Hiking, cougars & guns

One lady voiced a concern about a cougar where she hikes and thought that she ought to carry a gun but then thought that if she did she might shoot her foot.  If I had to shoot a Cougar I would wish I had my 357, however the chance of that need ever occurring is pretty remote.  Also, I don’t really carry a 22 in order to shoot a coyote.  If Ben got in trouble I would shoot into the ground hoping the noise would discourage whatever it was, and in the meantime I would run toward whatever the trouble was.  The only time something like that actually happened was shortly after we moved to San Jacinto.  Trooper may have been nine or ten and there were feral dogs at the river back then.  I didn’t know what to expect and so carried a S&W Model 19 357.  I had just finished getting my knapsack on when I noticed that Trooper had run into the midst of a feral-dog pack.  There were quite a lot of them, perhaps 20 or so.  Some of the larger ones were trying to get behind him, and he was whirling to face each one as it did.  I hurried toward them.  My other dog was a German Shorthaired Pointer who was perhaps 12 at the time and nearly deaf and blind.  When she got a whiff of the dogs she got behind me.  As I got closer to Trooper the dogs began veering away until only one dog remained, a dog that looked like a cross between a malamute and an Akita.  Finally when I was a few feet from Trooper the last dog ran off after his pack.   Trooper apparently thought that was great fun and wanted to chase them.  I told him we were going hiking in a different direction and he reluctantly followed me. 

From what I’ve read the dogs that are most at risk from coyotes are back-yard dogs, dogs that don’t get walked much and so aren’t in very good shape, and dogs that can’t get into the house to escape a predator.  I worried a bit about Duffy when he was growing up – not because of coyotes but because of owls and hawks.  I’ve seen evidence in my back yard of birds, usually pigeons, killed by something.  And also down at the river when Duffy was younger I’ve seen hawks flying above him checking him out – whether as prey or not I don’t know. 

As to guns, yeah, if you get one you should spend enough time with it so that you are comfortable and know how to use it.  I was a rifle instructor in the Marine Corps years ago and then later in Engineering at McDonnell Douglas used to go out once a week to a police pistol range for target practice with a couple of other engineers.  I don’t really practice any longer since I’d rather hike or take photos, but I’ve practiced so much in the past that hopefully I won’t be totally inept if I ever have to use one.  On the other hand even if one is extremely well-practiced things can go wrong.   People very experienced with guns sometimes make mistakes.

We are perhaps entering more the realm of psychology than the true danger of guns, coyotes, and cougars.  People have relatively different views of risk, danger and prudence.  I used to ride a motorcycle back and forth to work when I worked at McDonnell Douglas and later Boeing.  I would ride on the San Diego Freeway down between the lanes day after day rain or shine.  I had countless people warn me of the risk I was taking.  Some assured me that I would definitely die on the freeway.  I gave my last motorcycle to my son when I retired.  He road for a few years but lost his after a divorce.  Now he drives an SUV and I drive a Jeep.  But if I collected all the articles about motorcycle deaths people put on my desk while I was riding I could have filled a very large scrapbook.  Does this have more to say about me, or the people who clipped out the articles for me. 

To avoid shooting your foot, just remember not to pull the trigger until you get it out of the holster and are aiming at something you really want to hit. 

Might coyotes lure Ben into trouble?

Several people voiced a concern about the possibility of coyotes luring Ben into the midst of a pack.  I’ve heard about coyotes luring dogs into ambush all my life but never seen it.  My son had an Airedale that used to chase after packs out in the desert and the coyotes ran from it.  Here where I hike the coyotes don’t run in packs.  That doesn’t seem to be the best way for them to hunt.  Also, they seem to hunt at night.  We are most likely to see them (and never more than three at a time) if we get there before the sun comes up.

At present we don’t have cougars where I hike.  Their primary food is deer and I’ve never seen a deer down where we most often hike; so this wouldn’t be good hunting territory for them.  Also, my experience with Ridgebacks while hiking is if they are in doubt about the smell of something, they like to be right next to me.  I suspect I’d be stumbling over Ben if he smelled a Cougar.  

I’ve hiked since the early 80s with Ridgebacks.  I like to expose them to a lot of different things and situations and allow them to figure things out for themselves.  Here where we’ve hiked since 1999, I only worry about Ridgebacks when they are too young (and then I have them on leash) or are too old (and then they no longer chase things).   Whether I carry a gun or a hiking stick is more a function of whether I need both hands free to take photos than of anything else.

Ben, Coyotes and a Cougar

How was Ben going to deal with the coyotes?  I wasn’t really worried.  He is an extremely competent dog, but his relationship with them seems to be developing differently than expected.  Two coyotes have shown a lot of interest in him and he in them.  When he sees them he chases after them, but I’m not sure what he is thinking when he does that.  His hackles never go up and he seems more curious than predatory.  I don’t think these coyotes are very predatory either.   I finally managed to catch a photo of one of them on the hike yesterday – not a very good one but you can see it at www.lawrencehelm.smugmug.com in the “March 2014” gallery in the “River Photography” folder.  I’ve noted the beginning of each hike.  The 3-9-14 hike begins with a lot of photos of the morning sky.  We got there before the sun was up over the mountain; so it was still pretty dark, even in the sky; so the photo of the coyote is fairly dark also.

Is Ben trying to make friends with these coyotes?  Unlikely but I can’t rule that out because Ginger tried it a few years ago and got bitten on the rump instead, but that was by a female that had pups on the ground.  The two coyotes Ben is messing around with may be young males. 

When Ben chases after the coyotes, Duffy chases after him, but I call him back.  I’m carrying a Walther 22 nowadays, just in case things turn ugly, but I’m not expecting them to.  My local coyotes have seen me and my dogs all their lives.  When the coyotes were young, they showed a bit of interest in us.  That was true of my Ridgebacks also, when they were young.  If a female has pups on the ground, she will howl when we are near and sometimes follow us to make sure we keep on going, but perhaps it’s her mate that is doing that.  I don’t know for sure. 

The local coyotes have never concerned me very much.  I take precautions and when my opinion is invited (as Sage and Duffy invited it) I tell them “leave them alone.”  Ben though hasn’t invited my opinion much so far.  He runs into the brush and is gone for a three or four minutes.  When I knew he was going in there after coyotes I expected to hear some snarling and barking, but I heard nothing; which is fine, but then he returned without his hackles up. 

I became a little more concerned about his safety when I read about a Cougar that killed a 100-pound German Shepherd a few towns east of me.  Apparently some policemen fired some guns in order to scare it off and it didn’t scare worth a darn.  When the animal control people decided to go after it, they couldn’t find it.  http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/03/05/mountain-lion-kills-large-family-dog-in-fontana/   There are continuous mountains from Fontana to the area where we hike so a Cougar could travel the 42 mile distance if he had a mind to.  That is beyond the typical range of a Cougar, but if he were fairly young without an established territory perhaps he might decide it prudent to move out of Fontana.  I think we’re okay but I am considering taking a heavier gun than my Walther 22 on our hikes – just thinking about it at this point.  Since I’m leaning toward lighter-weight cameras nowadays, a heavier gun seems counter-productive.  I wonder what my coyotes would think about a Cougar moving into their territory.

Contention at Oxford in 1925

My otherwise gentle Ridgeback enjoys “fence-fighting with dogs in my neighbors’ yards, and the gentle people of Lit-Ideas, so it has been averred recently, enjoy (presumably) a fight from time to time.  It was not so very different in Oxford in 1925 (quotes are from Carpenter’s biography of Tolkien):

“. . . It should be understood that an Oxford Professor, unlike those in many other universities, is not by virtue of his office necessarily in a position of power in his faculty.  He has no authority over the college tutors who in all probability make up the majority of the faculty staff, for they are appointed by their colleges and are not answerable to him.  So if he wishes to initiate some major change of policy he must adopt persuasive rather than authoritarian tactics.  And, on his return to Oxford in 1925, Tolkien did wish to make a major change: he wanted to reform certain aspects of the Final Honour School of English Language and Literature. 

“The years since the First World War had widened the old rift between Language and Literature, and each faction in the English School – and they really were factions, with personal as well as academic animosities – delighted to interfere with the syllabus of the other.  The ‘Lang.’ side made sure that the ‘Lit.’ students had to spend a good deal of their time studying the obscurer braches of English philology, while the ‘Lit.’ camp insisted that the ‘Lang.’ undergraduates must set aside many hours from their specialization (Anglo-Saxon and Middle English) to study the works of Milton and Shakespeare.  Tolkien believed that this could be remedied.  What was even more regrettable to him was that the linguistic courses laid considerable emphasis on the study of theoretical philology without suggesting that undergraduates should read widely in early and medieval literature.  His own love of philology had always been based on a knowledge of literature, and he determined that this state of affairs should be changed.  He also proposed that Icelandic should be given more prominence in the syllabus; this latter hope was one reason for the formation of the Coalbiters. 

“His proposals required the consent of the whole faculty, and at first he met with a good deal of opposition.  Even C. S. Lewis, not yet a personal friend, was among those who originally voted against him.  But as the terms passed, Lewis and many others came over to Tolkien’s side and gave him their active support.  By 1931 he had managed (‘beyond my wildest hopes’, he wrote in his diary) to obtain general approval for the majority of his proposals.  The revised syllabus was put into operation, and for the first time in the history of the Oxford English School something like real rapprochement was achieved between ‘Lang.’ and ‘Lit.’.

On mellowness in old age

On page 105 of his biography of Tolkien, Carpenter refers to a time after Tolkien’s wife had died.  Tolkien was by that time famous and realized someone would write his biography.  He wrote to his son Christopher about Edith:  “She was (and knew she was) my Luthien.  I will say no more now.  But I should like ere long to have a long talk with you.  For if as seems probable I shall never write any ordered biography – it is against my nature, which expresses itself about things deepest felt in tales and myths – someone close in heart to me should know something about things that records do not record: the dreadful sufferings of our childhoods, from which we rescued one another, but could not wholly heal wounds that later often proved disabling; the sufferings that we endured after our love began – all of which (over and above personal weaknesses) might help to make pardonable, or understandable, the lapses and darknesses which at times marred our lives – and to explain how these never touched our depths nor dimmed the memories of our youthful love.  For ever (especially when alone) we still met in the woodland glade and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before our last parting.”

Carpenter discusses Tolkien’s eventful life up until 1925 when he became a professor at Oxford.  He is only on page 118 by that time and has to get to page 260 before he is done, and he seems to find the prospect daunting.  He writes, “And after this, you might say, nothing else really happened.  Tolkien came back to Oxford, was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon for twenty years, was then elected Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, went to live in a conventional Oxford suburb where he spent the first part of his retirement, moved to a nondescript seaside resort, came back to Oxford after his wife died, and himself died a peaceful death at age eighty-one.  It was the ordinary unremarkable life led by countless other scholars; a life of academic brilliance, certainly, but only in a very narrow professional field that is really of little interest to laymen.  And that would be that – apart from the strange fact that during these years when ‘nothing happened’ he wrote two books which have become world best-sellers, books that have captured the imagination and influenced the thinking of several million readers.  It is a strange paradox, the fact that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are the work of an obscure Oxford professor whose specialisation was the West Midland dialect of Middle English, and who lived an ordinary suburban life bringing up his children and tending his garden.”

A week ago I hired a new house-keeper.  She said she preferred working for old people because they are mellower.  I will be 80 this coming October and qualify as “old,” but mellow?  I later asked Susan (who will be 70 this coming December) if I had become mellower, and she scoffed at the idea.  The house-keeper must have come to a similar conclusion, for she never arrived.  But what of Tolkien immersed as he was in Anglo Saxon literature and Hobbits?  Did he become mellow in his old age?  Carpenter visited Tolkien in 1967 just four years before Edith Tolkien’s death in 1971 (at 81) and Tolkien’s own death in 1973 at the same age.  Here are a few words describing how the not-at-all mellow Tolkien appeared to Carpenter:

“I am still nervous that there will be other and harder questions, doubly nervous because I cannot hear everything that he is saying.  He has a strange voice, deep but without resonance, entirely English but with some quality in it that I cannot define, as if he had come from another age or civilization.  Yet for much of the time he does speak clearly.  Words come out in eager rushes.  Whole phrases are elided or compressed in the haste of emphasis.  Often his hand comes up and grasps his mouth, which makes it even harder to hear him.  He speaks in complex sentences, scarcely hesitating – but then there comes a long pause in which I am surely expect to reply.  Reply to what?  If there was a question, I did not understand it.  Suddenly he resumes (never having finished his sentence) and now he reaches an emphatic conclusion.  As he does so, he jams his pipe between his teeth, speaks on through clenched jaws, and strikes a match just as the full stop is reached.”

Tolkien was mellower in his letter to his son, but when Carpenter questioned him about his writings, he became very intense.  And while none of us can be intense all the time surely we need to be intense in our thinking and talking (or writing) about subjects important to us.  And if we have come to conclusions about our subjects we are probably going to discuss or defend them with a good deal of intensity.  We aren’t mellow in the sense of being neutral.  We worked hard to arrive at them.  There is no unsubscribing from this “Hotel California” for some of us who remain intense, even as old fellows, even unto the end.

Marine Corps training and photography

I was only in the Marine Corps for three years, but they were from the age of 17 to 20, and many of the things I was taught back then I still consider useful and important.  Perhaps I’ve mentioned some place that my experience as a rifle instructor applies to photography.  "Hold them and squeeze them" applies to snapping a shutter as well as pulling a trigger.  Also, I am accumulating cameras and lenses in the same way I used to accumulate guns:  A battery comprises a gun for every purpose one can reasonably imagine.  I don’t accumulate guns any longer, but I am building something like a battery with cameras and lenses.  Guns, will never wear out if they are properly cared for, but that isn’t necessarily true of DSLR cameras. They have only been around for a little more than a decade; so it is too soon to tell; so to be on the safe side, and if the price is right, it is prudent to back up the cameras one is especially fond of. 

Also, I am constantly reminded that I never felt especially comfortable with a new handgun unless I had fired perhaps a thousand rounds through it, over a period of time, of course.  I feel the same sort of thing in regard to cameras.  I need to spend a lot of time with each camera before I feel adept with it.  I was perhaps up around 10,000 shots each with the E-1 and E-520 before I decided the Olympus DSLR cameras were pretty good.  And thanks to the influence of marketing, plenty of camera users were willing to unload their "obsolete" Olympus cameras with 100 to 500 shutter actuations in order to "upgrade".  Why should I buy a new camera, whether an EM-1 or any other new camera when there is a thoroughly tried and proven camera available with just about everything the new camera has minus the bugs and in near new condition?

My “battery” rationale may be fairly weak.  I do like to try new systems, but have no wish to try the latest and greatest according to marketeers and their reviews.  I'm a hiker and when Olympus quit making DSLRs I found the Pentax K-20D, K-7 and K-5 to my liking.

As to the Micro 4/3, for the most part that is too new a system form me to switch to or try in any big way.  I did however find an EPL3 on sale with the 14-42 kit lens for $199 and couldn't resist that.  I've probably put about 500 shutter actuations on it and can think of niche situations where I'll be happy with this light-weight little thing.  Choosing an EM-1 over a K-5 is another matter.  I already have the K-5 and don't find the EM-1 at all tempting, even if the price were comparable to a K-5, which it isn't.  I was acquiring only Olympus DSLRs, but when Olympus quit making them I began adding Pentax DSLRs, and the camera I'm most likely to buy next isn't the K-3 but the K-5ii or K-5iis.

I have added a third system when I acquired the EPL3.  I like the idea of being able to look down into the articulated LCD screen in the manner of the old Kodak Duaflex camera.  I don't have any "gritty streets" to walk in order to photograph "gritty street people," but I do find some interesting scenes when I'm not on a hike; so I fancy the EPL3 will come in handy.  Maybe one day if the price drops low enough I'll acquire the EPL5.  Will Olympus make an EPL7???

On Olympus Cameras and Philosophy

I have over a few years gotten immersed in the goings on of an Olympus DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) forum.  I have a number of these Olympus DSLRs (which are in the 4/3 format) and all the lenses I need.  No doubt I could have become equally attached to any of the brands.  They are all good, but I chose Olympus.  And then Olympus decided to quit making DSLRs. 

Olympus-forum angst hit almost everyone.  I argued for a while that the existing cameras weren’t going to wear out anytime soon, but one could prudently ward off running out by buying backups at low prices from eBay, KEH, and elsewhere.  One need never run out of them even if one lived another 100 years.  But I discovered that there was an emotional price to pay for hunkering down with the old stuff.  It was akin to hiding out some place and waiting to die.  One needed a future.

Olympus came out with mirrorless cameras in the Micro-4/3 format and these cameras got better and better.  They were a small step up from Point and Shoot cameras in size but they had interchangeable lenses.  The lenses weren’t quite as good as the old 4/3 format lenses but Olympus compensated for their flaws with software.  Many refused to buy the early Micro-4/3 cameras because they didn’t have OVFs (Optical Viewfinders); so Olympus created an EVF (Electronic Viewfinder) that simulated the OVF.  Many Olympus users made the transition to the micro cameras, but not all.  I was one who didn’t.

Why didn’t I make the transition?  Since the early micro cameras didn’t have viewfinders, one needed to focus a camera by looking at the LCD screen in “Live View.”  I never liked the Live View approach.   I prefer the Optical Viewfinder.  So I chose Pentax to obtain my “future.”  Beginning with their K-20D camera they made relatively light weight (compared to the Olympus E-3) rugged, good performing DSLRs, and the announced intention was that they would continue to do so.  I didn’t get rid of my old Olympus cameras and lenses.  They are still functional and I still like them, but I acquired Pentax K-20D, K-7 and K-5 cameras and a selection of lenses suitable for hiking.  I had become a “two-system” user, Olympus 4/3 and Pentax DSLRs.

It is difficult to avoid “brand loyalty.”  There are Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax loyalists as well as others.  One tends to “ride for the brand.”  Loyalty is not usually as extreme as that found in response to British Soccer teams, but some of the Micro-4/3 people are approaching that level.  Micro evangelists came after many of us on the Olympus 4/3 forum urging us to get with it, buy the Olympus micro cameras and support the brand (Olympus).  One doesn’t become a “traitor” if one adds a second brand.  Many 4/3 users have done that. They refer to their Canon or Sony cameras and I have met several Olympus users on the Pentax forum.  But in the view of the Micro evangelists one needs to support the Olympus brand as well.

Years ago I started work at Douglas Aircraft Company and we competed against McDonnell Aircraft company.  I remember riding for the Douglas brand back then; but then Douglas merged with McDonnell and I was subsequently working for McDonnell Douglas.  After that we competed against Boeing.  I was riding for the McDonnell Douglas brand although I never shook off the irony of it.  And then Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas and I seamlessly began working for Boeing.   I can’t say I ever (mentally) rode for the Boeing brand because the real Boeing was in Seattle whereas I worked on the C-17 program (which was begun by McDonnell Douglas) in Long Beach. 

Companies, whether Boeing or Olympus strive to develop a loyal base, but the people who run the companies are more cynical about loyalty.  They are willing to merge or sell a company if those acts will enhance their individual portfolios.  A tried and true method of enhancing a company’s stock price is to lay off as many employees as possible.   The loyalty of the laid off employees doesn’t influence that decision.

I am not cynical about owning Olympus 4/3 and Pentax cameras and lenses.  I enjoy taking them on hikes.  I make a selection depending upon the weather and whim and head out on a hike with the dogs.  But I am cynical about the baying of the micro evangelists who (to continue the metaphor) snap and snarl at anyone not furthering the Olympus bottom line.  They perhaps fear that not enough people will buy the micro 4/3 cameras and Olympus will discontinue those as well; so they treat the Old Timers as semi-retarded and in the need of direction which they feel eminently qualified to provide. 

I was offended by these micro-hounds; so I probed about the forum to take the emotional temperature of the other Old Timers.  I discovered that they didn’t care.  Yeah, they are bothered a bit, but they just hit their delete buttons and move on.  They urge me to do the same. 

Years ago I was influenced by Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.  They strove not to be affected by matters they could do nothing about.           They purportedly were quite successful.  I agree with the Stoics and do indeed strive not to be affected by matters I can do nothing about, but unlike Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus I have not been very successful.