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From: James Lofton <n5yyx_at_etsc.net> subject: [Paddlewise] the challange(thinking out loud) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 13:10:27 -0700 · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:03 PDT

A while back Dave Kruger wrote and mentioned an old photo, and with this 
thread on saturation getting the discussion that it has, got me to 
thinking.
Someone wrote once(on anouther list)that many of us have photograpic 
memories, but just run out of film at the wrong times. This really is 
true.

I'm in my mid 50's and I have spent my whole life in the outdoors. I grew 
up mostly alone, on a farm and ranch, miles from anyone my own age. I 
grew close to nature at a very early age. I have seen lots of changes, 
and I have lots of opions on them too, but that's not what this is about, 
as such.

It is about what each of you can do to document what is going on around 
each of you, and how the little pocket you paddle is changing.
Even short term memory is bad, and trying to REALLY remember exactlly 
what has changed over a long period can be confusing. With out notes, 
drawing, and pictures, it can be amazingly bad and wrong.
For instance:
My wife and I bought this little 25 acres of blown out grass land, about 
22 years ago. It had been broken out for farming and it had failed. It 
had blown down to the harder clay in places, and by the time we bought 
it, it had been fenced off and left to fend for itself(just what we 
wanted)for several years. Each year we have taken uncountable pictures of 
out here, and each year I take a series of pictures from the same 
location that shows the changes, as the years go by. If it wasn't for 
these series of pictures, I wouldn't believe what has changed over the 
years!! Two years ago, on the 1st day of aug. I took pictures of 47 
differant wild flower spieces, that were all in bloom(I didn't plant 
any). 22 years ago, in that same area, there was only scattered grass and 
drifting sand dunes.
Case two: Christmas day, 1986 found a friend and I way back up Ute creek, 
a creek that feeds Ute lake, NM. That winter the damn hadn't been raised 
and it was just a natural creek still. We camped in a bend of the creek, 
high up on a bluff, overlooking a big grove of anchant sp? cottonwood 
trees. Christmas morning we buried a turkey(and all the trimings)in a bed 
of coals, broke the ice around our kayaks, and paddled as far up stream 
as we could. That entire area is under many feet of water today, with 
only the very tops of the highest trees still showing their ghostly 
reminder that there was a "habitat" under there. I'm glad I was there 
back then, and I'm also glad I have lots of pictures.

What all this has been leading to: Everyone has been talking about the 
changes that are going on, but everyone seems to see it through differant 
eyes. Some say it's crowded and some say they need more kayakers. I say 
take pictures of what is now. Not just those pictures of "here is my 
kayak and the camp"(I take them too), but what the area looks like. What 
it really looks like. Show what makes it special. Show what makes you sad 
about the area, the traffic, the plants. Make notes or even sketches. The 
more you get into it the more you will get to know your area(s).., and I 
guarentee you that once you have gotten on your belly to take a close up 
of a tiny flower, sweat getting in your eye and a mosquito all the while 
trying to make you move, that you will never walk through the woods quite 
the same way.

Why all the trouble? If we are to save the wildness we need an army of 
people with facts about what is happening out there. A series of pictures 
taken from someone that is out there and watching the changes may just be 
make that differance that helps it take place. 
At the very least, you can show your grandchildren what it was like, back 
then, and you will grow closer to your surrondings in the process.

Sorry about the long winded, poor gramered, and misspelled jumble of 
words. I'll go back out and do what I do best..keep quit and watch.

James, why I take pictures(don't relate too good with words) :>)

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