We venture onto trails, into forests and anywhere we can experience nature first-hand for a variety of reasons.
I think one motivation is the opportunity it gives us to view our world as something that outlasts our brief human lifespan, and consider the sweep of life both before and after us.
There’s a place you can visit where the environment has persisted unchanged for an unimaginably long time. Not only that, the living things that inhabit it right now were, themselves, already alive when the pyramids and Stonehenge were built.
To show you the place, I’m pleased to bring you the first-ever Under Western Skies video program.
Click on the arrow in the center to watch. It’s three minutes, forty seconds long. Remember to turn on your audio. The first nine seconds of title are silent.
For details on traveling to see the Bristlecones, information about hiking there, accommodations, etc. see the next post in this series at this link.
Thank you for watching. It was a pleasure to show you the Bristlecones.
All content © Brad Nixon 2018
Under Western Skies 
A well produced video Brad which worked on my iPad without problems. I enjoyed both seeing and learning about the bristle cones. Marion
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Little Miss Traveller on October 4, 2018
at 1:08 am
Thank you for the reaction. I’m happy you found it worthwhile.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Brad Nixon on October 4, 2018
at 1:17 am
Informative and well produced. Worked fine on my “vintage” Macbook Pro.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Karen on October 4, 2018
at 5:26 am
Thank you, Karen. Produced on a Macbook. I’m more concerned about server firewalls than hardware, but good to know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Brad Nixon on October 4, 2018
at 5:31 am
Very nicely done! I log on through wordpress and I didn’t have any trouble with the video. It was very professionally done. It’s also good to have a voice to match to the text! The Bristlecones are amazing! That is very different landscape than in Indiana!
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: feistyfroggy on October 4, 2018
at 9:48 am
Thank you for the feedback.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Brad Nixon on October 4, 2018
at 10:52 am
I meant to go on. The are beautiful forests in Indiana. I spent very little time in Brown Co. and other areas I wish I’d explored more of. Different, radically.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Brad Nixon on October 4, 2018
at 10:54 am
No problems on my iPod. Very clear pix. Thanks!
LikeLike
By: LaBoheme on October 4, 2018
at 12:20 pm
Thank you. Good to know. Thanks for watching.
LikeLike
By: Brad Nixon on October 4, 2018
at 12:52 pm
The video looks great on my 24″ desktop monitor. I’m running Win7 Pro w/Firefox and it loaded in a flash — likewise on the iPad w/Safari. The audio’s a little hollow sounding, like a speaker phone or being down in the proverbial well, but it’s certainly clear and understandable.
Not only that, the content was enjoyable. I’ve heard about the bristlecones, but know almost nothing about them. The woman who did the animation of the hawk-moth on my current post also did one on fire-dependent plants in California. Even though the bristlecone wasn’t a subject, I’m sure you know some of these .
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: shoreacres on October 5, 2018
at 3:50 pm
Thanks for all the detail. Happy to have a Firefox confirmation. I have to address the microphone situation. That’ll clear out the ambient room reverb. More later.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Brad Nixon on October 5, 2018
at 4:08 pm
Most of the species are familiar friends or at least acquaintances. I’ll read it all, because I’m no botanist, and much will be new.
According to a ranger we spent time talking with, the Bristlecones are actually relatively immune to wildfire. They do burn from lightning strikes, but their wood is so dense and resinous that there’s low risk of wide spreading. There is virtually no understory whatsoever — almost nothing but bare rock, and that strictly limits fire. A large advantage of their colonization of such an extremely hostile environment.
You’d have identified with the young man who’s the ranger. Graduate of a wild lands management program in Kansas, he’s DELIGHTED to have his first gig on some 10- and 11,000-foot mountains, away from all that grass prairie!
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Brad Nixon on October 5, 2018
at 6:59 pm
That was a lot of fun and entertaining as well. Came in fine in my iPhone. Please blog more video whenever you can.
As mentioned, a little audio echo reduction will be a nice improvement but otherwise all was great.
In the interest of those of us who always scan the background, how about revealing more books in that bookshelf. People are wondering, “What is Brad reading?” I mean, in addition to the many books blogged in UWS.
LikeLiked by 1 person
By: Mark Nixon on October 6, 2018
at 7:28 am
I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Yep, I’ll address the ambient sound issue asap.
As for seeing the book titles, it would help if you’d watch the program on something larger than a 3-inch screen. That’s high definition video. If you’d shown me a picture of that brilliance, clarity and size when I started producing 35 years ago, I’d assume it must have come from some advanced alien civilization … or heaven. On a real screen, you can read some of the titles, though not all. The books on the desk are English, French, Italian, German and Latin dictionaries. I staged those for the shot. The shelves are just what they are, although I considered packing them with impressive titles. It’s a mix. On most screens, just by my head you can probably make out a biography of Proust. The three volumes of his novel are behind me, out of sight. Farther to left is my groovy pop-up book of DINOSAURS. Left of that is some poetry, including Yeats, which you can make out. A hodge-podge, neither designed nor with any particular significance, except Proust, I suppose. Thanks for watching. There’ll be more. Just not every week. This stuff takes a long time to assemble.
LikeLike
By: Brad Nixon on October 6, 2018
at 9:39 am