Place and Home

"We experience slums, prairies, and wetlands all equally as places.

Like a mirror, a place can hold anything, on any scale." Gary Snyder - The Practice of the Wild

http://crappytaxidermy.com/

When I was in high-school I had a friend whose Dad was a taxidermist. He worked on polar bears, wolves, black bears, beavers, moose, deer and everything else that you could think of. Apparently, it's quite an art form. The taxidermist has to "pose" the animal and the animal's expression in a way that is believable and true to nature. Many taxidermists draw, paint, sculpt and photograph animals for practice. Do you think this is an art form? What makes the artfulness of this practice different from traditional or contemporary sculpture?

For The Children, by Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,

of statistics

lie before us.

the steep climb

of everything, going up,

up, as we all

go down.

In the next century

or the one beyond that,

they say,

are valleys, pastures,

we can meet in peace

if we make it.

To climb these coming crests

one word to you, to

you and your children:

stay together

learn the flowers

go light

From Look Out: A Selection of Writings by Gary Snyder 1957

Did you know: the 12 Mile Coulee road in NW Calgary and the coulee itself were "originally named because they were about 12 miles from the post office in Fort Calgary and served as a mail drop on the old stagecoach run to Cochrane.In this park you can visit a classic prairie coulee. A coulee is the regional term for a small valley or gully. The term originated with the Metis, who used the French verb "couler," meaning "to flow," to describe this land-form where seasonal water flows from snow-melt or heavy rains."

http://www.calgary.ca/

Cowboy Ethics, as discovered on Joe Connelly's website http://telljoe.ca/cowboy-ethics/

Live each day with courage
real courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.

Take pride in your work
cowboying doesn’t build character, it reveals it

Always finish what you start
when you’re riding through hell, keep riding

Do what has to be done
the true test of a man’s honour was how much he would risk to keep it intact

Be tough but fair
the golden rule was nothing less than the key to survival

When you make a promise, keep it
a man is only as good as his word

Ride for the brand
the cowboy’s greatest devotion was to his calling and his way of life

Talk less and say more
when there’s nothing more to say, don’t be saying it

Remember that some things aren’t for sale
to the cowboy, the best things in life aren’t “things”

Know where to draw the line
there’s right and there’s wrong, and there’s nothing in between

James Owen
Author of “Cowboy Ethics”

I tend to consider myself a "country girl", however when I came across this blackboard in Bottrel, I didn't know what E-Z Cube, 17% Frisky Foal, or Medi Boot black were. Having grown up with allergies and asthma, I happily escaped the responsibility of "outside" chores but missed out on the fun of hay-rides and trail-rides too.

"There is an implicit satisfaction in rural life, and in backcountry life- at least for some people. The pleasures are numerous and the work is hard, and one is literally less alienated from one's water, one's fuel, one's vegetables, and so forth. Those are fundamentals, those are ancient human fundamentals." Gary Snyder, The Real Work

Never a townsman... ?

...whoever even once in his life has caught a perch or seen thrushes migrate in the autumn, when on clear, cool days they sweep in flocks over the village, will never really be a townsman and to the day of his death will have a longing for the open.

Anton Chekhov, "Gooseberries"