thirty six small notes about grand prarie, beaverlodge, etc.
1) on the road up, somewhere north of glory hills, a fully operaitonal dairy farm is across the highway from 6 fake neo-california tuscan houses.
2) most of the gas stations up here, have fireworks for sale.
3) hiway sign: Live Alpaca
Ideal Livestock
4) kountry seems the perfered spelling everwhgere.
5) near onoway, a giant mural on the side of an atv dealership features swimming elk.
6) a storm almost started b/w onoway and fox creek, and we saw 6 horses, mares and foals, i was told, racing towards more comfortable houses, in something resembling terror.
7) on the road b/w fox creek and valleyview, on a small two lane divided, 12 logging trucks, racing the opposite direction.
8) have to piss an hour from edmonton, i say i have the bladder of a:
chelsea completes: a little girl
sheri completes: an old lady.
9) most of the farms have a kind of ersatz industralism, with qaunset huts and shipping containers being used as outbuildings, and industrial equipment being used as another way to make cash.
10) b/w black soil and almost new spring grass, white lines, claicum or lime deposiots?
11) one field looks purple, a trick of these depoists, and something else.
12) the soil type of broeal forrests is paticher, then the less think aspen prarie parkland.
13) three creeks in a row, near the reserve up here:
goose. woodpecker, chickadee
14) the government when giving land to first nations people, after treaty eight, would often put nations who had tradtional rviarlies in the same place, causing civil war, stories about one such place nearer to johns, called moose lake. discussion of crees as colonialists of truly native people in northern alberta, because they came with the fur traders from out east. (ontario)
15) great town names: gunn, bonazson, glory hills, valleyview,
16) at johns, the first nite: field wander, half watch americas got talent, shoot much, including photos that are as pastoral as anything ive shot
17) told stories of the americans using the local saskatoon hill (why cell phones and the net works out here) as a dewbase, and how that stripped important archelogical sites, only recently did they stop painting white the ovoid base, and i am not sure let it decay or tore it down.
18) i start asking questions about the land, and the ainmals on it, and john moves into teaching mode,. telling me stories unbidden about the local history of cats, cattle, chickens, peacocks, guinea hens. i dont have my notebook in the field, so i dont rember most of them.
19) im pretty good at calming and directing cattle. the first night i must have walked half a male, chasing a read and white piebald calf, his mother on the correct side of the fence, me trying to convince the calf to join the cow.
20) things i heard, that i wouldnt have in the city: bullfrogs, crickets, coyotes, the hum of the electric fence, meadowlarks. the coyotes howl, bark, and gruff up almost like the sounds of domestic animals. i learn that animal sounds are much more gutteral, and untranslateable, when i convince another cow to follow its injured calf. chelsea chases it, and i bellow in response to her calls. so it isnt moo, more like MEEAaaoMoMeh all from the gut
21) amusingly the goat sounds are closer to boing boing. i lead a nanny on a binder twine leash, and pick up a kid to move it, the kid nuzzles me, pretty close to my tits. i wonder if im going to lactate in symptahy.
22) other baby animals, a donkey (all ears and tail), a litter of kittens two weeks old, moved to the barn, sometimes in the barn, a tom kills kittens, to return a (female) cat into estrus. so he can breed again.
23) johns tour of the barnyard feature repairs and projects that needed to be done, narratives of ownership, and history, (he has had the house in the family for three generations?), often his storys are small moral tales of reclaiming what other people thru away as useless or not worth saving. thrift is a xian virture here.
24) im in the house yesterday, and oilmen/landmen come in and negoite for landrights. everyone is on edge, they view the presence of machines to be problematic to the animals, it will fuck up the ground water, the noise will be difficult, and the machines are ugly. no real choice in allowing them as the government has the mineral rights, and any attempts at arbitrating will be decided by a board owned by the oil companies. listening to half understood conversations, both plain talk and code, imn genuinely angry, and when asking sheri about it later, the anger is palatable.
25) follow john twice a day, except for today to complete water and feeding, try to do as much work as possible, so that i am not leeching off of limited resources.
26) i just finished o haras biography city poet, and when he talks about art historical surveys, the people upstairs talked about land surveys.
27) stop in grand prarie, peavy mart, to buy bull castators. rubber rings as tight as a rats assdhole, in bright green, that are pushed apart by pliers to castarate new bull calfs. i buy a bag for rachel.
28) the black and white markings on african guinea hens, look like masai body paint or decoration on dogon houses.
29) old craft is hidden in the broken sheds here (ferriers, hand crafted corners, wagons)
30) the one thing i didnt shoot, that i asked and didnt receive permission to shoot, was a dead calf. a twin, he was lost, and though found alive, died soon after. it will be burried in the manure pile to rot, and the message here seems to be muck to muck. john was visibly upset, he comforts calfs who were in pain, and ignored being pissed on when he carried a injured calf thru the fields.
31) kneeling next to a calf, holding it down, sometimes its legs open, when tagging and castrating, you can see the terror on the faces. i am wondering how i can eat meat sometimes, then i realise tis a sentimental, bullshit city boy reaction to an ancient process, one that has been humanized. john often comforts the calves after this procedure.
32) the photos of me doing work are for the sake of proving that i have done work, i feel a bit stalinist for this.
33) a conversation about xian sexual ethics in the car with johns mom was kind of more then awkard.
34) the food all tastes amazing. and is largely from 10 miles, reminding me of the recent local/slow food movement. i am hoping to take back canning.
35) took photos of the brethern church, a mennoite sect that has some difficult positions related to gender, and whos church front qoutes jonah.
36) the farm house reminds me of gramma conrads, esp the smell.
37) one of the cows last night had mastosis, an infection of the udders and milkchannels (really word please), john millked her for more then an hour, then gave her needles, was kicked in the kenee by the process.
38) he can tell almost every grass in the field here, and you can tell its a dry season by the large amounts of craked dirt, the field looked at in small places tells larger patterns.
39) im at home, because john and melvin are working on moving another farmers cattle, a cousin of johns, so i would be in the way.
40) i feel useful, the work is immediate, and the consquences are dire if the work is left undone. no profundity there, but impt.
