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

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%

Education of a Snake Hunter – Chapter Two

Pilot blacksnake “Does overwhelming change, the annihilation of all you know, create an intensity of memory that would not have existed otherwise?” – Charles Frazier Surely the Creelman’s, inhabitants of the old homestead on the plateau were thoroughly acquainted with the holy grail of his later teens and early twenties.  This being the great pilot

Deer Season 2020. The Big Woods Bucks that Got Away

Some of the big Dakotaensis bucks out here are fully 200 times the size of a squirrel. Whitetail season in his part of Alberta lasts but a month. The ungulates are doing very well here as in many places, but this is about as much hunting pressure as they can take regardless relative to the

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