My Rancher Parents Hate Wolves. I Took Them on a Wolf-Watching Tour in Yellowstone to Change Their Minds.
Plus, the ongoing dilemma of the Colorado River
It’s officially spring (verging on summer!) in New Mexico, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been spending evenings with my baby boy, Beckett: bouncing on the trampoline, hanging out in the courtyard, gardening, and walking the dogs. I took a little time off between ending my last job and beginning my new one, during which I watched my son full-time while my husband worked on some home renovations. I quickly learned that if Beckett was cranky, it usually meant we’d spent too much time in the house that day. His mood totally 180-ed every time we went for a walk or even just crawled around our farm.
So we’ve been getting out there more. My adventures might look smaller with a kiddo in tow these days, but they don’t feel small. Last night, he helped me garden for an hour, which is a shocking length for his short attention span. I couldn’t believe I’d found something that held his interest for more than a few minutes. I’ll take that as a win.
What I’m reading
I still have a couple of lingering stories coming out at Outside that I’m especially excited about. This week, one by Katie Jackson went live. She wrote about the contentious issue of wolves in the West through a unique lens: Wolves are her favorite animal, but her rancher parents see them as a threat to their livestock. In an effort to change their minds, she takes them on a wolf-watching tour in Yellowstone. (Yes, wolf tourism is very much A Thing.)
“Looks like there are 22 wolves,” my dad says, as if it’s a race to see who can count them. It’s a significant sighting. Most people are lucky to see one or two. I’ve been to Yellowstone half a dozen times, and I’ve never seen more than five or six at once.
As I watch my parents, I can’t tell who is more excited: my diabetic dad, who is so fixated on the wolves he forgets to check his blood sugar, or my mom, who is monopolizing the best scope. Both are animated as they rapid-fire questions at Varley. “What are they doing? Can you tell how old they are? Why are there so many?” None of their queries have to do with hunting. Here in the Lamar Valley, 200 miles away from their ranch, wolves aren’t a nuisance, they’re a novelty.
Bonus: The lead art, by Eren Wilson, is one of my faves of all time!
Speaking of controversial issues in the West, as the Colorado River is drying up it has less and less water for the many states it supplies. This week, the Biden administration proposed states evenly divide what’s left of the water. But for states like California, Arizona, and Nevada, that actually would mean far less water than they’ve become accustomed to.
Overuse and a 23-year-long drought made worse by climate change have threatened to provoke a water and power catastrophe across the West. The Colorado River supplies drinking water to 40 million Americans as well as two states in Mexico, and irrigates 5.5 million agricultural acres. The electricity generated by dams on the river’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, powers millions of homes and businesses.
But the river’s flows have recently fallen by one-third compared with historical averages. Levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell are so low that water may soon fail to turn the turbines that generate electricity — and could even fall to the point that water is unable to reach the intake valves that control its flow out of the reservoirs. If that happened, the river would essentially stop moving.
Read “Biden Administration Proposes Evenly Cutting Water Allotments From Colorado River” here.
The Colorado River isn’t the only thing running out of oomph. There’s a growing movement of influencers who are burning out and exiting the influencing space. For some, this means deleting their accounts altogether, but for others, it means freeing themselves from the binds of sponsors and developing a healthier relationship with their chosen social platforms. For The New York Times, Mattie Kahn wrote a profile on Lee Tilghman, aka Instagram star Lee from America, and her post-influencer life.
Ms. Tilghman retreated from Instagram for five months — the equivalent of eons, according to social media’s stopwatch. When she returned that summer, gone were the well-lit food photos and adaptogenic lattes. She announced that she had spent part of her hiatus in treatment for an eating disorder. Her hair was in a bowl cut. (She told The Cut she’d given her hairdresser Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber” as a reference.)
She posted less, testing out new identities that she hoped wouldn’t touch off the same spiral that wellness had. There were dancing videos, dog photos, interior design. None of it stuck. (“You can change the niche, but you’re still going to be performing your life for content,” she explained over lunch.)
Read “Is There Life After Influencing?” here.
The good stuff
Momoya Chili Oil with Fried Garlic ($9): We eat a lot of Asian food in our house—my husband is Chinese, spent his 20s traveling through Southeast Asia, and loves Japanese cuisine. Plus, he loves to cook. We can’t get enough garlic chili oil. I’m now adding this Japanese condiment to basically every meal. Even though it’s chili-based, it’s not spicy, more like a rich umami flavor with a satisfying crunch of garlic flavor. I’m so obsessed with it that I’ve started adding it to everything from rice bowls to soup to pizza.
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Last but not least
