Seasonal Subterfuge

A guest blog giving y’all a glimpse of Glacier National Park from Brother Dear:

It’s that time of year.

It’s muddy.  Sometimes it feels like spring, but that sensation is camouflaged by 70+ mph winds. snow flurries, and  days below freezing.

But things are coming back to life all the same.  Mom’s flowers are poking up wherever Bingo declined to bed down from the wind.  My hop plants are poking their first green tendrils through the snowdrift by the cabin.  The loons just arrived to retake control of Gretchen’s Mirror from their most hated enemies: every other living thing.  Seriously, they are are very serious about being the only birds on the water.  That’s okay because waking up to the unmistakably haunting and warbly cry of the loons is far superior to walking through clouds of goose poop.

Despite these telltale signs of the slowing evolving spring, there is something missing.  A right of passage every decent Babbylonian anticipates all winter long- an event pined for up till the moment of its inception.  I speak, of course, of the first annual trip to Many Glacier.

Unfortunately, the National Park Service has not yet opened the road.  It is one of my biggest pet peeves that they do not release any useful information regarding the status of opening the road.  It is my understanding that there are internal rules requiring the gates to remain closed until the third weekend of April in order to allow the elk unmolested access to the returning vegetation as they recover from a long winter.  That’s fine (although apparently the elk on Two Dog Flats don’t get such royal treatment).  I walked the road (what is left of the poor thing, anyways) yesterday with three stalwart friends and ran into a fellow who is working on the Many Glacier Hotel.  He informed us (from the warmth of his pickup truck) that the park service was delaying the opening of the road (to us tourons) due to “forecasts of snow” in the next week.  C’mon.  It snows every month of the year here.  Open the gates!  Or give us a date that you will!

Or at least give just me the code.  I won’t share.  Promise.

Update: The road to Many Glacier opened late yesterday afternoon, not long after Brother Dear emailed us this blog.  I thought it was too good not to share, regardless.  And yes, it snowed another 6″ last night near Babb.  See you on the Many Glacier Hotel porch for cocktails soon!

2013.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All rights reserved to Sanford Stone.

 

what july looks like

Canoes and kayaks just begging for a cruise around the glimmering Mirror …

Late afternoon games of bocce …

Snow melting off even the highest peaks in the  park …

Old dogs soaking up the sun …

Mighty Chief, keeping watch over the general merriment …

Sweet babies feeling 80 degrees for the very first time …

Loon parents teaching their two chicks how to fly …

Oh, how we love July!

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

June 12, 2011: Counting Heads

We’ve lived at Hillhouse long enough now to know who can we can expect to visit us each year.

In the fall, we welcome hundreds of trumpeter swans and Canadian geese.  They pause in their southernly flights for a respite on Gretchen’s Mirror, bobbing on the patches of open water and walking drunkenly about the iced over portions of the lake.

In the winter, we look up from the soup we’re stirring on the stove to watch the coyotes bound across the frozen surface of the Mirror.

In the spring, we observe mama Moose return year after year to deliver her calves, and teach them to unfurl their long, velvety legs in order to walk through the Mirror’s shallow depths.

And in the summer, we keep a sharp eye out for the pair of loons that likes to keep its nest on the Mirror.

I’ve written about the loons before, about their silvery, mournful call, unlike any other sound I’ve heard reverberate off the Rockies.  My heart always lifts when the first one of us announces that the loons have returned, that they are building a new nest, that the chick has hatched.  And of course, I’ve written about the chick that didn’t hatch until Honeydew and I accidentally cooked it, too.  Sorry about that, loons.

Last weekend, Honeydew, Darling Summer Help II (DSH2), Brother Dear and Pseudo Sista brought back photographic evidence that not only are our loons back, but Mama is sitting on the nest.

And so we’ll tiptoe around the Mirror for the next few weeks, hoping that the first part of July will bring us a new head to count, Baby Loon, and that we’ll get to watch Mama and Daddy Loon teach their fuzzy young one all sorts of Loony things.  Like all parents, we especially like watching the Baby Loon learn to take off, to fly.

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

gobble gobble

Despite all my whining about The Winter That Just Won’t Quit, there are actually many signs that spring has sprung.  For one, the critters are starting to emerge.

Elk line Hwy 2, and Honeydew saw a big ole bull moose up towards Many Glacier when he was home earlier this month.  The park service spotted a wolf at their West Glacier headquarters last week, and also report that bear sign and loons are reappearing at Glacier’s lower elevations.  Near Babb, we feasted on a Mama Stone dinner last night – nobody cooks like my mama – and watched a fox cross the still-frozen Mirror in the fading spring light.  This morning, I let the dogs out and listened to some sort of wharbler wharbling away in the aspens.

And a couple of weeks ago, my Dad had these critters come visit him near Whitefish:

Gobble, gobble!  These were taken April 4, 2011, and I’ve never seen healthier looking turkeys – except perhaps those on my Thanksgiving table.  So good to see signs of life reappear near the 49th parallel.

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  Photo credits to Charlie Stone.  All Rights Reserved.

 

lovers return

I don’t know what is “normal” for newlyweds, but I doubt that trucking one forklift, 200 hives of bees and a Lab/Golden Retriever puppy from Palo Cedro, California, to near Babb, Montana, Bride in the 1 ton truck, Groom in the 2 ton truck, is something your “average” newlyweds do.  Thirteen hundred miles and forty-eight hours later, Bride, Groom, Puppy, Bees, Trucks, and Forklift are all safely home.

Upon arrival to Hillhouse, Honeydew’s sharp eyes immediately noted that our loons are back … I got a bit teary over his announcement, and ran to unpack my camera.  Loons mate for life, and during our wedding ceremony, one flew over head and called out brilliantly.  I do not find this coincidental, but deeply symbolic.

Aren’t they beautiful?

Floating about on Gretchen’s Mirror.

Thankfully, the loons didn’t seem to mind Roy Rogers making himself at home … and checking out his new home.  He immediately got into the Mirror, and then wrestled with the lawn for quite a while as he dried off.

One loon lover took a big ole spring stretch that Honeydew captured with the camera:

I love to see their spots.

I wish I could describe the call a loon makes … I’ve heard it described as the sound of wilderness, and I agree.  But there is something silver in the sound too, something that shimmers down your spine and holds a tete-a-tete with your heart, telling it that there is greater love than even Shakespeare wrote about, that some love is too magnificent for human language.

2010.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

a loon-y tale

As y’all know, Honeydew and I are both self-employed and our schedules tend to run towards moonlight hours. So, you can imagine that last September, when a Thursday night found us both at home by 6:30 pm without either of us having to work early Friday, we were tickled. Honeydew sprawled on one couch, talking elk huntin’ strategy on the phone with his best friend, while I lolled on the other, reading Shakespeare’s sonnets. I kid you not. They were a wedding gift. 

The weather was rapidly cooling, and Honeydew eventually got up to build a fire in the wood stove as he chatted with his buddy. I was wrapped up in a Pendleton and some of the freshest turns in the English language, despite the age of the sonnets, when suddenly an incredibly loud, and sonnet-shattering, BOOM startled both Honeydew and I from our couches and Buck from his bed – none of us had any idea what happened!  Had the gas line burst?  Had a beer bottle exploded in the fridge?  Had the terrorists finally realized that they could hide out in Babb and blend in completely with the locals, never to be noticed?

Within thirty seconds or so, I finally made out the shadow of a loon fetus on the floor under the wood stove — and about this same time, the smell of said loon fetus also hit Honeydew and I. He immediately began dry heaving — I ran into the front yard and violently threw up my dinner.

Each year that we’ve had Hillhouse, a pair of nesting loons have laid an egg on Gretchen’s Mirror and, most years, raised a chick. This year, the loon egg didn’t hatch — we all blame the stress of the wedding, clearly permeating the Hillhouse airwaves, for this sad fact. Mom and Dad (AKA as Citizen Scientists, according to various certificates issued by Glacier National Park) went out on the Mirror towards the middle of July to inspect the nest, once it became clear that the loons were not raising a chick. They found the egg, floating just to the side of the nest, down towards the southern end of the Mirror. Dad brought the egg in, thinking that the head honchos of the Citizens Scientists might like to see it. It looked like a dinosaur egg, about the size of a can of Coke. Spottled and mottled and beautiful, really. We put it on top of the wood stove for all to admire and promptly forgot about it.

Unfortunately, the egg’s beauty disguised the fact that a full term, or nearly full term, loon lay inside the its thin walls – walls that were absolutely no match for the wood stove, once it was fired up. How Honeydew did not notice the egg, I do not know — after all, prior to building the fire he did remove an empty cast iron humidifier from the top of the stove. But not The Egg.

The loon egg clearly cooked for several minutes on top of the wood stove before it exploded all over Hillhouse and scared both of us to death.  Not to mention poor Buck.  And, of course, this less than twelve hours before our first “house-guests-as-a-married-couple” were due to arrive.

After determining that neither of us were injured by the shards of exploding loon egg shell, the smell was still so bad that despite the frigid temperatures and howling winds, we opened every door and window in Hillhouse, and both of us continued dry heaving for about fifteen minutes.  At this point, we dissolved into giggles at the absurdity of the situation. Had any wedding party members/Hillstockers been here, clearly we would have taken to the hot tub with a magnum of champagne. But it was just us. And the shards of eggshell. And the over-hard loon guts plastered to the rock wall behind the fireplace. And the threat of the company due the next morning.

Honeydew eventually went at the cooked loon egg remnants with bleach water and a rag, but I hid out the garage. Dry heaving. Drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  Plotting ways to sell Hillhouse.

Six months later, I’ve come to my senses, but every night when I build a fire, I inspect the top of the wood stove very carefully.  And I hope that when spring returns, so will our loons.

2010.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.