ShareIt is Earth Day and that is a good thing, but with the forces marshaled against it, more than one day will be needed. As with all symbols the actual day is the least important part of the movement, which through the Earth Day Network has done great work in bringing to the forefront of peoples’ consciousness our need to conserve.  “Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” –…

ShareAt Tara today in this fateful hour I place all heaven with its power, And the sun with its brightness, And the snow with its whiteness, And the fire with all the strength it has, And lightening with its rapid wrath, And the winds with their swiftness along the path, And the sea with its deepness, And the rocks with their steepness, And the Earth with its starkness, All these I place Between myself and the powers of Darkness SAINT PATRICK   Except for the part about the sea, Saint Patrick might have been describing Montana back in AD 410 or so. In Ireland, they smile benignly at the fervor…

Share   There was a flash of brilliant blue across my vision as I walked home to our cabin from the ranch today. There are rows upon rows of different vegetable seedlings sprouting in the warm, humid greenhouse. They are full of hope with their slim stems straining to support newly unfurled leaves. They almost shout at me when I open the greenhouse door, “Wheee, Yoo Hoo! When do we get to go and play outside? The answer is, “Not so fast young sprouts.” The horses and dogs are shedding their long winter fur coats and when we walk around the ranch lands there are bugs starting to rustle about…

Share    February is the middle of winter. There is more snow recorded in this month for Montana than any other month of the year, the nights are below freezing and during the day the weak sun barely wins the temperature contest against the bitter wind off the Rockies. And yet February marks the start of lambing and calving on the millions of acres of Montanaranchland. A rancher’s year is tuned to this pastoral wheel.  He knows that in February his nights will be disrupted by the insistent alarm clock. At 2 am he will repeat his round of the expectant cows in the birthing pasture. The headlights of his powerful farm truck pick…

ShareThe Charlie Russell paintings on display at the Montana Historical Society in Helena are part of the Mackay Collection. Charles and Nancy Russell were great friends of Malcolm and Helen Mackay who went on to become his primary patron. Though hailing from New Jersey Mackay had, in 1901, proved up on 160 acres between the East and West Rosebud. Over time that would become the Lazy EL, Bench Ranch neighbors here to the south.

Share“I have received your information. Thanks very much for sending this along. We are in the process of collecting resumes and will be in touch soon. -Of course we are thrilled you are Stegner fans!”   We clasped each other and danced about the office. What had a fifty-something couple said to garner such a positive response? The country was in a double death grip with recession and high unemployment and although we were working, our resumes were sparse in many important areas. Everything hinged on the fact that we had been swept away by the books of Wallace Stegner. As we looked for work it helped that we had…