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

Close Shave with a Twister

This past July 7 sometime not long after midday, Squirrel-Eating Jon went upstairs for nap, belly full of a nice dinner of squirrels. He had only just laid down on the ancient lumpy mattress when there came the rumble of thunder. That’s odd, he thought, he had not noticed clouds. The day nonetheless – the

Eating Squirrels Part Two

Fast forward to the high plains of Alberta. A brief account of the legendary archetypal predecessor to generations of later squirrel-eaters erupting on the scene before subsiding into legend being the preamble here. John “Gopher John” Fersden who roamed the huge spaces surrounding the town of Gleichen, once hub of that section of the plains.

A Very Dark Night

This was in early October. Coming back from the farm market in Calgary town after 7 pm it was already getting dark and by the time of arrival back at the farm full dark. And on this particular night, dark as it ever gets, night of the Dark Moon. This was in the years before

Too Much Water?

Hooded Mergansers. J.F. Lansdowne art. That year, now lost in the mists of obscurity, when Squirrel Eating Jon and his woman A.D. moved to the new farm in order to resume farming, Jon had a cunning plan. It involved the willow wetland that scribed a graceful arc below the house, the breadth of a generous-sized

Letter of Introduction

To Whom it may concern… See the man at his zenith. An image here of profoundest vulnerability as much as it is one of classical resilience, given the context of crushing machines in which we find ourselves embedded, dependent. Accidental ape of sparse pelt and putty hue, why do such superior beasts accept you as