"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

By: Robert Frost

I thought A LOT about this poem this week. I even recited it to my coworker during one of our long hikes. Some people think it is kinda crazy, but like I wrote last time, SO MANY of my childhood dreams are coming true right now and I am just having so much fun everyday. When you are in one of those moments you sometimes start to dread the ending, you can just feel how sad you'll be when the adventure of a lifetime is over. But like this poem teaches we just have to cherish the golden moments, enjoy them, live in the moment and be grateful for the awesome, beautiful, wonderful, fulfilling life that God blesses us with.

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write another post. I literally think about it daily, but between hiking 8-12 miles a day and learning all about farm life, I run out of time and energy by the end of the day. Which unfortunately also means some of the awesome stories slip through the cracks but I will do my best to fill you in.

The Elk that Stalked Me

This is not a joke. I was sitting on a log in the middle of all these lodgepoles, keeping an eye on a nest, when all the sudden I hear some big crashing noises in a thicket to my left. Of course it is pretty loud and I have no idea what is going to come popping out of there, but I just hold my position on the log. When all of a sudden out comes this little calf elk and just starts walking toward me, like he doesn't know I'm even there. He gets within about 20 feet before I decide to move so that neither of us gets too jumpy. But it was a pretty cool experience that isn't even done justice by this photo.

On another day Amadeus and I start out on what we think will be a two hour hike to a nest (which we started at 2pm, thinking we could be done before quitting time)...well 5 hours, 3 big boulder fields, an incredibly thick stand of lodgepole, some scratches and two goshawk NESTLINGS later we finally make it back to the truck. BUT. The two baby goshawks and an awesome shed I found literally made it all worth it. And Amadeus and I learned a thing or two about not just blindly trusting the detailed Forest Service directions we receive. Sometimes you've got to follow the elk instead, they actually know what is up in the forest. And sometimes you have to be willing to think a little more like Darwin, or really any other great scientist. Good science takes time and sometimes what seem like wasted efforts, but if you don't put the effort into good observation...you'll never get anywhere.

Thus Amadeus' first selfie after the long hike!

On another note I caught a magpie by the beak in one of my traps this week. I guess he thought that rock chuck guts sounded like a good afternoon snack. I also caught a mink and another feral cat, but I didn't get a good picture of them.

I'm sorry that those are all the stories I can think of for now. I played the violin in church, Mindy and I played detective as to how and why a rabbit had been dismembered and left in our shed, and I got a fitbit so now I'm kinda crazy about getting ten thousand steps a day...although let's be real that is only very hard for me on the weekends. The first day I had it I hiked 11 miles and had some 27,000 steps...
Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:

One of our crazy chickens, I was just trying to get a good picture of his beard.

We did get this cool view from our crazy 5 hour hike. 

View from the Red Canyon Visitors center.

I also tied some flies this week, if you can even see that little guy. Although I haven't been fishing out here yet.

A great view of Moon Lake, the Ashley seriously has some beautiful country.

Ok seriously, I want to know: who has ever drank from a glass Gatorade bottle?

The Gold. An awesome sunset that my phone camera did not do justice to. 

Well, thank you to my three faithful readers who have made it this far. Hope you are enjoying the journey vicariously, because I am seriously having THE BEST time.