On Raising Pigs

Above – A cool day at pigland, on Squirrel Eating Jon’s place In the old days, people just quietly raised pigs and got on with it. The interesting stuff – feuding, bootlegging, playing the banjo, whittling a possum figurine from basswood, beating-up their cousin. Today, people can’t just raise pigs quietly. It’s all this, “Look

Children Felled by a Peanut

Walk through old cemeteries, like this one above in the kinlands of Squirrel-Eating Jon. See whole families that died of cholera or a flu of some kind. Imagine the mothers lying under those headstones who would have loved for plumbing and vaccines and antibiotics. Be happy for these things too, and keep in mind on

Does This Fence Make My Grizzly Bear Look Fat?

Doing the usual rounds post early-season snow, Squirrel Eating Jon noted the local grizzlies being quite particular about where they crossed the barbed-wire fences that truss our rural world up like a holiday roast. This fella approached the usual fence-crossing point, stopped and had a look, then turned off and followed south to a place

Hunting the Dakota Whitetail – 2021 Season

Like many deer hunters who wish to be successful at their game, Squirrel-Eating Jon likes to do scouting pre and during season. And afterwards as well, to see who made it through. Locally, this entails repurposing a couple of the cameras he had in use keeping tabs on the neighborhood grizzly bears for use at

Cowboys and Bikers

He’d be leaner were he on a horse. We could write a book examining machine versus horse and the effect of each on the human psyche. And body for that matter.  Maybe someone has. There is this big ol store in Calgary from back when called “Stallion Boot & Jean Company.”  You walk in the

Reminiscences on the Summer’s Music and the Essential Effect of Competence on the Human Spirit

Thomas Hart Benton artwork On August 14 Squirrel Eating Jon plied his wares at the local farm market and the music was so bad it had him wondering if there wasn’t some merit after-all in Old Testament punishments for sin. The sin of getting up on stage before your time, for instance. At least 50%

Samuel Barber Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

Nikolay Klodt art Long a favorite. Exquisite. Gil Shaham violin.

Holst Favorite

Gustav Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite op.29 No.2 – Kamerata Artika – live at HMT-Rostock. “Gustav Holst” is a ridiculous name for an Englishman, but his music is anything but.Fabulous! Not recommended for emerging groundhogs. Too much for them right now.

Groundhog Day

Groundhogs (Woodchucks.) Louis Agassiz Fuertes art. A typical example and a rare black, melanistic one such as the author once witnessed in Alberta The marmot family branch of sciuridae to which the groundhog, or woodchuck belongs, is composed of some seriously satisfying squirrels. Here in Alberta we find three of the five or six North

Song of Our Time

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   The falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   The ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worst   Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming