http://www.myoats.com/

I think it was the first link I ever shared on facebook. It was interesting to go back and look again.

(except for hot running water on tap)

from observando

Leta and I did not make it to the homestead, as we were on the next hill over. It looks like a nice gentle walk up the hill but it’s not. <grin> Me and Leta, and Elmer and Little Guy, decided not to take the road, since it’s longer and we were late, behind the rest of the group by about an hour. We decided to go straight up. It was a workout! But the view was heavenly, so incredibly beautiful. Breathtaking, really. And the second wind, when it hits, feels so good. The dogs loved it, being out and able to really run around. I could really tell Elmer is not a young dog, since he was walking even slower than I on the way back. I gave him some aspirin last night and today he’s crashed out.

If you click on the picture, it should open up for a better view. These photographs were generously shared by Cindy Doll.

Or—Spiffy Films needs actors and actresses! “Really badly.” Ha ha ha ha! Actually I think that one is outdated, I just found one of Sean’s old papers from one of his middle school ventures. Funny!

Yellowstone Park is magical, powerful, amazing, wonderful … no, scratch all that, there really aren’t any words. It is the middle of a giant caldera, and it’s indescribable, and you must, absolutely must, visit there at least once before you die. I personally, can not spend enough time there, it’s scary and exciting and the colors are unreal.

Can you imagine being the First People, to discover this place when there were not loads of people in cars and tourists wanting to get up close for a good picture of a wild bear or buffalo (not smart!)

This summer the Yellowstone Association Institute, Yellowstone’s field school, is proud to offer scholarships for educators.  These tuition scholarships allow teachers to attend Institute field seminars at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch or the Overlook Field Campus in Gardiner, MT.  This summer’s offerings include in-depth courses on Yellowstone’s wildlife, cultural history, and geology, as well as seminars in photography, writing, and painting.  Teachers do critical work connecting students with wild places and National Parks.  We hope these scholarships can help further those connections.

For more information visit our page on field seminars (below) and click on the "Teacher Scholarships" link.  Please forward to any teachers in the Greater Yellowstone that you think might be interested.

http://www.yellowstoneassociation.org/institute/fieldSeminars.aspx

Kind regards,

MQK

Mike Kautz
Operations Manager
Yellowstone Association Institute
P.O. Box 117
Yellowstone National Park, WY  82190 
mkautz@yellowstoneassociation.org
www.YellowstoneAssociation.org

It’s not possible to show how high up we were, but my leg muscles know the truth! It was quite a workout for Elmer too, but it was clear he loved it.

If one uses religion to feel "part of" something, or one with the universe, that seems a nice and pleasant thing, as long as it’s not insisting everyone be a part of the same thing. But it’s sad when it is based on making people feel they are small or bad or ignorant or never good enough or complacent with Patriarchy ☨ (we must bring back that word to identify this conditioning we’re still receiving all the time.)

But (in my not so humble opinion)

**It’s not normal or healthy to love everyone. And many religions teach you should strive to love everybody and try to be like Christ, who gave his life, a blood sacrifice, to cleanse everyone of their original sin, or badness, they were born with. So it is teaching people they *should* feel something that is 1. unattainable and 2. not normal or healthy.  (I’ll not get started on the problems with Buddhism and the like in this post.) I think love is not only a word but something you DO. To me love is a powerful and deep feeling and way of acting. Sharing unique and priceless gifts. To me love is offering my finite amount of lifeTIME. To me, love is loyal and stays true, no matter what, unconditional. To me, love includes sacrifice, to put someone else’s needs ahead of mine. It’s not possible to have this powerful and deep LOVE for "everyone" and it’s not something anyone can do outside of mythology, and it wouldn’t be healthy or beneficial to extend that to everyone a person meets. Would I offer Hitler the shirt off my back? No — I don’t love him and I judge I need my shirt more. Would I give Osama bin Laden a trial? Yes–I don’t love him but justice includes due process and does not include murder. This notion of love that the dominant religion pushes on people does not extend to ACTIONS, you’re supposed to "love everybody" but homicide is perfectly at home within that circle of "love."  In personal life I feel I have quite an open mind and try to understand the journey each person has come through–but I *do* judge people, as we all must, and want my children to learn how to judge people -hopefully with fairness and eyes looking deeply past the superficial masks on the outside.  I can attempt to learn from everyone, but I don’t have to love or spend time with people who are not kind, and I would not leave my child in the care of people I judge to be unsafe. To live in this world, the real world in which we exist, it is necessary to judge and it is necessary to NOT love everybody.

**Compassion and understanding are things to strive for. I think we are better people, and we feel better, ☻ if we can have compassion and understanding. And understanding can help us learn how to alleviate and/or prevent or avoid some of the evils and suffering in the world.

**Justice and fairness are required. Must be insisted upon-demanded-fought for. In our daily actions but even more so in our law and institutional systems. Fairness requires we base these things on equality and rational measures and *universal human rights*–not subjective emotions that are in fact unfair. For example, from day one, persons in our society "love" white people just a little bit more (the doll studies show that fact clearly, as do all measurements of our criminal justice system and other measures) We also "love" men just a little bit more (this is proven in every measurement too) In my observations people seem to "love" people with money quite a bit more too. I’m certain that could be proven if we did a study.  In all of these situations–it’s wrong. We must demand and insist on fairness and justice, not love.  Everyone has value and worth as a human being, we must protect the equality and human dignity of each person. I am not saying justice is so much clearer or easier  than love-but we should fight for justice, throughout our entire lives, love or not.  In fact it is very hard. But determining the *right* thing to *do* is important and absolutely necessary. More important and more necessary than trying to love everybody.

Our country is the most powerful in the world– if we could choose to strive for human rights we could make the world an immensely better place. We could elevate the condition of billions and relieve the suffering of humanity worldwide. Praying that we can love everybody has a number of problems which makes it mostly useless.

Instead of church, my plan is to take regular time to study and learn what human rights include http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights.html and how it needs to be done http://www.justiceharvard.org/

We need to get our fishy vitamins somehow, and after reading that a recent sample of 1200 purchases, 75% of the fish in the stores were not the fish the labels claimed. Bad bad news for certain people, like pregnant women. And anyone else who cares about their exposure to damaging heavy metals and other toxins our oceans and waterways are polluted with.

I am hoping sardines or anchovies might be a healthier alternative to the sausage and pepperoni I keep wanting to add to pasta salad. Turkey ham…. I just don’t know what’s in it!

I am reading the Cook Like a Rockstar cookbook. Perhaps I will be more excited about it when I try some of the recipes, but so far it’s not making me want to jam.

I made another batch of home-made dog food for the dogs, and was glad to find this. Other links have different info. One thing I know for sure, dogs are much more interested in squash and green beans when they are mixed with venison than when they are not. They love the home-made food as much as canned, but I know the healthy ingredients that are in the home-made stuff.

~~

In the news:

Meanwhile a family from Libby is having to take the 9-yr-old with autoimmune cancer-like disease to a far city for expensive treatments for certain complications. I am glad Medicaid will pay for the basic medical care. This is taxpayers picking up the tab. And the WR Grace company goes free, not one person accountable for knowingly polluting the entire area and causing such ongoing suffering, pain, and death. The family begs for money from strangers to try to get enough dollars so someone can travel with the child to the far away place. Ronald McDonald house only provides so much.

Our Montana state legislators are the ones I view as responsible. They’ve allowed this crime against innocent people to continue. They allowed this “person” to murder, with no consequences. And the profits made from the production are also gone to far away places, making more money, buying more politicians, extracting more wealth from resources all over the world, leaving more shit for other people to clean up.

Friday hiking with the dogs.

I didn’t bother to take much in the way of pictures. It was so spectacular but in the cloudy way– dark dramatic clouds and miles of hills and the distances of the outdoors in Montana. I have to save it in my head since my photos can never capture how breathtakingly beautiful it is.

Our leader Richard has died and I wasn’t ready. I wanted him to show me more.

I didn’t get to know him long enough. I admired him so very much.

Here’s the beginning of the walk on that particular day:

See that little road in the middle of this panorama? We walked all the way up there, and turned around and looked at how high up we were and how far we could see….

Richard’s red coat was nice –easy to spot from a distance. He always walked farther…

This is Pat on the right, who always kindly answers all my questions. On this particular hike she pointed out when we were standing in a patch of bitterroot and it was so lovely, I knew my camera wouldn’t be able to show how beautiful the succulent, star-shaped plants were coming up, not yet flowering.

This is a large laundry basket with squash and gourds from our garden. The large orange oval with green tips are Lakota heirloom squash, and there are some birdhouse gourds, and little acorns that needed more time.

And this is a black cat named Fairy, sitting in a window with a crocheted doily, a rainbow-tie-dyed curtain, a collection of crystals, some antique blue glasses, a glass moon with a crystal star. The lilac tree outside the window we planted in 1997 so we would eventually have something beautiful to look at instead of the neighbor’s house only a few feet away. That is one plant placement I’m pleased with the results.