The Past and the Present

You might say that I’m living a life many of my friends would call simple and rustic.  My cabin is small, I’m surrounded by rugged mountains, I hike and live around grizzlies and wolves.  The dangers I have to stay aware of are not car break-ins or being mugged on a dark street, but being [...]

The babies and Medicine Lodge Park

Here are the baby bluebirds several days ago.  Now here they are today.  Boy do they grow fast. Last week I took a trip to Medicine Lodge State park near Hyattville.  A well-tended State Park, the spot is an oasis in the Big Horn Basin.  This site was excavated in the 70′s by George Frison.  [...]

Tipi Rings

I thought I’d do a short post on a few teepee rings I’ve seen.  The other day I was in Cody with some time to kill.  I’d heard there were tipi rings on the north side of the Shoshone river by Trail Creek.  A friend told me the historical wisdom-lore was that many tribes gathered [...]

Indigenous peoples, old and new

Mesa Verde, Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients, together, all tell a story of what the Land and the Life around the Four Corners was 1200 or more years ago.  Over 30,000 people lived in the surrounding valleys and mesas, much more than today.  Their culture and architecture slowly evolving and developing, its thought they [...]

Blackfeet, Wolves and emblems of the Spirit

I just finished reading a wonderful little book by James Schultz.  Schultz lived with the Blackfeet Indians starting around 1880 and took an Indian wife.  He learned their language and soon, as a very young man who came out from the east coast, became accepted into the tribe as one of their own.  He, along [...]

Only the wind sang

Yesterday I met Larry Todd over at the Dead Indian Campground site.  Larry is an archaeologist working mostly in the Greybull area.  I contacted him several months ago because he was in charge of the dig in the ’80′s at the Bugas-Holding site, a Shoshone winter campground 400 years old.  I had many questions, and [...]

Clark’s Fork hike and the vilified wolf

The dump is just up the road about 20 minutes.  Its an auxiliary dump, meaning its for locals and basically a large canister with a locked fence around it.  The whole idea is to prevent bears from getting in, and to help locals with their trash and bear management.  Last year though I did see [...]

Teepee Rings and the Spirit Wind

Someone gave me one of those mid-range expensive weather stations, the kind with an indoor readout that talks with an outdoor unit.  It also talks to a satellite for date, time, and moon phases.  There is a feature on it that tells you a forecast: an arrow up or down, sun or clouds. This morning [...]

The Dreaming

This winter I went to Australia with my son.  Its the perfect place for a California Landscape Designer to explore, as its just one of the five Mediterranean climates around the world.  I use a lot of the plant material from there, and to see these plants in their native environments is interesting and instructive. [...]