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Hunting The Bowl

10/27/2011

3 Comments

 
Picture
Max, Penn,(holding Wulfgar's picture), Beau and Cord
Besides raising kids, elk hunting in the Sangre de Cristos via horseback and foot power is the hardest thing I do in my life.  Without a doubt and as with kids,  it is also highly rewarding.  I go places I shouldn't be able to go - I can operate at 10,000 ft. and above.  I somehow keep up with the MOUNTAIN GOATS pictured above.  They can climb like nothing.  I have to push myself to follow and always say thanks for my glorious ass - it truly pushes me up the hill.  Where we hunt elk, 14,000 footers are in our face.  We are often down in the deep canyon and the sidehills are straight up and down.  You can touch the hillside with your arm stretched out to the side it is so steep.  
In the picture above we are at the mouth of a giant bowl - "where God makes the elk" - it is a place unlike any I've ever seen.   I've tried to tell my friends about it but words cannot express what it is like to be somewhere so remote, so high and where no picture can do it justice.  For me - it is a privilege just to be there.  We have watched it, stalked it, hunted it, squeaked it and loved it.  
Once I squeaked the cow call for almost an hour - from 11am - until noon - way too late to be calling out bulls.  Cord was over the squeaker by then and was laying on his back in the grass - waiting for me to give up.  But as an actress, I had to give it my all.  I squeaked and begged and pleaded and squeaked until at last, a mighty 6X6 bull stuck his neck out from behind a pine tree to see what all the ruckus was about.  Cord dispatched him at almost 300 yards.  A spectacular hunt, with husband and wife working together.   That bull left the cow he was bedded down with to check me out. Of course it is no easy feat to hit that small target at 300 yards offhand either.  Yeah Cord - we call him the elk slayer - with all due respect for the Mighty Wapiti of course.   It was a clean kill and it was awesome.  
Another time we were sitting on either side of a rock outcropping watching the surrounding sidehills when a beautiful mama bighorn and her fuzzy baby came right in between us and scaled the rock outcropping - as if we weren't there and as if it wasn't straight up and down.  We just held our breaths and we will never forget it. That same evening we saw Golden Eagle, Coyote and Bighorn - but no elk - an outstanding hunt.
Obviously the bowl offers much more than great hunting, it is full tilt boogy - in your face.  You need to be strong and brave and embrace the wilderness around you.  It is big, the stars are close, the dark is deep.  The path back to base camp is dark and steep as we often leave the bowl just at dark.  The horses just put their butts down and glide us over the roughest stuff you've ever seen - as if it isn't there.  They are eager to get home to eat their grain and hay and to drink in the stream along the way.  Then we set them out to graze all night under the stars.
"The Bowl" is a special place and I wish for everyone to have a chance to be on top of the world too - at least once in their lifetime.  
This is where the angels sing.  
Picture
A piece of the bowl - can you see the tiny hunters in orange?
3 Comments

Raining Pine Nuts

10/9/2011

1 Comment

 
Picture
Piñon Nuts ready to soar, bypassing the sticky mess of the sap.
We have giant Piñon Trees - the most glorious I've ever seen.  Many are 20' - 30' and a few reach around 35'!  The front half of our property is Piñon/Juniper with a few Ponderosa's, the back ridge is covered in more Ponderosa with a meadow in between.  We have a "Grandfather Tree" so old two people cannot get their arms around it's trunk right behind our house.  One of the boys' Godfathers is an art director in Hollywood and he wanted to build the boys a treehouse in the Grandfarther Tree.  We agreed with these conditions; No nails in the tree and the materials were a pile of scrap lumber - so no money either.  He agreed and he and Max, our oldest boy, worked on it for 9 days - the length of his visit.  Kevin P's fingers wiggle when he thinks so they were a flyin' during that time.  I would send peanut butter sandwiches up there in a bucket with the pulley. 
 
It remains to this day and our 3rd son Wulfgar enjoys it now.  He is not alone, I love it up there too.  It is two teared and very stout and safe.  The bulk of it is cleverly set in the branches but a few anchor places are bolted to dead limbs. The first level is very small but the second level is amazing - right in the middle of the mighty branches with places to sit and look.  
The best thing about it and the part I never even considered, was what it would be like to sit there in dappled September sun on a nut year and have a cool mountain breeze shake loose Pine Nuts all around me and on my head.  Food raining down from above - it's unbelievable!!!  I sit there and crack nuts with my teeth - I love them raw - fresh off the ancient tree, and delivered by our waiter the wind.  
Cord is convinced they fling their nuts with all their might as they are often heard zinging and cracking their way down the tree to the ground.  We have a picnic table under a fat and juicy tree and it certainly flings them at us as we sit there.  Those nuts are particularly big too.  
Picture
The Grandfather Tree.
For many years the trees in this region were on a 7 year cycle but they recently broke and started bearing nuts every 3 years.  Happy days - 7 years was a long time to wait.  Wulfgar told me the upper platform was covered in Pine Nuts, I need to get up there and fill my pockets.  What a luxury it is to harvest these beauties, with some trees giving superior nuts than their neighbors.  
Okay -  tomorrow morning, I shall climb up with my coffee cup to see if the squirrels got there first.  Mmmm, Piñon Nuts with coffee sounds great!
1 Comment

    Author

    Penn Parmenter is a high altitude gardener, seedswoman and student of the earth.  She is married to Cord Parmenter - an awesome gardener, gorgeous man and a master blacksmith. Together they own and run a sustainable greenhouse design company, Smart Greenhouses LLC and Penn grows seed for her seed business, Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds.  She is a mother of three sons and an outdoorswoman.  Penn forages wild food, hunts big game, fishes, preserves, maintains a huge organic forest garden and occasionally makes dinner.  At home you can find her in her greenhouses as well as in the wilderness - nose to the ground, butt in the air, trying to identify Colorado natives.    

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