Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Ellie in 2013 in the dining room of our house in Portland. Old homes are equal parts charm and challenge, it was built in the 1920’s so would be almost a century old now. We were there for 16 years, a pretty special time in our lives, one of the many families it sheltered over the years.
📷: Canon M | Canon 22mm
Date: September 8, 2013
They may not be the best for exercise or for feeling like you’re alone in the wilderness, but I’m a huge fan of nature / interpretive trails. They’re accessible to a wide range of people and are great if you’re short on time, and often have a good sampling of the local flora. This is Bear at the Jane Rau Trail in February, I wanted to see how he’d do going over the bridge over the wash (he was unfazed). This loop is really short but a nice addition to the start or end of a longer hike and can offer up some pretty cool wildlife, I’ve seen a bobcat and a gila monster here.
As part of getting Bear ready for hiking again I took him for the first time to the short trail up the hill in Cavalliere Park. He loves looking out from up high so I gave him a moment to take in the view. I always try to sneak in the four mountains that helped me get my bearings when we moved here, especially Brown’s Mountain just above his nose as well as Cholla Mountain above his shoulders and Granite Mountain above his rump. Cone Mountain is blocked by vegetation but would be to his left.
On a couple of recent hikes Bear picked up some large prickers that took a while to remove, we may have to try again to get him to wear shoes on his hikes. We tried in April but he just lay there in his humiliation, whispering “Don’t let the cats see me like this.” You have my word Bear, you have my word.
It’s Fat Bear Week at the National Park Service where you can vote for your favorite chonk fattened up for the Alaskan winter. No matter how much you love him you can’t vote for this Bear however as he’s lost over 20 pounds since we adopted him. I didn’t take him hiking much over the summer since you have to be up pretty early to beat the heat and I couldn’t manage it. We’re back at it now but he’s gotten pretty out of shape and is gassed by the end of our normal hikes, so I’ve switched him to shorter hikes while he builds back his endurance.
Thankfully he does ask to lie down when he wants a break and on this occasion when we stopped for water it gave me a chance to photograph him as though he was paying homage to my favorite saguaro, which I call The Green Elephant. In truth he still isn’t interested in her, putting her in good company as he’s also not interested in bobcats, rattlesnakes, and tarantulas. He is interested in just about anything that moves in front of him but I’ll say this for the great matriarch, she doesn’t move much.
I’ll be posting more frequently the next few months and I feel I ought to explain why.
Last year after we adopted Bear I was caught off guard by how intensely homesick I suddenly felt for Portland (this is Ellie and I playing in the snow in our backyard a decade ago). It’s not that I hadn’t missed Oregon before — you can’t love a place as much as I loved the Northwest and not miss it when you leave — rather I missed it in the same way I’d miss the desert if I could snap my fingers and give us our old lives back. But I’ve never had a problem mourning the beautiful things I’ve lost as long as it doesn’t keep me from loving the beautiful things I have and have gained. And if you’ve followed me long you know how much I love the Sonoran Desert.
Something else was going on.
A big part of it was I had been having trouble sleeping, leaving me physically and mentally exhausted. Bear was more of a challenge to integrate into our lives than Ellie had been. Sam died around the same time, not that any of their death’s have been easy but I always knew his would be hard. There was pandemic fatigue, the school shooting in Uvalde, the stress of a car commute after so many years taking the train, an especially challenging project. To top it off I got sick twice and had to miss a week of work each time, burning off a huge chunk of my time off, time I usually spend letting my mind spin down. And even though I try to live in the moment and am keenly aware of how good my life is and how many people are genuinely suffering each day of their lives, I still reached a point where I couldn’t keep going and needed to find a way to retire.
Thankfully my boss offered an option to take a leave of absence instead and I took him up on it. Tomorrow I start my four month break and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to step away and recharge. I may not get to play with Bear in the snow as I did Ellie, but he is about to start going on a lot more desert hikes. Looking forward to doing more photography and editing old pictures, my backlog goes back many years (including this one!).
This picture of Bear at the end of a winter afternoon hike has several layers of meaning to me. When we first adopted him he was overweight and slightly limped even on shorter walks in the neighborhood, and his manners precluded taking him into areas with lots of people and dogs. It took months getting him physically and mentally ready for long walks before I was willing to try him on less-visited trails far from trailheads. Take to the trails he did, while he enjoys his neighborhood walks he has a special love for the desert and when we’re about to head out he practically knocks me over as he scampers to the back of the garage and waits beside my hatchback.
As his progress continued I started taking him to more and more populated trails, culminating in this our first visit to my favorite place, the Brown’s Ranch trailhead. We took my favorite hike, finishing up at Sunset Vista with the sun sinking low in the sky, stopping for a snack break and some pictures before dropping down the hill to the car. I was growing confident we had a lot of desert hikes in our future, as he did well even with the off-leash dogs we encountered.
I snuck Brown’s Mountain into the background as I love to do, as this landmark more than any other was the anchor that helped me find my bearings when we moved here and it felt like we were in a never-ending whirlwind, with this part of the preserve my refuge in stormy seas. The looming mountain would add an extra layer of meaning to the picture a week later when for the first time I took him up its flank to the overlook, watching him enraptured as it slowly dawned on me he had never been up that high before.
It’s now far too hot for any evening hikes and we haven’t been into the desert for weeks since I haven’t been able to get up early enough to beat the heat. Long swims will have to do until I can manage an early rise, but even then I’ll avoid trails with elevation gain until cooler weather arrives in the fall.
One of the things I love about our house is the view of the mountains in the distance when you walk in. For months now though this is the view I often first see when I come home from work. Sometimes Bear greets me at the door and runs off to find a toy for us to play with, but if he’s sleepy he rolls over and asks for a belly rub. There may be wiggling involved lest such a subtle gesture go unnoticed.
Another picture of Bear and The Elephant, taken towards the end of an afternoon hike a few months ago. It’s hot enough now that such walks are verboten, it’s early morning or nothing. Evening swims are now on the table though! I have switched back to this leash, which we bought on the day we adopted Ellie in 2009. We have fancier leashes but I’ve always come back to this one.
Boolie 