How to choose art for the bare walls of a new house

It began with a June 19 Facebook post by artist Linda Anne Lopez of Winchester, Virginia. Linda and I met several times over the years. She's married to diehard reader and biker Ben Lopez, a longtime friend of my late brother Dan and his wife Nancy. They met in Santa Barbara while going to UCSB. Turns out they all moved to Florida for work and kids and riding motorcycles year-round. 

Ben is the most voracious reader I know and we trade book titles on FB. His most recent: a biography of Rudyard Kipling. My most recent is a novel The Sleeping Car Porter by Canadian author Suzette Mayr. I am now hip-deep in Carl Hiaasen's newest, Fever Beach. Ben sticks mainly to non-fiction and I'm a creature of fiction as that is what I write. And, sometimes, like these crazy times right now, who can tell the difference?

Linda got serious about her art after retirement. Photography was her thing. Along the way she discovered encaustic mixed media and that's what you're seeing here. 

Linda is  a bird-and-flower person which carries a lot of weight with me, a hummingbird admirer and gardener. She describes her specialty as Encaustic Mixed Media. She combines her love of photography with the ancient arts of encaustic. See further explanation below. Find out more at Lindalopezartist.com

And I spent most of my professional career in the art world, mostly in the realm of state arts agencies (SAAs), local arts funding, a stint at the National Endowment for the Arts, and dabs in arts and literary criticism. All of these worlds are being decimated by Trump and his goons but I will leave my political critiques to other posts on Hummingbirdminds and other rabble-rousing sites.

Linda got my attention with this FB post on June 19:

Hummingbird and flowers, encaustic mixed media, 8-by-8 inches, Linda Lopez

It got my attention because it is beautiful and because it features a hummingbird and flowers. I must have it, I told my PC, and contacted Linda. It was for sale and she also had a companion piece, shown in this June 25 FB post by Linda: 

Encaustic mixed media, Linda Lopez, work at left is 9-by-17 inches.

The new home this refers to is mine in Ormond Beach, Florida. They will be the first works of art to go up in our new home in a woodsy place called Groveside at Ormond Station. I plan to turn these bare walls into a gallery of sorts, one that will feature groups of pieces celebrating my wife Chris and me. These two pieces will hang above our dining room table which, strangely enough, matches the color schemes of the art. It will feature work by Florida and Wyoming artists with a Virginia and Colorado artist in the ranks. 

You might ask: Hey Mike, what, exactly, is encaustic? I will let Linda answer that:

Explanation and History of Encaustic 

Encaustic is a wax-based paint (composed of beeswax, damar resin, and pigment), which is kept molten on a heated palette. It is applied to an absorbent surface and then reheated to fuse the paint.  The word ‘encaustic’ comes from the Greek word enkaiein, meaning to burn in, referring to the process of fusing the paint.  

 

Encaustic painting was practiced by Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C. The Fayum portraits are the best-known encaustic works. These funeral portraits were painted in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. by Greek painters in Egypt. 

 

Modern encaustic painting was made possible by the invention of portable electric heating implements and the availability of commercial encaustic paint and popularized by its usage among many prominent artists. Encaustic paintings do not need varnishing or protection with glass. Beeswax is impervious to moisture, which is one of the major causes of deterioration in a paint film. Wax resists moisture far more than resin varnish or oil. Buffing encaustic will give luster and saturation to color in just the same way resin varnish does. 

 

Encaustic can be used as a traditional painting medium, but it can also be used to create sculptures, with photography (transfers and prints), drawing, and printmaking (monotypes). Painting with encaustic is a multi-step process. First, the paint must be melted. Then the molten paint is applied to a porous surface. The wax is then fused into the working surface, allowing it to form a bond. As a final option, the cooled paint can be buffed to bring up the luster of the wax and resin. Every layer of encaustic wax must be fused. 

Lynda Rutledge takes us on a magical mystery tour in West with Giraffes

I meant to post this as soon as I finished the book. Here it is.

A runaway teen – Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Nickel -- is fascinated with two shipwrecked African giraffes and signs on with a crusty Old Man to transport them from the East Coast to the San Diego Zoo. The year is 1938. The Depression is still loose upon the land and evil lurks overseas. A road trip with giraffes seems like just the thing.

The book opens with a prologue from the year 2025. A healthcare worker in a VA hospital comes across a deceased patient’s old army footlocker. In it, she finds a porcelain toy giraffe from the San Diego Zoo and a stack of writing tablets. It’s the saga of Woody’s trip. The writer intersperses scenes from the journals with a look at Woody at 105 struggling to write it all down. He writes, talks gibberish, fends off hovering healthcare workers, and imagines a giraffe outside the window. The reader roots for him to get down his story and we know he will as the tale depends on it.

During the journey in a specially-outfitted truck, Woody encounters charlatans, circus freaks, hobos in Hoovervilles, and a budding love interest. His mentor, the Old Man, works overtime to keep the trek on track. There’s a love interest, too, in a young woman Augusta (Red) who pretends to be a Life Magazine photographer and accompanies the giraffe convoy in a stolen Packard.

As I’ve written before, I dig road trips, going on them and reading about them. It was rough travel, suited to the realities of 1938. But I loved reading about it. It did drag in some spots – the always difficult middle section of the novel -- and the journey’s ending seemed a bit anticlimactic. But it’s a trip I’d go on again.

 

There's a deer in the works and I'm not sure what to make of it

There’s a deer in the works.

Not like Kurt Vonnegut’s errant deer in his Welcome to the Monkey House story. This deer just breezed by my living room window and traipsed across my front yard before disappearing through the hedge and into my neighbor’s vegetable garden. When I looked to see if it took time out to munch on Swiss Chard, I saw nothing.

How odd to see a deer in my neighborhood on a Sunday morning. Any day, for that matter. I instantly though of Vonnegut’s story, Deer in the Works. It impressed me when I first read it and gained a lot more meaning when I joined a billion-dollar corporation as a publications editor in the 1980s. I had grown tired of the freelance writing game and was looking for something more permanent, something that would help me buy a house and start a family. I found it at the Gates Rubber Company’s Denver works.

A younger Vonnegut found his job at the General Electric works in Schenectady, N.Y. Vonnegut’s character, David Potter, lasts only one day at the works. I went five years and Vonnegut worked from 1947 to 1951 at GE. A young father, he quit the job after selling several short stories to the now defunct Collier’s Magazine. Knox Burger, the magazine’s fiction editor, took Vonnegut under his wing but was surprised when Kurt quit his day job and moved the family to Cape Cod so he could write. Burger later said, “I never said he should give up his day job and devote himself to fiction. I don’t trust the freelancer’s life, it’s tough.”

Vonnegut had some tough years. He persevered. He hit it big in 1969 with Slaughterhouse-Five, possibly the best war novel ever written. It’s really considered a darkly comic antiwar novel. He met Hollywood producer Harrison Starr at a party who asked if Kurt was writing an antiwar novel. He said he was and Starr replied, “Why don’t you write an anti-glacier novel?” Not sure about Vonnegut’s response. But Starr’s questions seems very Vonnegut.

Vonnegut studied biochemistry while a student at Cornell. He was kicked out of Army ROTC for poor grades and a satirical article he wrote in the college paper. He lost his deferment, dropped out of college, and enlisted in 1943 before he could be drafted. He ended up as a scout with the 106^th Infantry Division which was overwhelmed by Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge. The division lost 500 troops and 6,000 captured. Vonnegut ended up a POW in a slaughterhouse in Dresden. Then came the firebombing. Twenty-four years later, Vonnegut was able to write about it.

I read it as a high school senior in 1969. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was reading but knew it was wonderful. I was also reading Catch-22. None of that stopped me from accepting a Navy ROTC scholarship. ROTC kicked me out in January 1971 due to bad grades and bad attitude. I was able to scrape up enough dough to last another semester and then I was done. My 1-A classification came in the mail at my parents’ house where I would have been living in the basement if we had one. I worked a day job at a hospital taking care of old people. I surfed on my days off and waited to get drafted but that didn’t happen.

This morning, the deer disappeared into my neighborhood. Not sure what happened to it. It seems unreal now, maybe a figment of my overactive imagination. All morning, all I could think about was Deer in the Works and every Vonnegut story and book I read which was most of them. The Vonnegut section fills up considerable space in my memory bank. The wayward deer is in there somewhere.  

Savage Vedauwoo chipmunks, and other travel stories

Don’t get around much anymore. Not since March 2020 anyway. Guests arrive August 2021 and it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee and the buffalo chips.

My sisters Mary and Eileen and brother-in-law Brian ventured from Florida to Wyoming to visit their brother (me, he, him) and family (she, she) and take a look around the High Plains.

Wyoming and Florida are different places. For one thing, we are a big square state and Florida is shaped liked a human appendage. Wyoming high and dry; Florida low and wet. Blizzards generally don’t hit Florida. Hurricanes usually skip Wyoming.

Both places have lots to see and you have to get out and see them. In Wyoming, you get in the car, check the gas gauge, and drive to the mountains. In Florida, you get in the car, check your insurance, and drive to Orlando. If you survive that, you drive to the beach. I grew up in Daytona Beach in the 1960s and ‘70s. You could drive to the beach and on the beach. NASCAR races were once held on the beach’s hand-packed sand. Unique place. Beach-driving hours are now limited.

I drove my 2021 visitors first to Vedauwoo. We picnicked under pines and watched climbers negotiate the 1.4-billion-year-old chunks of granite. I remembered my young son and daughter clambering up the rocks and Chris and me down below, worrying but also impressed. Vedauwoo is usually one of the faves cited by visiting friends and family. What’s not to like? Gorgeous scenery, cool winds scented by pines, sunny skies. Add some snow to the Laramie Range and you get all this plus cross-country skiing or snowshoeing.

Chris and Annie hiked south. Eileen, Mary, and Brian decided to hike Turtle Rock Trail. I told them it was a fairly easy 3-mile trail. I forgot to mention that we were at 8,200 feet. This is approximately 8,150 feet higher that their homes in Florida. I also forgot to mention to drink plenty of water. I know, what kind of host am I? Altitude and hydration are always the first things you mention when travelers arrive from The World. I remember my first camping trip in Colorado after living at sea level for 14 years. Base camp for the Long’s Peak Trail in RMNP. Spent the first night with a raging headache. Nothing worked on it: Coors, Tylenol, wishful thinking. I just waited it out.

Everyone but me went hiking. I am partially disabled and use a walker so hiking is no longer my thing. I sat at the picnic table. Munched grapes, and read a book. At one point, chipmunks got brave enough to visit the table. Earlier, my patient daughter Annie fed a grape to a chipmunk. Apparently, they thought I also was a purveyor of grapes. At least one did. He skittered across my book several times. The next trip, he stopped, sniffed my thumb, and bit me. I yelped and he scampered into the underbrush. No blood, the bite not hard enough to break the skin. I moved away from chipmunk habitat and found a shady, secluded spot to continue reading.

The hikers all made it back. The Florida people were a bit winded and thirsty.

“That was a long three miles,” Brian said.

“Mountain miles are longer than sea-level miles.” I explained that mountain trails take twists and turns, they go up and they go down. Three miles can seem like six or even sixteen.

“So mountain miles seem longer than sea-level miles,” Brian surmised.

“I don’t get your point,” I said. “A chipmunk bit me.”  

Florida and Wyoming may never understand each other. Sign of the times.

On the next post, we journey east to Nebraska, where it was 98 freaking degrees, and west to the Snowies where it snowed.

Watching the robins like a hawk

Robins are good parents. Both mom and dad brings food to the chicks. When the adult robin alights on the nest, the movement prompts sightless hatchlings to reach for the sky and open their beaks. They cheep, too, a tiny sound but one that the parents recognize. The adult robin regurgitates a diet of worms and insects into the outstretched mouths. They make the trip from nest to great outdoors back to nest up to 100 times daily. They seem insatiable, these young ones. They grow as big as their parents within a month. They are klutzy when they try to fly and this is the most dangerous time in their young lives. A fall can be fatal because parent robins can't boost the kids back into the nest. They fall prey to cats and foxes and raptors. Humans are told not to pick them up and put them back in the nest because the human scent will cause the parent to shun the offspring. Not so, say the experts. Mom and dad know their kids by sight and sound and not smell. To catch falling birds, Chris draped a blanket over a trash can three feet below the nest. Our robins' nest is accessible but most are not. It was built on top of our porch's solar control box. It's just out of my reach if I wanted to reach it. The adults buzz us humans as we water the plants or barbecue a steak. Unlike blue jays, robins seem content on close encounters. Blue jays peck at the heads of interlopers. The shock troops of the bird world. The time from robin egg to hatchling to fledgling is a short one. Humans take note. Thirty days for robins. Thirty years for the process in the typical human nest. Robins should be glad they don't have basements.

Whale of a tale

We ran into the whale watchers at the beach today. An elderly couple about my age, already retired, on the beat to record the right whales lurking off Ormond Beach. Chris and I were sitting at the beach approach, decompressing after a long walk in the sand. Actually, Chris took a long walk as I tried to coax my knees into overdrive without much success.

The couple is on the lookout for whales every Thursday, 8 a.m.-noon. They hit five stations during that time, recording any right whales they happen to spy. The Atlantic is home to some 500 of these whales, not many when you look out and ponder the size of the ocean. The man in the duo said that he's seen three humpback whales off of this coast. I replied that I didn't know that humpback whales came to this part of the world. He said that humpbacks are easier to see that others because they have a dorsal fin and white marking that help them stand out against the blue-green waters. They also move fast. Right Whales are slow movers. Humpbacks are more like linebackers while the right whales are no-neck linemen. I have football on the mind.

I took it all in, wondering about the different whales and why some are endangered and others are not. We must have had whales in Wyoming when our state was drenched by the inland seas. Forty million years ago, give or take. My property and that of my neighbors was under tons of water, home to prowling plesiosaurs, but not sure about whales. But it's pretty clear that the demise of the dinosaurs opened the door for all of the mammals, including whales. About 55 million years ago, 10 million years after a giant asteroid and/or a swarm of erupting megavolcanoes put an end to the dinosaurs, even-toed ungulates started branching off from pigs and deer to become the whales glimpsed off the coast of Florida. Cool -- whales are related to barnyard pigs in Arkansas and foraging mule deer in Wyoming. I also have science on my mind.

I liked the fact that these two retirees were scouting the sea for whales even on their volunteer day off. They must be very dedicated to the cause. During this trip to Florida, I've been reading a lot about the shifting sands of tourism, about the fact that tourists are not just coming to Florida for the beaches but for trips along inland waterways, bird-watching tours, wildlife watching and explorations of Florida's many cultures. We plan a side trip to St. Augustine to explore its 500 years of settlement by Europeans preceded by many generations of Indian settlement. We won't be going to the beach, although St. Augustine has a fine one. I like beaches. I like warmth. But many people have left the freezing north for the warmth and the beaches and have found heartache instead. They leave friends and family and the life they know for slick online ads or glossy brochures It's warm here! Friendly, too! Come on down to paradise!

It's never that simple. When my dying father in Ormond Beach was being attended by Hospice personnel, I talked to them. One nurse said that it was a nice thing that my father had many visitors and that we all seemed to care so much. I replied that this must be the case with many of her charges. She shook her head. Sadly, no, she said. Most of her patients died alone. The spouse had already passed and the children and grandchildren and friends all lived in Michigan or New York or even Wyoming. There was an occasional visit from a new acquaintance or a pastor, but a lonely departure was the rule rather than the exception. Made me think. Why are so many retirees willing to give it up for life in paradise? I know what it's like to be cold and old. I know what it's like to be braced against a 20-below wind chill imagining a warm walk on a beach.

But a beach is not enough. I could imagine living here. I can imagine whale-watching. We would go to many events and explore the historic sites and museums. We have passions and pastimes to keep us involved and alert.

But I think this mantra will be on my mind: The beach is not enough. Repeat after me: The beach is not enough.

Or, as a cynical, bleary-eyed bartender in Key Largo once said to me and my new bride on a brilliant May evening in 1982, the setting sun coloring the sky, "Just another day in paradise."

Books about vanishing glaciers and wildlife art make WY Outdoor Council''s "best of" list

Dr, Janice H. Harris is the former chair of the Women's Studies Department at the University of Wyoming. As president of the Wyoming Outdoor Council board of directors, she offers her list of best books for 2012 on the subjects of natural history and the environment. Sad to say I haven't read any of the books on her list, but plan to remedy that in 2013. 

She has high praise for an art book, Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct, edited by Adam Duncan Harris (University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 978-0806143019). Dr. Harris adds the caveat that the editor is her son, a curator at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson. But there's no caveat when it comes to quality. We have this book in our office and it's a beauty. Bob Kuhn spent a long lifetime sketching and painting animals. He also served as mentor to scores of wildlife artists in Wyoming and elsewhere. The museum has a lot of Kuhn's work -- drop in and visit next time you're in The Hole.

Another of her selections with Wyoming ties is Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers, James Balog and Terry Tempest Williams (Rizzoli, ISBN 0847838862). This features photographs from the Extreme Ice Survey along with observations by noted environmental writer (and part-time Wyoming resident) Williams. This should be mandatory reading for any Wyoming global warming deniers. Williams was writer in residence at UW a few years ago and ruffled a few feathers with her enviro town meetings held at various locales around the state. 

The one I plan on reading first is Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe, Charlotte Gill, (Greystone Books, ISBN 978-1-55365-977-8). Here are Dr. Harris's reflections on the book:

One of first things you notice when you start reading Charlotte Gill is her wit. Given the title and the cover of the book, she had me initially skimming here and there to see where these dirt-eating, tree-planting folks live. I figured remote Brazil. Not at all. When not planting trees in Cascadia, from February through October in the Pacific Northwest, Gill lives in Vancouver writing award-winning short stories. It shows. I loved Eating Dirt. I now want to read Ladykillers, winner of the British Columbia Book Prize for fiction. How can a book about being wet, filthy, bitten, and exhausted be such a joy to read, such a page turner, such a rich introduction into the history and current practices of the timber industry of the northwest? This is a gem.

Gill is a fellow short story writer, and she has wit -- what's better than that?

Reflections by writers and artists featured at "Listening to Nature" on Nov. 9

Interested Party blog: Bakken pipeline could mean the end for Wyoming sage grouse

Our blogging pals at Interested Party out of South Dakota had a post this morning about the Bakken Pipeline.

If completed, it would transport raw natural gas liquids (NGLs) south through easternmost Montana and Wyoming into northern Colorado, where it will connect to the existing Overland Pass Pipeline.

It may also spell the end of the threatened Wyoming sage grouse, and endanger equally tenuous (and drought-plagued) water supplies. The pipeline's projected path through Laramie County takes it west of Burns and Carpenter and east of Cheyenne. Did you know that? I didn't.

Read the rest at interested party.

Thanks IP!

WY Wilderness Association hosts a weekend of art and nature at Honeycomb Buttes

From a press release from the Wyoming Wilderness Association:

The Wyoming Wilderness Association is excited to be hosting a weekend of art and nature with Joan Hoffmann, extraordinary oil and pastel artist from Colorado and Vermont, conservationist and teacher.

Friday- Sunday June, 15-17, Hoffmann will inspire painters of any medium or skill level, in a car campout near Honeycomb Buttes. Saturday morning artists will rendezvous to set up car camping near the Honeycombs, with short day hikes to paint, and campfire critiques and stories to follow. Sunday morning, artists will paint the gorgeous Honeycomb Buttes for a grand finale of an inspiring art-filled weekend. This opportunity is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Martha Tate at 307-672-2751 or visit WWA’s website at http://www.wildwyo.org/

Wyoming Wilderness Association encourages everyone to take advantage of the summer, get out and explore the wild parts of the state, and find out what makes Wyoming and its wilderness areas so special.

If you like your films wild & scenic...

Smoke and Black Hawks and history in the air over Mount Rushmore

We cruised up to Mount Rushmore National Memorial yesterday afternoon. It's a 27-mile drive from Rapid City past a weird assortment of tourist attractions -- sprawling waterslide parks, Bear Country USA, Reptile Gardens ("See Maniac, America's Giant Crocodile"), Old MacDonald's Farm petting zoo ("Pig races!"), Black Hills Maze, Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns, etc. Most are closed for the season. A few are closed for good.

Anyway, we got to Mount Rushmore. I've been there but my wife Chris has not. I took the kids there 13 years ago when my son was at Boy Scout summer camp near Custer. It's an impressive place. It took 14 years and 400 workers and a million dollars and tons of dynamite to carve the faces of four presidents into Harney Peak Granite. Why bother, you might ask. But therein lies the tale. Local promoters thought it would be a great celebration of American freedom and a terrific tourist attraction. They were right about the latter. The former is still being debated, which seems fitting. The ranger at the visitor center said there was a recent History Channel documentary that called Mt. Rushmore a "testimonial to white privilege." Or maybe that was "testament to white privilege." He seemed upset by the idea. But you have to admit that those are some big white faces up there on a mountain that is still claimed by High Plains Indian tribes. I'm not privy to the current state of white-Indian relations regarding Paha Sapa. But it's always been testy, not to mention bloody.

We took many photos. We walked the Presidential Trail. A beautiful day in the Black Hills. As we made our way from one interpretive placard to another, we heard the sounds of a helicopter. Looked up to see a Black Hawk hovering nearby. We wondered if it was some sort of spring weekend military demonstration. Or maybe a visit by a V.I.P.? A president, perhaps? But we would have heard about that.  

The Black Hawk dipped behind the trees, hovered, and the buzzed off. We forgot about it until we got back to our car in the parking lot and saw a plume of smoke on a nearby ridge. Uh oh. The Rapid City Journal's cover story Saturday morning talked about the extreme fire danger caused by unseasonably warm temps and high winds. On our return to Rapid City, we passed fleets of police cars and firefighting trucks blocking a side road. Smoke was in the air. So was a Black Hawk.

Good news. The authorities jumped on the fire and put it out quickly. The cause appears to be target shooters, as shotgun shells littered the charred ground and targets were affixed to surrounding rocks. Not sure what to say about that. There are many things one can do safely in a tinder-dry forest. Discharging firearms is not one of them. 

Survey results show that Wyoming residents support a multitude of gas wells and scenic vistas

Foundation Coal's Eagle Butte Mine in Campbell County

Wyoming Public Radio had a news item this week about the results of a survey of Wyoming residents conducted by Colorado College. Here are the results, in a nutshell:

Most Wyoming voters view the state’s national parks, forests and wildlife areas as an essential part of the economy. That’s according to a bipartisan poll conducted at Colorado College. 

The survey found that Wyomingites support a broad range of environmental protections but also support energy development on public lands. 

Bob Budd with the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust says that’s not a contradiction.“Wyomingites really do believe that we can have it all,” Budd said. “I think our track record is pretty good that way. We’re bullish on development to some degree, and at the same time we’re very protective and bullish on our natural resource heritage.” 

Budd says surveys like this are important in helping policy makers plan for the future. “Wyomingites really do believe we can have it all.”

Beliefs are one thing, reality another. Air pollution in Sublette County, water pollution in Fremont County, fracking disruptions in Goshen and Laramie counties, oil-and-gas drilling on public lands all over the state, uranium and precious metals mining in northeast Wyoming, fights over the viewsheds for transmission lines, coal-fired power plants that are some of the worst polluters in the U.S., battles over locations of wind farms, gobbling up of Campbell County for more open-pit mining, millions of beetle-killed trees due to global warming caused by the burning of Wyoming’s carbon products, and so on.

We Wyomingites may believe that we can have it all. It’s not true.

When you’re an energy colony like Wyoming, there is no escaping the effects of energy extraction. And when you have an economy almost wholly dependent on severance taxes on oil, gas and coal, you can never escape those effects. This is a real quandary when the state’s second-largest economic generator is tourism. In 2010, tourists spent $2.6 billion in Wyoming and the industry generated $108 million in state and local taxes. A good chunk of that money was spent in Jackson and at Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, with its 3 million tourists annually. Jackson Hole is relatively free of commercial energy development. But there is a lot more to Wyoming than its very scenic Northwest corner.

But what are we to do with the state's Energy Sacrifice Zones? Those places with lots of coal/gas/oil but without tourist-pleasing scenic vistas? 

Campbell County, for instance.

No mountains in Campbell County. Plenty of buttes, mesas and wide-open spaces. The landscape features huge open-pit coal mines, some of the biggest in the country, and hundreds of coal-bed methane gas wells. The city of Gillette is perched out there in Powder River Country, located at the junction of I-90 and U.S. Hwy. 59. Summer tourists from Chicago and Milwaukee and Minneapolis have just visited the Black Hills and Devils Tower and now are wondering how far it is to the next scenic vista -- the beautiful Bighorn Mountains. That's just about the time they arrive in Gillette. Visually, Gillette offers nothing to write home about. If you were writing home about it on Facebook while holed up in the Holiday Inn Express during a March blizzard, you might say, "Help -- I'm stuck in Siberia." Or "Gillette is butt ugly."

Gillette still life (coal mine in background)

True, Gillette as seen from a Holiday Inn Express window during a March blizzard is a depressing site (been there!). Some ("some" meaning "me") have proposed erecting noise barriers along I-90 so that tourists don't have to actually see the city as they move westward, forever westward, toward Yellowstone. You've seen those barriers in every big city, erected to muffle the eternal racket of the interstate, an effort to spare the delicate hearing of suburbanites. Denver's I-25 noise barriers were made to resemble rock cliffs embedded with fossils of ancient flora and fauna. Very clever.


With Gillette, we're talking more "visual barrier" than noise barrier. I envision a 30-foot-high wall along both sides of I-90, from one end of the county to another. Local artists could limn scenic vistas on the wall. They'd be busy for years, generating millions for the local economy. We could also try to Denver approach and embed Powder River fossils (allosauruses, pterodactyls, state legislators, etc.) in the barriers. The idea is to spare motorists the sights and sounds of 21st century energy development.


Alas, what looks good on paper runs into the realities of real life. Gillette earns millions providing services for tourists. For that, they have to go into town and face the forest of motels and fast-food joints. And Gillette also is one of the most exciting arts towns in the state. It's home to the AVA Center, an old municipal building that's been turned into a place for arts classes and exhibits and gatherings. Its exterior now features a mural by local artist Christopher Amend. Chris is known more for his nudes and surrealist paintings.

Chris Amend's mural at the AVA Center

Gillette has an active public art program, "Avenue of Art," initiated by former Mayor Duane Evenson, who now sits on the Wyoming Arts Council board of directors. On the eastern fringes of town is the CAM-PLEX Center, known more for rodeos and monster truck rallies than art exhibits and concerts -- but it does all that. U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi was on the CAM-PLEX board and now sits on the U.S. Senate arts caucus. He buys books by Wyoming authors and actually reads them. Beneath Sen. Enzi's Gloomy Gus exterior beats the heart of a diehard arts supporter.


Gillette is home to the Powder River Symphony and the Donkey Creek Jazz Festival and a cool library and an active writers' organization and a slew of dedicated art teachers and....

See how complicated this is? An Energy Sacrifice Zone yearns to break free of stereotypes. Its residents don't want to be sacrificed. We want good jobs, many of which are in the energy industry, and we also want pretty mountains and pristine streams. For the most part, those two facets of Wyoming life don't exist in the same place.   

Forget the visual barrier idea. We'll have to figure out other ways to hide our Energy Sacrifice Zones while promoting our scenic vistas. Any ideas?

Wyoming's historic struggle: preserving vs. trashing its environment

We heard from Kate Wright of Wyoming Conservation Voters at a house gathering last night in east Cheyenne.

Kate talked about the WCV's 2011 Conservation Scorecard for the Wyoming Legislature. As expected, most legislators of both parties came up short when it comes to voting to preserve and protect one of the most beautiful environments in the world. Not surprisingly, the big money wielded by the energy speaks very loudly in the halls of the State Capitol. Severance taxes on coal, oil and gas pay Wyoming's bills. Legislators know it. When they forget, lobbyists from Encana and Peabody are there to remind them.

This will always be the case until Wyoming figures out alternative ways to pay the bills.

Tourism comes close. And tourism depends less on scenic oil wells and open pit mines than it does on towering mountains, crystal clean trout streams and waist-deep powder.

This is a traditional struggle in Wyoming. We're an "energy colony" for the U.S. and, increasingly, the rest of the world (coal for Australia and China). Tourists from China now make Wyoming a destination. A new housing development in China, located two hours north of Beijing, is called Jackson Hole and is based the the cute little Alpine village of Jackson, Wyoming. Or some sort of re-imagined version of Jackson. Isn't it fun to imagine a Wyoming-coal-fired suburb in China filled with people who can't wait to go to the Wyoming-coal-and-natural-gas powered village of Jackson, Wyo. While in our quaint energy colony, these tourists might want to take a side trip to the open pit coal mines of Campbell County. Industrial tourism is a growing trend. I know a number of people who've taken the coal mine tours and have been down into the deep trona mines of southwestern Wyoming. As a curious human being, how can you not be interested in the origins of the material that powers our laptop computers. I'm typing on one right now!

For the most part, tourists want scenic vistas. When they travel to scenic Sublette County, they want to ogle the Wind River or Gros Ventre Mountains, fish in Fremont Lake, hunt elk in the Upper Green River Basin. They also want to be able to breathe, which hasn't been easy with air pollution caused by oil and gas development in the Pinedale Anticline. Last winter, air pollution levels in Pinedale topped those in L.A.

Back to the Wyoming Conservation Voters. Check out its web site at www.wyovoters.org. Get a copy of the scorecard. In the Senate, some Repubs such as Tony Ross (Laramie), John Schiffer (Johnson/Sheridan) and Leland Christensen (Teton/Fremont) top those of Democrats Marty Martin (Sweetwater/Fremont) and Chris Rothfuss (Albany). In the House, however, Dems lead the way. You can't find a sorrier, more anti-environment group of Tea Party Republicans than those in Natrona County, home of Casper, "Oil City." These Natrona County Repubs are regressive in almost every imaginable way, so this is no surprise.

WCV will again be keeping score as the 2012 Legislature rolls into town. The org also will lobby for upcoming legislation, including the Aquatic Invasive Species Act, increased funding for the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, and bills promoting Public Records and Public Meetings.

WCV is a 501(c)4 and works for all of us. It also has an education arm, a 501(c)3.

Go to the web site and contribute. You'll be glad you did.

If I did have a “hummingbird mind,” I could rule the world

A few weeks ago, a commenter on these pages made a snide comment about my brain. I am as capable of taking snide comments as I am in dishing them out. Actually, if I were to talk blog talk, I’d have to say I am good at snark, as snide has fallen out of favor in this new hyper-tech era.

The commenter, who was of the conservative persuasion, said that me and my readers must have brains the size of a hummingbird brain. He was inferring that we are peabrains, as a hummingbird brain is the size of a pea.

I can accept this criticism. But the comment did cause me to seek out information on hummingbird anatomy. The pea-brained hummingbird has the largest brain-size-to-body-mass index in the bird kingdom. It’s is approximately 4.2 percent of its body weight. If my brain were 4.2 percent of my weight, it would weigh 9.66 pounds. My head would be the size of a pumpkin but much more lethal. The late Kurt Vonnegut used to say that most of the world's ills could be blamed on the fact that human brains are too big for our own good. Imagine if they were three times bigger!

If my body weight were to be consistent with human anatomy, I would have to weigh almost 700 pounds. This would cut down on my mobility. But my huge brain would allow me to control puny-brained normal humans. They would do my bidding. I would command them to build a mobility device that allowed me to flit from food source to food source. I could hover hummingbird-like over this food source (McDonald’s, for instance), dart in to snag a Big Mac with my long forked tongue, and then dart out again, hovering over the local McD’s, never losing my place. I could exhaust the entire Big Mac supply of the McD’s on Yellowstone Blvd., and then dart over to the one on Lincolnway or College Ave., here in Cheyenne. I would always know where the food was located, and whether it was ready or not. All the while, I could locate a mate, if any were willing to date a big-brained, 700-pound winged human male with huge eyes, a long beak and forked tongue. I’d also be able to fight off any rivals who arrive on the scene. If I was forced to smite a rival, I would have to take a few minutes away from feeding. But not too long – hummingbirds eat a dozen meals per day, consuming many times their own body weight.

How do I know this? I found this info at on Ron Patterson’s excellent Gardening for Wildlife web site:

In a study that appeared in Current Biology, Susan Healy and Jonathan Henderson of the University of Edinburgh describe their fieldwork with rufous hummingbirds in the Canadian Rockies. 

Can a hummingbird's brain actually think? 

Tallying visits by three male rufous hummers, the researchers found the birds could distinguish between the 10-minute and 20-minute “flowers” and remember their locations and when they had last drained them. Over several days, they reliably returned to the “flowers” just after they had been refilled; once again, a matter of what, when, and where. 

It makes sense for hyperactive birds like hummers to maximize their foraging efficiency. Return to a flower too soon, and the nectar won’t have been replenished; too late, and a rival may have beaten you there. 

With a long migration route and a short breeding season, rufous hummers can’t afford to waste time and energy in the search for food. 

Healy and Henderson point out that their male hummers were able to track the timing of nectar supplies while defending their territories and courting females. So you have not only episodic memory but serious multitasking. Several studies show hummers know when a flower is ready. 

All this when a hummingbird's brain is smaller than a pea. 

No one knows how large a hummer's hippocampus is, absolutely or relatively. But the bird doesn’t have a whole lot of neurons to work with. It may not the size of the hummingbird brains that enables these kinds of mental processes, but the complexity of the wiring. Smaller does not necessarily equate to dumber: the minuscule brain of the hummer appears to have the bandwidth to do what it needs to do.

One of the great things about Ron’s site is the Bible quote he puts on each page. I’m not a Bible reader or a quoter, but I like the fact that he writes with such scientific detail and such passion, but also finds time to dig up verse to punctuate his narrative. He’s a serious multi-tasker, just like a hummingbird. Here’s the quote he provided on the page about hummingbird brains:

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Not a jeremiad in any way.

In conclusion, I’d like to say this: Do your homework before making comments on this site, especially as it relates to the lives of hummingbirds. They are amazing creatures, preferable to snarky humans in so many ways.

Sources:
http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/anatomy.php
http://www.gardening-for-wildlife.com/hummingbird-brain.html 

http://www.hummingbirds.net/hainsworth.html