year you must take the time to experience this phenomenon! It’s spectacular.

I’ve been settling back into the studio while Robbie has been outside working hard to pull the farm online for the spring planting season. I’ll give you an official farm update in a couple journal posts wherein I’ll share with you some of our big goals for the 2022 growing season. It’s going to take an immense amount of planning and work but I think we’re going to shoot the moon! Robbie says by this fall he will be able to legitimately call himself a farmer.

I missed sharing my journey with you!

It’s good to be home and I hope you are all better than well.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: camping, traveling, upland hunting

Southwesting on Roads Less Traveled

February 25, 2021 by The Noisy Plume

Last summer, when I was tired and lonely, I told Robbie I wanted to take the horses, dogs, and shotguns to Arizona for the entire month of February to camp, eat wild, and soak up some sun. There is no better place on the planet Earth to be in the month of February than Arizona. As it happens, our trip trickled into New Mexico and then into Texas where we found ourselves stranded for a week during the great blizzard of 2021 (we were alright but Texas was very not alright). As a result, I had one of the worst birthdays in the history of my life which we made up for a week later when we celebrated with wonderful friends in Santa Fe before driving the rest of the way home to Idaho.

We had some disasters that we managed to overcome with some luck and the help of good people who chose to be generous neighbors to absolute strangers. We rode our horses almost every single day in wild, beautiful country. We dry camped on public land the entire trip, in wild undeveloped spaces, alongside dry creek beds, under live oaks, beside windmills and sand dunes.

When the sun was shining it was warm and delicious and my arms and face and shoulders turned brown as my body soaked up all that vitamin D. I relaxed for the first time in a couple of years. I read books. I worked on some projects with my bead loom. I ran on soft two track through cactus and boulders alongside granitic monoliths. I watched the sunrise and sunset. I did what I wanted to do every single day.

Tater did a great job hunting up quail for us which we proceeded to roast over campfires and eat fresh for almost four straight weeks. Son of a Gun turned into a teenager and had his first lessons on quail as he simultaneously learned about cactus. I shampooed my hair with water from a BLM guzzler a couple of times and let it dry in the sun as I rode my horses in the warm desert breezes. For the most part we were dirty, suntanned, well fed and covered in horse grime most of our trip. What a dream!

We met up with a friend. He had been big game hunting in New Mexico and joined us to bird hunt for five days. We had a blast chasing quail together, laughing our heads off, carefree and happy. I felt like I was with a band of brothers. It was one of the highlights of our trip.

Naturally, I stone shopped along the way and managed to procure and transport home a lovely load of American turquoises. I’m thankful I had a stone budget at the time because handpicking in person is always the best way to choose gems.

On a side note, I think since we bought the farm I have been unable to recover from these fire seasons that come year after year. Over all the years Robbie has been fighting fire I’ve had a fatigue take root deep in the marrow of my bones, and in my soul, a fatigue I’ve been unable to shake for some time. This trip to the sunshine with our horses and dogs and each other was so restful for me. It wasn’t really a vacation for me, it was bigger than that, it was a time of recovery for me. I’m grateful we were able to go.

I’m looking forward to getting my studio up and running again this week! We are unpacked, the house is in order, all the critters have settled back into this wonderful Idaho life we’re built for ourselves and I’m dreaming of moon bright silver paired with stone.

The roads less traveled are the best roads to travel and after they wind and climb and descend and straighten out again it’s sweet as heck to find ourselves back where we started. The horizon line is a beautiful mystery and the curve of the earth is a generous smile.

I hope you are all well and finding the silver lining in every cloud.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: camping, horses, southwest, upland hunting

Edge Country

November 4, 2019 by The Noisy Plume

There’s one area in Idaho where a guy and gal can hunt sharptail grouse and we were there in early October so we took full advantage of our temporary location. Sharptail can be found in the liminal space where cultivated and uncultivated land meets — in the edge country. They’re a beautiful grouse with furry feet and earthy feathers. I like hunting this bird because they live in gentle country in grassy cover and I can see every move our dog makes which is such a pleasure. The walking is easy, the sun in the grass is lovely, it’s like being on a jolly holiday. I associate sharptails with peaceful, prairie-like spaces, breezy wind, blue skies and Indian Summer.

As Tater Tot worked these grouse, I found myself wondering if he had been living in Farley’s shadow all these years. I wondered if Farley had to die for Tater to truly come into his full potential. That is the way of Kings. Tater is hunting so beautifully this year, with great composure and unfailing courage and I find myself working my heart out as I cover ground behind him. I am ignited by his efforts and getting him his birds has become all consuming when we’re hunting. I am having one of the best wing shooting seasons of my life. Every now and again, when the sun gets in my eyes, I think I see a white dog flashing through the fescue and sage and I know we’re running two dogs again…just for a moment.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: upland hunting

South Dakota

December 8, 2018 by The Noisy Plume

We were in South Dakota for Thanksgiving. It was marvelous! I’d never visited before and I felt so at home there in the grasslands, beneath a big sky, in a sharp wind. I am from the great northern plains, after all. Wide open space is the landscape of my soul. Our main reason for going was to hunt pheasant, and hunt we did. The dogs worked so beautifully it nearly broke my heart. I think that’s what we should feel when we see a human or animal living and working within the realm of their gifts and talents — excelling towards mastery of a skill set. When I see a birddog tearing it up in the field, working intelligently and instinctually, standing game with self-control and composure, it’s one of the most beautiful things I can think of. It’s stunning. It’s such an honor to work alongside them.

I’m saving some of the details of this trip for a larger piece I’m currently writing but one of the best takeaways from our journey (besides bringing home some beautiful meat for our freezer) was an appreciation for the way the farmers of South Dakota are managing their farms. They’ve managed to create sanctuaries for wild animals within their crops and shelter belts. It’s remarkable to see. I was inspired by it and I came away from that trip wondering how I can blur the line between our cultivated hay fields and the BLM space that surrounds our farm so that I can create more habitat for wild animals on the edges of our property, essentially blurring the line between my space and their space. More on that in the future, but for now, if you haven’t visited South Dakota, you’re missing out!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: south dakota, upland hunting