Catching up. . .

Hey All,

Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have been out of town and then playing catch up at work when I got back. This will be the Friday with Frost for June 20, 2008.

A Prayer In Spring
by Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

Nate Notes

I love this poem primarily for the last stanza. God's greatest manifestation of love is that He created us, to sanctify His bountious creations, by us having joy therein.

To Robert Frost's A Prayer in Spring I say, Amen.

... a fitting selection

Here is my Friday with Frost for June 27th.


The Bear
by Robert Frost


The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its chokecherries lips to kiss good-by,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire tooth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage,
That all day fights a nervous inward rage,
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests

The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat,
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
'Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety-odd degrees of arc,
it seems,Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental butt
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut
(He almost looks religious but he's not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.


Nate Note

A fitting poem after some recent posts.

The wild life in Yellowstone

Here are some great wildlife pictures that could only be had in Yellowstone...

The great American Bison and their babies...

Elk...


And to bid us farewell. . . our friend from Narnia

Some slammin' scenes from ol' Yellowstone

Here are some cool geological sights in Nature's wonderland...




Look at the amazing colors around this thermal hot spring and the clarity of the water.



This geyser errupts only once every 5 to 15 years...

A cool view of a thermal basin.

A giant ant hill... ok it is a gnarly geoid,

And what would a visit to Yellowstone be without a postcard worthy shot of Ol' Faithful...

And to finish off. . . some cool vids of Yellowstone.

Summer of the Seven Bears

I have been blessed to have the opportunity to visit Yellowstone National Park on five or six occasions in my lifetime. As anyone who has been there can attest, it is some of God's favorite country. The wild life that can be seen is one of the chief attractions of the park.

In past visits I have seen bison, elk, various squirrels and chipmunks, porcupine, and wolves. But I had never seen a bear. This time I saw SEVEN!!!

The first two were a Mother Grizzly and her cub. They were about a mile off, down in a meadow. They could only really be seen with binoculars. This photo was taken with the digital camera through the binoculars (Sharon is very resourceful).

The next one was a black bear that cross the road ten feet in front of us. Wow! Amazing!

Sharon had seen the bear off the road a bit and had me turn around. We searched but with no luck. We were starting on our way again when Sharon saw the bear again. I stopped the car and turned on my hazard lights when we realized the black bear was going to cross the road right in front of us! What was crazy is this mini-van comes up the lane opposite of us. I waive my hands wildly to have them stop, mostly to protect the bear in case it dashed, but also that the family could see this once in lifetime event. But noooo... this mini-van wasn't going to be detoured by the crazy guy in the blue Sable. So they blew by and missed an opportunity to be a few feet from a wild bear.

Further down the same road we saw another black bear some 50 feet off in the woods.

On our last day, driving through the park on our way home, we had our most spectacular bear sighting. About ten cars were pulled to the side of the road, so we play lemming and pull over too. We join the dozen or so visitors and lo, there was a Mother Grizzly and two cubs! They were about 50 feet off in a clearing. The Mom was mouzin' about while the two cubs were running and playing. Just amazing! We must have stood there watching for 15 minutes before the bears had moved on.

How amazing! How cool! How blessed!

It's a Bear World after all. . .

Sharon and I have been married for two years. Our anniversary was in May, however due to delays we were not able to do something until June.

Our first stop was Bear World, a very cool place. All credit for this goes to Sharon. She had heard about this place and wanted to take me. It is important to understand that bears are my favorite animals, I think they are amazing and interesting. In fact, I could probably do a whole post on why I think they are so co0l. . .Ode to Bears. So she wanted to be sure I got to see some.

Now I had imagined there would be three or four bears, pay your big bucks and have your peek. . . kinda like a carnival freak show. So my expectations were pretty low, but hey, bears are bears. It turned out I was wrong.

On the first part of the drive you pass by buffalo, elk, goats, and this very cool white elk.

There were at least twelve bears we could see driving through the park.

We got to see a black bear swim in a river...

At the end you can also see a moose and bear cubs.

There is neat petting farm and duck pond complete with eatery and gift shop.

At the end of this fun stop we felt a little tired like our unkosher friend here...

The early bird falls to the ground. . .asleep

With my new position I have moved to a sunrise shift. . . 6 am start. This means I start getting ready at 4:30 am. With this adjustment I have shift lag. . . in the business world this is the shift equivalent of jet lag. I have chemically augmented my mornings to keep drool from ruining my ergonomic keyboard.

This reminded me of the yeah so many years ago when I started attending Priesthood meetings at 7 am. I was accustomed to my church meetings on a three hour block schedule starting at 9 am or noon. Now I was experiencing church lag.

Sunday after Sunday and would sit next to my future father-in-law with intravenous caffeine, toothpicks, and electric shockers in an effort to osmotically absorb the lesson. All of this to no avail. It would start with eye popping starts, then the rubberneck head-bob, then the pontificating head lean. I could not stay awake!

One magic meeting I am progressing through my sleep deprivation regime when I woke up tumbled on the floor, looking up at Bill's belly bouncing in laughter at my spill. The whole Elder's quorum is looking at me and there was the twittering of snickers throughout the room. What can I say. . . The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.