tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88638034497053915372024-03-05T20:44:41.856-07:00Journals of the Rough Country"When in doubt, trust your horse."Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-2553799804944867352020-09-07T09:35:00.001-06:002020-09-07T09:35:13.537-06:00Charlie Chaplin on Butte, America“Such cities as Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas City, Denver, Butte, Billings, throbbed with the dynamism of the future and I was imbued with it” wrote Chaplin in his book aptly titled “My Autobiography.”
Chaplin freely admitted in his book that he spent some time in Butte’s infamous red light district and looked back at that time with fondness.
He wrote — “Butte boasted of having the prettiest women of any red-light district in the West, and it was true. If one saw a pretty girl smartly dressed, one could rest assured she was from the red-light quarter, doing her shopping. Off duty looked neither right nor left and were most respectable. Years later, I argued with Somerset Maugham about his Sadie Thompson character in the play Rain. Jeanne Eagels dressed her rather grotesquely, as I remember, with spring-side boots. I told him that no harlot in Butte, Montana could make money if she dressed like that.”
The silent film star also shared — “I actually saw gunplay in the street, a fat old sheriff shooting at the heels of an escaped prisoner, who was eventually cornered in a blind alley without harm, fortunately.”<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-2oTSRBdYjT4ascsMrki4QrDhAgRnUx7Kv-7HvHVEQPR-L7ilZPywcSW1vC0yjrIJLTZOVz39dM8EP6Pq6SMJZDqtTbyt9lZV5tMR9QPMfL2ZGekVwK_st36qOAzVY2aMng3TzoCYppI/s299/charlie+chapline.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-2oTSRBdYjT4ascsMrki4QrDhAgRnUx7Kv-7HvHVEQPR-L7ilZPywcSW1vC0yjrIJLTZOVz39dM8EP6Pq6SMJZDqtTbyt9lZV5tMR9QPMfL2ZGekVwK_st36qOAzVY2aMng3TzoCYppI/s320/charlie+chapline.jpg"/></a></div>Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-61830600183891595502020-03-17T21:15:00.000-06:002020-03-17T21:15:34.695-06:00The only good Indian..."By a private letter from Rawling Springs, [sic] we learn that the boys up there did not waste the Indian they captured up there yesterday, in fact he was an unusually profitable investment. After they got a scalp apiece off him, they sent what was left down to Fort Steele to the Surgeon there who will use it to good purpose in studying and demonstrating comparative anatomy."
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(Later, in same paper: Sheridan vs Colyer)
" Four-fifths of the Congressmen and Senators sustain General Sheridan in the position hehas taken in Indian affairs. It is generally assumed here that Mr. Vincent Colyer is a visionary humanitarian, whose observations, both in Alaska and on the plains, are of little practical consideration. A decided reaction has taken place against the Quaker and Samaritan policy adapted towards the savages, and a considerable number of the Western and Pacific coast are even hostile to to making any more Indian treaties or distributing food amongst the tribes. <b>It is alleged that feeding the Indians make them to persist in their nomadic and shiftless mode of life.</b> Sheridan’s catalog of recent Indian atrocities is generally accepted as authentic, and it has aroused abhorrence. The pacific, compromising policy is decidedly below par." --Laramie Sentinel.Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-41347143358367109202019-02-08T18:47:00.001-07:002019-02-08T18:47:51.009-07:00This might be the dumbest news story I've ever read. Odgen Standard Examiner, Aug 26, 1933
EXECUTIVE MUST DECIDE PEANUT ROLLING MATTER
Butte, Mont. August 26--(UP)--The future of peanut rolling in Butte rested with Mayor Archie McTaggart today. Last night the city council received a requet from a business college fraternity, asking that pledges to the society be permitted to roll peanuts up and down a central business street with their noses. The council debated the matter for 45 minutes, but voted to refer the question to the mayor when no decision could be reached.
<i>{I shouldn't be so critical. I suppose I have probably wasted 45 minutes in worse ways...}</i>Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-51079193371237165102019-01-13T16:35:00.000-07:002019-01-13T16:35:13.280-07:00Clarabel Leggat, Big Hole River, 1880
“The mountains rise up high all around this little flat, so I know I am in the mountains, and am pretty satisfied.”
Leggat’s Mill, Big Hole River
September 16, 1880
Dear Mother:
We arrived here, safe and sound, about 10 o’clock PM last night. As I have only sent you postals so far, and not even those since I left Ogden, I will begin back and tell you something of my journey. As I hate to write as much as ever I will probably be brief. [Michigan tales.]
And so, at last, we fairly started for the West. It was very pleasant traveling all the way to Ogden. Alexander was as good as could be, not a bit of dust, and very pleasant traveling companions. There were several parties returning from the Conclave to Sacramento and Oakland, etc. Also one young English girl going all the way to San Francisco from England to meet her lover. She would arrive there Sunday morning, and be married Monday, she told me. I looked anxiously all the way for alkali dust, sage brush, prairie chickens, jack-rabbits etc. but saw none of them, except a little sagebrush. A few antelope condescended to be looked at for a few minutes. There was one beautiful sunset we saw over the distant Rockies. As we neared Ogden we passed through the famous Echo and Weber Canons—both beautiful. The Sacramento gentleman paid a great deal of attention to A--[son, Alexander], which he returned in his usual rude way. Nevertheless they had great fun with him, and said they were sorry to part with him. We reached Ogden Friday PM about six o-clock. Left on the Utah and Northern about one hour later. They run no sleeper that night, so we had to content ourselves with a reclining chair, which was really very comfortable. They say there is not an employee in this road who is not a Mormon, I had quite a long talk with the conductor, a very pleasant man, and never suspected that he was not like other folks. In the morning Mr. W. A. Clark, the banker of Butte came to me, and when he found who I was he fairly “enthused.” “Mr. Leggat was one of his best and dearest friends,” etc. so he took charge of me after that. When we reached the terminus at Red Rock, lo and behold John wasn’t there. I had a good mind to stay even in that horrid little place, with the hotel made just of rough boards; but as Mr. C. said it was more than likely he hadn’t received my telegram in time to get there, and said perhaps we would meet him etc. etc. I finally concluded to go by the stage. We left Red Rock about 5 o’clock PM and if you can believe it, I lived through over six mortal hours of the most horrible jolting imagination can conceive of. It was not a bit of comfort that one man said it was a real pleasure ride compared to what he had been enduring for two or three days before in another part of the Territory. Baby slept most of the time, with his head on my lap, and I would hold on to him with one hand, to keep him from flying off into space, all the time, when we came to one place more diabolical that the rest I would brace myself with both feet and the other hand, and use what remaining energy I had to keep from screaming. Added to all this, the disgusting alkali dust came rolling in in perfect clouds, the first I had seen, and most exasperating of all, every few miles we could cross the rail road track—for it is laid the whole 40 miles that I rode, but trains are not run on it yet. After six hours of this fiendish torture I concluded that if Mr. J. A. Leggat wanted to see me he could come where I was, so I stopped at a station called Watson at about half past eleven, and went to bed, where I stayed til ten o’clock Sunday. I had been up about one hour and just laid down on the couch for another nap when baby came in and said that man wanted to see me. As I couldn’t get anything more out of him I thought some one had been having some fun with him, so I lay still; when in walked the “Old Original” himself. He was on his way to the terminus and had met Mr. Clark about 40 miles beyond where I was. As I had it fully settled in my own mind that he wouldn’t be there 2 days at least to say that I was greatly surprised is speaking mildly. As he wanted to go to Bannack City he thought we had better drive part of the way that afternoon. So we drove over to Argenta 15 miles away. This was formerly a thriving mining town, but was almost deserted—a dreary place. I never thought I should care to ride in a light spring wagon, but I considered it perfectly luxurious now, after that horrible coach. The next day we went to Bannack. This is about the oldest place in the Territory—had formerly 1000 inhabitants, which have dwindled away to 2 or 3 hundred. It is the county seat of Beaverhead Co., which is probably the largest county in the world. Two or three states might be lost in it. It—Bannack, is a deserted, dreary looking place, situated on Rattlesnake Creek, no Grasshopper Creek. Tuesday we staretd for Divide. Rode 50 miles and spent the night at Willow Creek, a stage station. Next day went to Glendale. This is a lively little town clustered about the Hecla Mining Works. It is about the largest town I have seen in Montana. It is built right on the mountain, the street going up and down and zig zag. All the country, so far, had seemed desolate enough as there was scarcely any vegetation for lack of rain. But this side of Glendale the trip was one continued delight. For 15 miles we rode over a regular “sure enough” mountain road, with sharp ascents and descents, and for a long distance through a magnificent, awe-inspiring canon. But everything I had seen or read of was eclipsed by the beautiful scenery on the way up here from Divide. Nearly all of those six miles was through the wildest, most romantic canon I have seen. Directly from one side of the narrow road rose a high mountain, and on the other 20 or 30 feet below rolled and tumbled the Big Hole River, a most beautiful mountain stream, larger considerably than the Shiawassee, and from its opposite bank rose another high mountain, or mountains. To cap the climax of this most beautiful, wild and picturesque scene the moon was at the full and very brilliant. They tell me that the six miles up the mine is just as beautiful. I am anxious to see it. We reached the mill at about 10 o’clock PM the 15th of September. This [Dewey] Flat is an opening between the mountains. The mill and two cabins are close together, right in the bank of the river. Aleck and Robert were on hand to welcome us, and I was ushered into about the dirtiest and most disorderly cabin I ever saw. A long table was in the center of the room surrounded by little benches, instead of chairs, a couple of bedsteads on one side of the room, one of these having some bedding tumbled on it, the other covered with miscellaneous articles, and all sorts of things scattered about elsewhere, and dirt everywhere. (How mad the men would be to see this!) It turned out however that the other cabin, a new one, was to be my abode. As there was nothing in this but a carpet, two small tables, two stands and a bedstead there wasn’t much chance for disorder. The log part contains three rooms. A large front room, having 3 windows, a good sized bedroom and another room not yet named. There is an addition to this of 2 more rooms for John’s Assay business. As the Chinaman is to do the cooking and washing and we take our meals in the other cabin, you see I will have plenty of room. The walls of the cabin are covered with this chick lining paper on which is stamped a very pretty pattern, and the ceiling is covered with white cotton cloth, which looks really nice. The carpet is about the prettiest rag carpet I ever saw, being so beautifully woven. It is in the front room and bedroom. My Lord had made the bedstead himself and considers it a triumph of his skill. I will leave you to imagine the looks of it-- and the weight of it! He and I together, after much hard pulling and tugging managed to get it turned around and nearly in place. We didn’t lack for good bedding, I assure you, even to sheets and pillowcases. To be sure the sheets were several inches too short, and the only pair about the establishment, but they looked well. There were no pillows when I got there but a pair were very soon manufactured. It’s nothing to make pillows, if you only know how. All you have to do is stuff a lot of wool into bags, tie up the ends, and there you are. If the end of the bags do hang out beyond the pillow cases, it will make no difference to a well-balanced mind. You will have observed perhaps that chairs have not been mentioned as part of the furniture. There were none at the time of my arrival; but in a day or so, 4 beautiful, hard, green and yellow wooden chairs came up, in great style, in company with my trunk. The latter I did not succeed in getting any lock for so I had 3 straps put on it. The dust had penetrated to the very bottom, and ever last thing was covered with it. I am looking anxiously for my box now, so that I can begin to get settled. I expect to have as cozy a little home as you ever saw, and to take solid comfort in it. I am very much pleased so far, as everything is so much pleasanter than I expected. The weather is beautiful, though a little too cool for me. [ The mountains rise up high all around this little flat, so I know I am in the mountains, and am pretty satisfied. ] I have been sick, as usual, for a day or two, and of course felt it more. Alexander has been as hateful as he could be mos tof the time, especially to his father. He has displayed considerable jealousy several times, and resents everything he says to him. John hasn’t really taken him in hand yet, but his patience won’t last much longer. I wonder he has stood it so long, for he has been very disagreeable. I want to send this to Divide this evening so must stop. It is now Sunday I might to have written before but this has nearly killed me. Read this to Mrs. Baldwin and send it to all the relations who want it. I promised [ill.] “Circular Letter,” not expected to send something better than this. So write to me some and let me know all about yourself. I just stopped a few minutes to go over to the mill and see them pour the molten silver into bars. It is wonderful how many processes it has to go through after being taken out of the ground. The bars weigh about 80 lbs. I will try to write next week. Alexander says tell Grandma I’m been fishing, and there he goes on with a long story I can’t remember. With much love for yourself, and all the friends, I am, your daughter, C. A. Leggat. John sends love and will write you some [time].
(John A. Leggat was born in 1832, and along with his twin brother Alexander, and another brother, Rodney, ran a five-stamp gold mill in Dewey, built in 1876. After the death of his first wife, John married his second wife, Clarabel Ament, in 1876, the same year he traveled to Montana and established a series of mining claims in Quartz Hill called the Argyle Group. Clarabel and her 3 or 4 year old son Alexander traveled from Michigan to Dewey in 1880 to join her husband and his brothers at his mill. After her arrival to Montana, she wrote her mother a delightful letter detailing the journey, full of sassiness and sarcasm. Sadly, Clarabel died in 1881, just a year after her arrival and only five years in to her happy marriage with John. She left her son, Alexander, and died giving birth to a daughter, named Claribel after her mother, who outlived her. She was obviously a woman of wit and humor!)Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-89514178863264298332018-10-24T09:37:00.000-06:002018-10-24T09:37:59.401-06:00Lost in Translation"The idea of teaching every girl to thump the piano and every boy to be a bookkeeper will make potatoes worth eight dollars a barrel in twenty years." -Virginia City [Montana] Times
I have no idea what that means.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgxKwntBZd53SCPSBxX0Xs1U_7qONwkc5xBnKdbPnox_LCPaicGMEeATqbxQCxZJDjSOULgYKV0wpyEF-7QdFv8rK2o2XcIP4ZHFUBAmNbGbYJHGBPWU2X1ewAhBX22iUq95O8g0NS_Es/s1600/POtato+field.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgxKwntBZd53SCPSBxX0Xs1U_7qONwkc5xBnKdbPnox_LCPaicGMEeATqbxQCxZJDjSOULgYKV0wpyEF-7QdFv8rK2o2XcIP4ZHFUBAmNbGbYJHGBPWU2X1ewAhBX22iUq95O8g0NS_Es/s320/POtato+field.jpg" width="320" height="209" data-original-width="600" data-original-height="392" /></a></div>Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-46576672918669348862018-10-14T10:25:00.003-06:002018-10-14T10:25:53.554-06:00Montana's Loose Definition of 'Moral'"Judge Clancy yesterday in a naturalization hearing defined a man 'of good moral character' who had never stolen a horse or cut a throat."
-The Montana Standard, 19 April 1942, p. 29Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-36045142493248916862018-09-23T19:31:00.001-06:002018-09-23T19:31:30.301-06:00No strength like a father's loveA most peculiar accident happened in Baggs Friday morning. While Al Warren was preparing to start to Rawlins, his little six-year-old boy climbed up on the wheel of the wagon, which was loaded with 3300 lbs of oats. The horses started, throwing the young fellow under the wheel. Mr. Warren caught the wheel and lifted in all of his power, which no doubt saved the little fellow's life as the wheel ran across him from above his hip to the knee of the opposite leg. Strange to say, he was not even bruised, while one would naturally suppose his body had been cut in two. -Routt County Courier, October 26, 1905Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-22970830888571641232018-08-22T08:34:00.000-06:002018-08-22T08:34:30.759-06:00A Cure for the Wandering MateOverheard this valuable lesson at a community museum gathering:
Woman #1: "When my mother got married, her mother-in-law had one piece of advice: Never learn to milk a cow."
Woman #2: "Too much work!"
Woman #1: "Yes, and you guarantee your husband has to be at home twice a day to get it done!"
Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-76885685925917667332018-08-20T16:32:00.001-06:002018-08-20T16:32:58.433-06:00"You deserve to be somewhere you feel free." -Tom Petty
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All paths are open to you. Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-62582259020603736212013-04-15T17:06:00.001-06:002013-04-15T17:06:37.643-06:00Conquering a new frontier: Bread EditionI love to bake. Weekly, I make up cookies, cakes, fruit bread and biscuits for our little family to enjoy. My continuing failure proves to be brownies, which I blame totally on the high elevation we live at. However, I've never given the slightest thought to making homemade bread. My sweetheart is a carb-oholic. While he weighs a relatively minor 150 lbs, he eats carbs like he's been running back-to-back marathons. He mentioned the other day how much he loves homemade bread, and I realized that in my entire life of baking, I had never even attempted it. Flipping through a couple of back issues of Mother Earth News, I found a supposedly "easy" no-knead bread recipe, and gave it a try. It turned out fantastic! It has a heavy, crunchy crust with a soft, dense center. I used cheap flour as I wasn't sure it was going to turn out, but my mouth waters thinking of the results using high-quality Wheat Montana whole wheat flour! I'm starting another loaf tonight! Here's the recipe, and my results:
1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two.
1 1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. (I popped our dough in one of my heated seed-starting boxes, where it sat overnight.)
The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger. (So I got home late from a meeting on Sunday night, and popped the dough out to rise. It had not yet doubled after two hours, but I was sick of waiting and starving for dinner, so we popped it in the oven anyway. It turned out beautifully! Next time I'll budget a little more time to let it rise.)
At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
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Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.
(The first photo is the bread rising in the seed starter box. The second photo is just out of the oven!)
Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-12-01/Easy-No-Knead-Dutch-Oven-Crusty-Bread.aspx?page=2#ixzz2QXWWTjzy
Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-29210044356140948422013-03-31T22:10:00.000-06:002013-03-31T22:10:28.121-06:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggowLx54dS5qyM70tt5K7HL7nk6fe2hSmz6OmuR9Y1Uzrk8OPkS0VJJYmvAqGlITk1N_2e0ul1jddvhDmaWzSgUZDjpWCblC_H-omGLrFKxFbKwjjKYLfZ5hTiA5GJ1DBHUkJTVXETAUI/s1600/DSC08833.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggowLx54dS5qyM70tt5K7HL7nk6fe2hSmz6OmuR9Y1Uzrk8OPkS0VJJYmvAqGlITk1N_2e0ul1jddvhDmaWzSgUZDjpWCblC_H-omGLrFKxFbKwjjKYLfZ5hTiA5GJ1DBHUkJTVXETAUI/s320/DSC08833.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXb-xRJj6iWEKI-PUoYAQg_I11oY8u8F5KVtI-JY8F4oDNhEAn8bS7RtC5fZ1RGi4AJruv6UYvZ8Tj9eCrOJrNadQGUxoasTVucLO_tulLqPwNfev1PqGAacEc3-R57GTTTv07WHZErw/s1600/DSC08834.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOXb-xRJj6iWEKI-PUoYAQg_I11oY8u8F5KVtI-JY8F4oDNhEAn8bS7RtC5fZ1RGi4AJruv6UYvZ8Tj9eCrOJrNadQGUxoasTVucLO_tulLqPwNfev1PqGAacEc3-R57GTTTv07WHZErw/s320/DSC08834.JPG" /></a>
The red-winged blackbirds and the sandhill cranes call from the fields around the house, and a pair of woodpeckers are building a nest in a hollow tree on the creek. It seems a little early for true spring here in the wild Montana mountains, but we're eager for it none the less. This weekend, we finally had time to start work on the gardens. Since moving here last year, we've discovered the heavy, alkaline, clay soil (along with a 30-100 day growing season) really isn't very good for raising our food. But if our ancestors were able to make it work, surely we will too.
The existing garden, although lovely in its planning, was full of totally depleted soil. We built retaining walls last fall, but the snow caught us before we were able to replace the soil. On Friday, I pulled off the leaf mulch and we piled on load after load of well-aged horse manure. The new beds are 10" deep and look fantastic! That garden will hold our important storage crops like onions, parsnips, and potatoes, as well as cucumber, yellow wax beans, and zucchini. In the middle sits a stone bed of herbs, and the east edge is full of raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, blueberries (struggling in our alkaline soil), gooseberries and currants. The gooseberries and currants didn't produce last year-- I have no familiarity with them, and I read that some varieties take three years to become established before producing. We'll see what happens this year! With some major additions of wood ash and pine needle mulch, I hope to help the blueberries pull through... but everything I read tells me it's unlikely they'll survive.
Our house garden consists of a bunch of 35-gallon cattle mineral tubs. Less work than digging a new bed, and hopefully warmer (thanks to the black plastic), they were a cinch to drill full of drainage holes and fill with well-composted manure this weekend. While I muscled those into place, Levi built six beautiful seed-starting boxes of scrap lumber and florescent light fixtures, insulated with foil-backed foam. They are going to be ideal for giving seedlings a strong start, and I'm looking forward to having a dining room full of plants!
The vegetable garden preparations went so smoothly I had time to wire up a new compost bin and fill it half full of scraps, leaves, and moldy hay, and lay out my new "sundial" garden at a corner of the courtyard area behind our house. Now instead of seeing a propane tank from our bedroom window, I'll have a lovely flower garden in bloom all summer. Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-5071184506064179062013-01-29T17:48:00.000-07:002013-01-29T17:48:04.429-07:00Pioneer Manners"George did most of the mining, and occasionally hauled a load himself, using a team of huge mules, hitched to a wagon or a big No. 4 four-runner bobsled. Sometimes the mules, meeting another team, would show sudden life and nearly turn the harness inside out. George didn't seem to mind, but Mary became alarmed. Once, as I approached and the mules went into their act, Mrs. Walker raised her voice and demanded that George try to control the mules.
'Speak to those mules, George. Speak to them,' she shrilled.
George, who was already near the heads of the animals, stepped back, raised his hat, bowed, and 'spoke to them.'
'How do you do, mules?'
I nearly fell off the sled seat. But Mary saw nothing funny about it."
(The Last Frontier, Volume II, pg 210 by V.S. Fitzpatrick)Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-46997085820393609062012-07-12T13:33:00.000-06:002012-07-12T13:33:07.067-06:00Homemade Laundry Soap: Cheap, effective, safe!I tried out this recipe for homemade laundry soap. It has a clean smell with no fragrances or dyes, although you can add essential oils to give it a fragrance if you wish. It is more liquid-y than a store-bought detergent, and does not suds up like many detergents do. I put the whole mixture in a clean 5-gallon bucket with a tight fitting lid. I use a wooden spoon to mix it up before adding to the washing machine, and a dipping cup from an old jug of laundry detergent to measure out a quarter cup. It was quite easy to make!
<b>Homemade Laundry Soap </b>
Ingredients:
1 bar Fels Naptha
1 box Borax (usually 20 Mule Team brand)
1 box Washing Soda (usually Arm and Hammer brand)
(These ingredients can usually be found at your local grocery store in the laundry detergent aisle. If you can't find them, try a hardware store, or ask the manager of the grocery to special order them for you.)
Directions:
1. Grate 1/3 of the bar of Fels Naptha into a large soup pot. Add six cups of water, and melt the soap slivers over medium heat.
2. Add 1/2 cup of washing soda and a 1/2 cup of borax. Stir until dissolved, then remove from heat.
3. In a clean bucket 3 gallons or larger, pour 4 cups of hot water. Add the soap mixture in the soup pot, stirring constantly.
4. Add 1 gallon plus six cups of water, and stir. If you'd like to use essential oils, add several drops now.
5. Let the bucket sit undisturbed overnight, to allow the mixture to gel.
This is a low-sudsing mix, so you won't see large bubbles. Stir before using each time, and use a half-cup per load of laundry.
With the leftovers, you have enough to make three batches of laundry soap PLUS enough leftover for dishwashing powder detergent! For this, mix equal parts borax and washing soda. At my grocery store's prices, this laundry detergent cost me $3.40 for 64 loads.Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-35174816278197898352012-04-24T08:23:00.001-06:002012-04-24T08:25:14.994-06:00Border LandsPersonally, I was always offended by the ninety-degree corners and audacious borders of Wyoming and Colorado. It seemed to me almost cocky, the way four corners were placed on the map irregardless of terrain. Today, as I live there, literally straddling the border, crossing this apparently arbitrary invisible line a hundred times daily, it continues to offend. Why, when the pass sits so nearby, did the border not conform to the mountain peaks? Or at least, why didn't it follow the Little Snake along its winding course, setting down one side of the valley clearly to Colorado and the other clearly to Wyoming? The imaginary boundary line brings political ramifications in our business. The valley's social constructions continue to defy the actual boundary, and while I am ensconced firmly in "Colorado" (despite more than 150,000 acres of the ranch in Wyoming), Slater, Colorado continues to be considered firmly "Wyoming" (even insofar as a recent Bureau of Land Management press release named it as Slater, Wyoming, which it hasn't been since 1888). Even the social constructions fit the topography; why can't the border line?
“Wyoming, at first glance, would appear to be an arbitrary segment of the country. Wyoming and Colorado are the only states whose borders consist of four straight lines. That could be looked upon as an affront to nature, an utterly political conception, an ignoring of the outlines of physiographic worlds, in disregard of rivers and divides. Rivers and divides, however, are in some ways unworthy as boundaries, which are meant to imply a durability that is belied by the function of rivers and divides. They move, they change, and they go away. Rivers, almost by definition, are young. The oldest river in the United States is called the New River. It has existed (in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia) for a little more than one and a half per cent of the history of the world. In epochs and eras before there ever was a Colorado River, the formations of the Grand Canyon were crossed and crisscrossed, scoured and dissolved, deposited and moved by innumerable rivers. The Colorado River, which has only recently appeared on earth, has excavated the Grand Canyon in very little time. From its beginning, human beings could have watched the Grand Canyon being made. The Green River has cut down through the Uinta Mountains in the last few million years, the Wind River through the Owl Creek Mountains, the Laramie River through the Laramie Range. The mountains themselves came up and moved. Several thousand feet of basin fill has recently disappeared. As the rock around Rawlins amply shows, the face of the country has frequently changed. Wyoming suggests with emphasis the page-one principle of reading in rock the record of the earth: Surface appearances are only that; topography grows, shrinks, compresses, spreads, disintegrates, and disappears; every scene is temporary, and is composed of fragments form other scenes. Four straight lines—like a plug cut in the side of a watermelon—should do as well as any to frame Wyoming and its former worlds.” (John McPhee, in his excellent biography of geologist David Love, "Rising From the Plains" p. 29)
This makes me feel a little better about being stuck on the "wrong" side of the border.Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-18307550416276686632012-04-23T11:48:00.002-06:002012-04-23T11:48:30.793-06:00"If summer falls on a weekend, let's have a picnic."
(Wyoming homesteader saying)Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-34829350950280312142012-04-02T15:07:00.002-06:002012-04-02T15:17:55.464-06:00INSANITY DECREASING<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguqnpLaMpLpgZQDRaOoEPpxArfmRSexi6pmRWl96PVZt4JZvXv27dlRHpGrychrF30G7csHMVwhUt0GHtaNf85_Neve9VyYJ6Tyj1JKrljGi94P5fJ6RBMGdcFrgjQXhuV8Fvum5_yJKw/s1600/whisky+vendor"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 138px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguqnpLaMpLpgZQDRaOoEPpxArfmRSexi6pmRWl96PVZt4JZvXv27dlRHpGrychrF30G7csHMVwhUt0GHtaNf85_Neve9VyYJ6Tyj1JKrljGi94P5fJ6RBMGdcFrgjQXhuV8Fvum5_yJKw/s200/whisky+vendor" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726915660711974466" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHd5dUGTYpiKUSd8zxTX7l_BmIdAguMTVoHQUhdmfJJJJ-04Z4y2vKGctfNjpBAv1kvwtVykU04U7yvEKJUTf9p0u9RTTUwhnpctPmlXN9L_81eEm9jXcjrElnWSK7sxtJds6qKkEdL8U/s1600/Anti+liquor"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 188px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHd5dUGTYpiKUSd8zxTX7l_BmIdAguMTVoHQUhdmfJJJJ-04Z4y2vKGctfNjpBAv1kvwtVykU04U7yvEKJUTf9p0u9RTTUwhnpctPmlXN9L_81eEm9jXcjrElnWSK7sxtJds6qKkEdL8U/s200/Anti+liquor" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726915665532909250" /></a><br />Insanity has been decreased 60 per cent in the United States since prohibition went into effect. The reason for this remarkable decrease in insanity is that people of the nation are leading a more quiet life and the over exertion of the nervous system which is caused by the drinking of alcoholic liquors has been done away with. <br />-Routt County Sentinel, October 29, 1920Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-70961121611442980442012-03-13T07:52:00.003-06:002012-03-13T07:59:36.893-06:00"The Usual Crime"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzAUSto0mdVmfwtxA5aRM2rivUpkeiHaSkrJm7iQXj5sNtcQZq0CFLeXjEpfbVe2iQDyO-ww6PI4OV8MEh30gJl3t23PEajvLa8PZ1_FC7c03fbQDk9wLmsB6VUbuMm6VWuXSn-SM00U/s1600/lynching.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzAUSto0mdVmfwtxA5aRM2rivUpkeiHaSkrJm7iQXj5sNtcQZq0CFLeXjEpfbVe2iQDyO-ww6PI4OV8MEh30gJl3t23PEajvLa8PZ1_FC7c03fbQDk9wLmsB6VUbuMm6VWuXSn-SM00U/s200/lynching.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719380931878640786" /></a><br />"The Decay of Lynching<br />(Grand Junction Sentinel)<br /> Lynchings fell off in 1914. There were only fifty-two cases in the United States, the smallest number in any year since the records have been kept. Aside from this general indication of a growing respect for law and order, a scrutiny of the record develops some less gratifying facts. First of all, it should be noted that if “the usual crime” were ever regarded as a blanket justification for the institution of lynching, it must now be definitely discarded. Relentless statistics declare that only seven lynchings out of the fifty-two came within the category of chivalric murders for the protection of womanhood and only five of the victims in these cases were colored."<br /><br />-Steamboat Pilot, January 27, 1915, page 4<br /><br />A friend told me that sometimes when I write, I speak a different language. We traced the source to the constant research I do reading old newspapers. The quaint, archaic English practiced by turn-of-the-century papers is a far cry from the tight, concise writing journalism emphasizes today. Additionally, social mores required the use of strangely-turned phrases that wouldn't offend Victorian readers' sensibilities. For example, "the usual crime." This one is elusive. I have to imagine, by the context, that they refer to rape. Even better: "chivalric murders for the protection of womanhood?" Compared to the USA Today, these men were Shakespeare!Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-73613898703459035672012-03-12T10:53:00.002-06:002012-03-12T11:01:10.714-06:00Women on a jury? Ha ha ha, how novel!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghp-XVwCUNQrxYJog50JlMmK-attKwq7po5e6ArnDKv0tXrDOIyLBMe1TB1w61zhyphenhyphenxrIhAT2JfyvfF5NxucZxOMBQrrmGJKa9y-MFb0yweq-jGJjNgPbbkj0Pp8jTrLujYJ_hD57udUDw/s1600/vintage-women-ads-18_thumb%255B5%255D.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghp-XVwCUNQrxYJog50JlMmK-attKwq7po5e6ArnDKv0tXrDOIyLBMe1TB1w61zhyphenhyphenxrIhAT2JfyvfF5NxucZxOMBQrrmGJKa9y-MFb0yweq-jGJjNgPbbkj0Pp8jTrLujYJ_hD57udUDw/s320/vintage-women-ads-18_thumb%255B5%255D.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719056723338629778" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV45fzoOh2fDPUo5rogSD8BmHUHbkeO3uPor5mYz3_95htcAIjqxKGX-3rK6PLtQ-kp2PuZQAOUw0NfMqjxeIehscbAsJJvYlifhJNZcRBdbVKva1wJ7KfNEOvjYTyqdJrZUHVYsuwG04/s1600/women-jurors.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV45fzoOh2fDPUo5rogSD8BmHUHbkeO3uPor5mYz3_95htcAIjqxKGX-3rK6PLtQ-kp2PuZQAOUw0NfMqjxeIehscbAsJJvYlifhJNZcRBdbVKva1wJ7KfNEOvjYTyqdJrZUHVYsuwG04/s320/women-jurors.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719056723777393346" /></a><br />The case of inquisition in lunacy of Mrs. Elizabeth Hutchinson was heard in the county court Thursday. The novel feature of the trial was the the fact that the jury box was filled with women. Judge Morning gave Deputy Sheriff "Billy" Leahy permission to summon women as jurors. "Billy" was delighted and soon had a sufficient number of the fair sex subpoenaed to try the case. "Billy" is happiest when he can show his gallantry to the ladies. The jury was comprised of Mesdames Kate Starr, Katie Pully, Mary Criswell, Mrs. Charles McCormick, Alice Reagen and Miss Maud Keller. Mrs. Starr was foreman. Mrs. Hutchison was committed to the state insane asylum at Pueblo. <br /><br />[From the Routt County Republican, July 1, 1910.]Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-27895854011851379342012-02-28T14:01:00.002-07:002012-02-28T14:10:32.667-07:00Anna Dudley, Pioneer<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZpZERJUqxv9buO0CZdcLwdMywoFBaEGVPxfXhFvOKRR3t01qtlIsTFzhjYqoj1pVVW04urQcGLlZwu0r46uqfeLEEmNcLE7twGvw90xhibiBtgXe1wYw-eYlJF9V3BuIgHze5pnKeOQE/s1600/DSC00681.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZpZERJUqxv9buO0CZdcLwdMywoFBaEGVPxfXhFvOKRR3t01qtlIsTFzhjYqoj1pVVW04urQcGLlZwu0r46uqfeLEEmNcLE7twGvw90xhibiBtgXe1wYw-eYlJF9V3BuIgHze5pnKeOQE/s320/DSC00681.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5714295176939657890" /></a><br />“Mrs. [Anna] Dudley was an ornery old gal, and just as tough,” Leonard Fleming said. Perhaps she had to be, for she was married to a criminal. <br /><br />Carl Dudley was a miner and horseman, who supplemented his earnings by thievery. Married in 1900 to Mrs. Dunbar, of Baggs, Wyoming, he left her after a year to pursue the rumors of riches in the Battle Lake mining district. By 1903, he filed for divorce, but by 1905 he was married again, this time to the “ornery old gal” Fleming spoke of. <br /><br />Anna Dudley had a grown son from a previous marriage, and was probably pregnant with Dudley's child when the two moved in together in 1905. The tone of their marriage is a sad foreshadowing of things to come: in January, Dudley is arrested for stealing provisions from a railroad tie camp in Hog Park, Wyoming. Dudley used a four-horse team and wagon, and tracks clearly led to his ranch. Some of the stolen items were found in the cabin when authorities searched. Lucky for the newlyweds, the case was dismissed due to the crime being committed over the state line. <br /><br />In 1909, Mrs. Dudley's nineteen-year-old son died of unknown causes. He was apparently working at the Three Forks Ranch at the time of his death, and Mrs. Gardner (who was childless, and had recently lost her husband) buried him in the family plot with a grand granite monument, something Mrs. Dudley certainly could not have afforded. Mrs. Dudley inherited her son's homestead claim, which she proved up on in 1917. Knowing an opportunity when one is presented, Mrs. Dudley also filed on her own homestead claim, which she patented in 1910. By 1916, Carl Dudley had abandoned her and daughter, Mary, and when Mrs. Dudley tried to prove up on Carl Dudley's homestead claim, she was challenged in court. Making the best of the situation, Mrs. Dudley moved into Columbine to send Mary to school full-time. She took over as proprietress of the Columbine Hotel and Restaurant. <br /><br />Rural Colorado could be a difficult place for a single mother, homesteading a ranch nine miles from town. “She would put a dog collar on her little girl's neck and chain her to the cabin,” Fleming reported. She wasn't above a little deception to make a dollar: “Mrs. Dudley asked Mr. H. R. Temple if he wanted to buy half a beef, so she sent it down by stage driver. She had a colt tied in the barn, and it jumped over the manger and broke its neck, so she butchered it out and sold it as beef!” This toughness was necessary in the wilderness: repeatedly, the stagecoach would fail to make it through, and Mrs. Dudley and her daughter would snowshoe the nine miles from Columbine to their home. <br /><br />Mrs. Dudley made the acquaintance of homesteader Barney Chesterman sometime before 1917, and took a certain liking to one another. Apparently, they were not very discrete about the relationship, and in July, 1918, the pair were jailed for “maintaining improper relations” as one local newspaper delicately put it. Bluntly stated, it was adultery, and after paying their $750 bonds, Mrs. Dudley filed for divorce on grounds of desertion from Carl Dudley. In April, 1919, Chesterman and Anna Dudley married in Steamboat Springs. Whether they had more children, were happy or unhappy, or simply found life easier together than apart, is unknown.Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-58597455078701269272012-02-13T16:04:00.000-07:002012-02-13T16:05:14.490-07:00"A Rocky Mountain Recipe"When the wily Steamboat horseman<br />Wants to “do” a tourist, he<br />“Gets a move on” in accordance<br />With this simple recipe:<br />Take a horse of fifteen winters;<br />File his teeth and roach his mane;<br />Dose him with condition powders;<br />Feed him chop or boiled grain.<br />Give his coat an oily lustre<br />(This is done with linseed meal!)<br />Use the currycomb and brush with<br />Ardor that will make him squeal.<br />Should he then, in your opinion,<br />Be a little short of “slick,”<br />Give him air of roundness wanting<br />With a course of arsenic!<br />Follow closely these instructions—<br />Also, then, (if you are bold)<br />Underneath his tail a bur put—<br />And you have a four-year-old.<br /> C. F. Davis<br />Steamboat Pilot,<br />August 18, 1897, page 4Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-1211070215421774022012-01-27T11:55:00.002-07:002012-01-27T12:03:05.506-07:00Honyockers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6lHe7ZeVwEooGsIyWJs7C9xXsZlZlqajX9mkWy5apX0M_C_ObATbAA5QJZoT9WWZ_mMP3nyIBT11LTQ1ggOmM3mGYmxRr2rGIxSWQ96wbE8GX5MGY96JDH6KPlPxOOdcwjdYY_Y7Jg4/s1600/Cameron+photo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 283px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6lHe7ZeVwEooGsIyWJs7C9xXsZlZlqajX9mkWy5apX0M_C_ObATbAA5QJZoT9WWZ_mMP3nyIBT11LTQ1ggOmM3mGYmxRr2rGIxSWQ96wbE8GX5MGY96JDH6KPlPxOOdcwjdYY_Y7Jg4/s400/Cameron+photo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702389291238332418" /></a><br /> They’d come to the land and tried to shape it according to their imported ideas of science, progress, community, landscape. Now it began to shape them. Its message to the people was blunt: live here, and you will live barely and in isolation. It shook itself free of the littler of surplus bildings, the fence posts and barbed wire with which the Lilliputian homesteaders had tried to pin it down. <br /> The land would wear just so much architecture and society, and no more. In the Platonic republic of the United States, the land of limitless imagining, where ideas were no sooner conceived than they became concrete entities, nature was not supposed to dictate the terms on which mankind could live with it. Of course, nature often struck petulantly back at man, with earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and fires; but this inflexible drawing of lines and limits was alien to the American temper. The prairie was not amenable to problem solving; it wasn’t going to be fixed by new farming methods, or turned green by applied electromagnetism. It was what it was, which was not at all what people had conceived it to be. <br /> Swallows nested now in the wrecked houses of the theorists and high-hopers, and in the abandoned cabins of the rolling stones. <br /><br />(Jonathan Raban, from Bad Land: An American Romance)Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-41812694380445628752012-01-21T16:26:00.003-07:002012-02-02T11:39:35.376-07:00The economics of staying alive"Change before you have to." (Jack Welch)<br /><br />In 1977, the editors of Mother Earth News published a sprawling "Economic Outlook" that present a number of bold, disturbing assertations that emphasized our need for a new economic model:<br />-Capitalism, as we know it, is designed to exploit newly discovered resources and will flounder when we run out of new frontiers to conquer. <br />-The human population continues to grow rapidly. <br />-We can recognize and predict coming shortages of oil, irrigation water, and arable land.<br />-The health of our current world economy is contingent upon continued population growth and the discovery of new natural resources. <br />-We need new economic systems to support a "steady state" economy-- an economy of stable size with only mild flyctuations in population and consumption of energy and materials. <br /> To suppor their thesis, the editors quoted historian Walter Prescott Webb, whose 1951 book The Great Frontier warned that when we run out of natural resources, our economic systems will stop working.<br /> [The editors] wrote: "Western man's clever technology, self-motivation, work ethic, economic system, and regard for the individual all came after and are all solidly rooted in the windfall resources and profits of The Great Frontier... And now that most of the cream has been skimmed from that windfall, capitalism (the economic system so ideally suited for the exploitation of a seemingly endless storehouse of natural riches) will decline, prosperity will slip through our fingers...<br /> "Western Man's 450-year expansionary binge-- which was fueled by inexpensive, plentiful energy and other natural resources--is now drawing to a close. And, just as Walter Prescott Webb predicted... the industrialized nations of the world are having a difficult time understanding what is happening to them."<br /> It is now 2012, 61 years after Webb's warning. The global recession is now about 4 years old. Are we "having a difficult time understanding" what is happening to us? Yes, I think so.<br /> Do we still need to invent a so-called "steady-state" economy? Yes, I think so. We need it now more than ever.<br /> Humanity faces a dilemma. On one hand, our habitat won't allow the human population to expand forever. Resources will eventually run short. But if the global human population stabilizes, we will face an unprecedented economic problem. Prosperity, as we've known it, depends on an expanding human population to support an expanding economy. <br /> A Ponzi scheme, also known as a pyramid scheme, is a scam in which a con artist promises big returns, which he fradulently generates from the contributions of later investors. Bernard Madoff is the most notorious recent perpetrator of such a scam. He raised ens of billions of dollars from thousands of investors before he went to jail in 2009.<br /> Every Ponzi artist faces a day of reckoning. Eventually, he runs out of new resources. <br /> Brown quotes a 2002 study by t he U. S. National Academy of Sciences that concludes we have been consuming resources we cannot hope to replace since about 1980. Brown points out that, as of 2009, all the world's major aquifers were being depleted for irrigation, we were pulling fish out of the sea faster than they could reproduce, and we were draining our reserves of cheap energy while not investing much in new energy technologies. <br /> Modern strends are proving Webb and Brown correct. Lifestyles are eroding while basic resources such as food and energy get more and more expensive. In our present recession, each time a tidbit of positive employment news is revealed, fuel prices spike and new jobs dry up. The housing market is in the dumps, but farmland values are soaring.<br /> It begins to feel liek we're encountering a natural limitation to our expansion, doesn't it?<br /> The connection between population growth and economic prosperity was clearly recognizable 600 years before our Economic Outlook was published. One of the earliest recorded treatises on economic expansion was writted by Arabian philsopher Ibn Khaldun in 1377: <br /> "When civilization [population] increases, the available labor again increases. In turn, luxury again increases in correspondence with the increasing profit, and the customs and needs of luxury increase. Crafts are created to obtain luxury products. The value realized from them increases, and, as a result, profits are again multiplied in the town. Production there is thriving even more than before... All the additional labor serves luxury and wealth, in contrast to the original labor that served the necessities of life."<br /> More than six centuries ago, this Arabian philosopher understood the basic machinery pretty clearly. Economic growth has been generated by population growth, augmented by technology and motivated by improving lifestyles. <br /> So what do we do when population growth is no longer sustainable?<br /> We must create new systems for distributing value and maintaining prosperity for a stable human population. But we've never had to do that before. Maintaining prosperity in a stable population will require new tools. <br /> Instead of stubbornly clinging to economic models that aren't working, we should be hard at work inventing new ones. Unfortunately, much of our energy is being channeled into various forms of denial.<br /> The spectacular collapse of the $100 billin energy corporation Enron at the beginnign of hte 21st century offers a chilling illustration of our capacity to ignore evidence in favor of comfortable self-delusion. The smarted financial analysts in the world's most successful economy bought into Enron's manager's wild validations because they profited fromt hat belief. In spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, Wall Street believed Enron represented about $70 billion in assets because that belief <span style="font-style:italic;"></span>temporarily<span style="font-style:italic;"></span> benefited all of them--management, bankers and investors. For a time, skepticism profited no one. When those assets were finally called up on to generate cash, however, billions in shareholder value evaporated in just a few weeks. <br /> Financial experts tend to believe what it's profitable for them to believe.<br /> It is not popular to suggest that our planetary asset are not sufficient to cover our long-term needs. No one is making a profit from this kind of skepticism. We are exaggerating the durability of our natural resources because, in the short term, it's profitable-- and soothing-- to do so. <br /> So far, technology has accommodated and augmented human population growth. We've seen our "green revolution" spread across the globe and feed multitudes. But now we know there were hidden costs, and that modern agriculture must adapt to natural limitations in order to be sustainable. And, indeed, the green revolution spurred more population growth.<br /> In our fantasies, space travel solves our problems. One attraction of science fiction is its ability to extend the human frontier to the limits of human imagination. Star Trek's mission statement declaimed our potential to "explore strange new world... to boldly go where no man has gone before." In a fictional world, our current economic theories and philosophies might carry us on, uninterrupted, to flourish across the universe. <br /> Unfortunately, right now we can fly no farther than our own small, sterile moon, and lately we've concluded that we can't even afford to take an occasional exploratory jaunt into our own upper atmosphere. We're too busy rebuilding levees and guarding oil wells down here on the ground.<br /> Our economic tools will be obsolete long before we perfect intergalactic space travel. <br /> In fact, they are obsolete today. It's time for new ideas. The founders of Mother Earth News offered some examples 34 years ago. <br />-Learn how to grow our own food and generate our own power<br />-Convert to wood heat, solar hot water and passive solar architecture<br /> -Build a greenhouse, plant a garden, start a flock of chickens, feed leftovers to a pig, raise rabbits, get some milk goats<br />-Learn a basic trade and set up a home-based business<br />-Dig a root cellar<br /> These ideas are still new, because they haven't yet been popularly acknowledged. The same goes for the writings of Walter Prescott Webb from 60 years ago. Today visionary writers such as Umair Haque (author of The New Capitalist Manifesto) and Michael Strong (author of Be The Solution) are adding their voices to the conversation, suggesting that capitalism itself needs to adapt.<br /> "And what if the worst never comes to pass? What if our leaders really do... work their magic so well that times... do nothing but get better and better from now until eternity? Wonderful! But keep right on tending that garden and converting yourself to solar energy anyway... you'll still be ahead of the game. It's hard to beat the satisfactions of self-sufficiency and independence."<br />(From Mother Earth News, Dec 2011/January 2012, by Bryan Welch)Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-86241134538700599012012-01-20T16:31:00.003-07:002012-01-20T16:37:46.164-07:00Identifying the mystery graves...The cemeteries on the ranch have been all but forgotten in the intervening since the last person was laid to rest in 1920. While the fences were maintained, the identities and stories behind the individuals were lost for so many years. In reconstructing the ranch's history, I've been able to put together a few of the memories of their lives, and only wondered about so many others. Hours of research every day turned up the answer to a new mystery today!<br /><br />In the Three Forks (or Gardner) cemetery, two small natural granite stones, uncarved and unmarked, sit at the eastern end, under an aspen tree. Some surmised they were two infants, or perhaps a headstone and foot stone. A newspaper article from 1915 might hold the key to this grave's identity, lost and forgotten for nearly 100 years:<br /><br />Steamboat Pilot, July 28, 1915, page 8<br />RANCHER DROPS DEAD<br />John N. Lane Succumbs to Heart Disease in Lonely Cabin<br /> Friday morning John N. Lane left his brother’s home at Three Forks to go to his cabin about a half a mile away. He seemingly was in good health and spirits. He was building a cabin on his homestead and his brother thought nothing of it when he did not return during the day. <br /> In the evening the brother, Frank Lane, became worried and went to the cabin. His brother was lying face downward on the floor and had been dead for some time. Coroner Bashor and Dr. Kernaghan were called and pronounced the death due to neuralgia of the heart, from which he long had been a sufferer. Burial was at Three Forks Sunday.<br /># # # # <br />I wish there was a way to know for sure!Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-70259438088868290042012-01-19T11:53:00.003-07:002012-01-19T11:54:24.721-07:00Another example of a pioneer's fortitudeHow strong must this man have been to survive this incident? He did later die of his injuries, but the fact he lived so long was remarkable. Also, how merciful is the human brain to prevent him from knowing the extent of his situation?<br /><br /><br />Steamboat Pilot, October 11, 1911, page 8<br />MAN FALLS INTO CAMPFIRE<br />NO HOPE FOR RECOVERY<br />Alex Dunn of Threeforks Country, Sensitive Regarding Afflication, Lies in Cabin Three Days Before He Reveals Horrible Burns to His Neighbors<br /> (From Monday’s Daily.)<br /> With his right arm burned to a crisp, his back and shoulders literally roasted, Alexander Dunn, a pioneer of the Threeforks country, lies in a bed at the Sheridan hotel, cheerful and ready to converse with those who enter the room. Knowing that in all probability he can live but two or three days at the most, Dunn is resigned to his fate and, with the greatest patience, awaits the Grim Reaper.<br /> Dunn, who has lived alone in a little cabin in the Threeforks country, has been engaged in doing ditch work for an irrigation project, and during the cold weather last Monday built a fire to dry his clothes. He has long been subject to epileptic fits and it is surmised that he was stricken and fell into the fire. How long he lay there no one knows. He does not know, and being sensitive regarding his affliction, thinks that his clothes caught fire and burned his body before he could extinguish the flames, but from the manner in which the body is burned, Dunn undoubtedly fell into the fire, his arm falling right into the blaze and the back and side of his body was slowly cooked until he regained consciousness. <br /> With his body burned so terribly that death would have resulted in nine cases out of ten, Dunn managed to get up from his perilous and painful position and walk to his cabin. In some manner known only to himself he undressed and got into bed. Tuesday afternoon, becoming alarmed at Dunn’s absence, a neighbor by the name of Durnham went to the Dunn cabin and there found the unfortunate man in bed. Dunn said nothing to Durnham about his condition and he went away feeling that Dunn was probably slightly indisposed and would be about in a day or two. The next afternoon Dunn got up from his bed and went to the Durnham home where he told his neighbors of his condition. Horrified at the man’s terrible burns and astonished that he could talk rationally, Durnham immediately went to a telephone and summoned Dr. L. G. Blackmer who was asked to drive with all speed and meet the party which was on the way to Steamboat.<br /> Dr. Blackmer met the Durnham wagon at Columbine and dressed Dunn’s injuries, after which he was brought to Steamboat and is now being given every attention possible. <br /> Dunn, who is between 45 and 50 years of age, has a married sister somewhere in Arizona and a brother in the Klondike country. <br /> Hank Fravert, an old-time companion of Dunn, is in constant attendance upon the unfortunate man. <br /> Dunn does not realize that most of his body is burned to a crisp, but he does know that he is in a critical condition.Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8863803449705391537.post-23899490328838306932011-12-31T07:51:00.002-07:002011-12-31T07:53:59.595-07:00Since we have no snow...Here's a poem written by cowhand John Gill in 1939, right here on my ranch. It's called, "Winter on the Little Snake."<br /><br />We were crowded in the bunkhouse, <br />Not a soul did dare to sleep,<br />Twas midnight up at Three Forks,<br />And the snow was six feet deep.<br /><br />It's a terrible thing in that land, <br />To be caught in such a storm,<br />You're forty miles from nowhere,<br />And no way to give alarm.<br /><br />When the storm was over,<br />And the sun began to shine,<br />We scooped the snow off the cattle,<br />And they were looking fine.<br /><br />We lifted our arms to Heaven,<br />Said, "Thank God for just one thing,<br />Today's the Fourth of July,<br />It can't be long 'til spring!"Ciara Pareshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510607287958055247noreply@blogger.com0