You are the best kind of dork. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and thank you for the audio of your campsite breakfast. Those sounds were like music to my ears. They brought back a flood of happy memories.
I am intrigued by the concept of private property rights trumping other's right to survival--unless, of course, those efforts to survive are conducted in a way that comports with, and contributes to, the dominate social and economic system; unless they contribute to the wealth and power of those who own the resources and make the rules. I will ruminate some more upon this theme.
We'll see how I manage to navigate it! The camera is DAUNTING. I am actually hunting up your photography course so I can go through it again with an actual camera and figure out what the heck I'm doing.
"Technology." That's the key - the teaching to people that borders and barriers and property ownership are human inventions, as much as barbed wire. They don't exist, except where we've imagined them up, usually hand in hand with theft from each other (and then, logic whispers, they can be imagined back down again). The hardest of tasks. Not an impossible one, hopefully.
This might be an interesting topic to dig into, actually. What in the human world objectively exists and what is a human invention that wouldn't exist without us willing/conceptualising it into being? I bet there are plenty of things that would be on an unexpected side of that line...
Not an impossible one and you know what makes it INTERESTING as well as probably and possible? Curiosity! I might know a newsletter about that ...
Is this almost a question of "if a tree falls in the forest and nobody was there to hear it, did it make a sound?" Or more like "is mathematics discovered or invented?"
In Scandinavia there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing…I’m worried for your arms! Uninvited lecture over…just next time: long thick sleeves, please!
I really like the clearing of the wire to give the pronghorn a chance not to injure themselves.
And…no smartphone. Oh man. The whole technology shtick in this piece is interesting…I think what you’re saying is that some technology is cool, braid not barbed wire, and needed to just keep things moving enough. But the wrong technology, in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, owning the wrong thing is just bad news for all of us…radical or not so radical (I guess I’m the not so radical guy in this very specific domain).
I grow camassias (which, I think are related to camas) in the garden…their celestial blue is…well, it’s celestial.
Lecture welcome! I had meant to bring a sturdy long-sleeved button-up that I usually throw on for this kind of thing, but it had been a long week and I forgot. Lesson learned! And the scratches are healing, though I did go update my tetanus shot.
Technology is something I think about in this way all the time, yes. What we choose, what destroys versus what promotes life (like, pesticides and herbicides are a technology that helps people grow food but so was, and is, carefully-managed fire, and the spillover consequences of each of those are very different).
I just looked it up and it looks like camas IS camassias, of the asparagus family. How lovely!
Oh golly, those minutes of listening to you make breakfast conjured so many emotions, memories (backpack trail crew, Mule packer life)— and hopes/ plans for future such breakfasts.
Back in my Selway- Bitterroot packing days, we used to weigh down the mules as we hauled out rolls and rolls of the #9 phone wire that once criss- crossed the wilderness, lookout to lookout and all along the river. Hurrah for the volunteers who did the rolling! You 40 years ago…
Thank you for sharing that memory, Sarah! How beautiful. And , thank you in particular for hauling out that wire! Isn't it wild to think of people installing that across the mountain ranges all those years ago?
I love the feeling of making camp coffee with the sunrise. There's nothing quite like it, is there? Love that you share that!
Thank you, Nia. That was lovely to first read and then listen to. I can't wait to hear more about the moving away from a smartphone. The audio sounded very good, but mostly hearing you brings life to your words. I also wanted to point you to a podcast, which you might have heard: 99% Invisible and their episode called, "Devil's Rope." https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/devils-rope/ Be well!
I need to listen to that episode! It's not a podcast I listen to unless someone sends me a particular episode, and this sounds like a good one.
There was one section of fence that had a strand of antique wire on top. I might not have recognized it, but one of the older guys on the crew knew it instantly. Even when I want this stuff to disappear, I find it so interesting.
So beautiful Nia. I want to be out there with you removing that damned wire. Camas always has such a profound place in my heart, mourning what was done to the lands that once held such sustenance and beauty, as you write. Small moments of healing are still worth it in a world that insists on borders, fences, and privation.
I remember you writing about camas where you grew up in Oregon, I think? It's amazing to realize how much of the entire Pacific Northwest must have been abundant in food before being taken for cows and wheat. So much to repair ... but seeing camas blooming anywhere is such a gift.
That sky behind you in the first set of photos is amazing & what a great way to spend a day. Thank you for sharing your insights and I look forward to hearing more about your new phone endeavor!
Thank you, Lindsey! And yes, the phone thing is an adventure! I've already run into a lot of unexpected snafus but am managing. Biggest thing is I really need to learn how to use my camera (this is not in my skill set). Also, I am taking a few days off with a couple friends and we bought a tarot deck yesterday. It's so pretty!
Universal Tarot with Robert de Angelis's art. I thought it was the most approachable one that didn't feel like proclaiming a kind of expectation of the deck, if that makes sense?
I shall be ordering Elementals! I'm glad you've been off having fun and doing important work.
We're in Boise for the night on our way back from a road trip from Boulder to Santa Fe to Durango. We've seen a couple of pronghorn ruminating at the side of a farmer's field in San Luis valley, cows on public land in a wooded valley at 8500 feet, center pivot irrigated alfalfa all over the southern Idaho plateau, destined for export or dairy cows, and barbed wire everywhere there's sagebrush.
We also visited Taos Pueblo. There's a water story coming.
All the stories of the American West and hubris and water, right there in one paragraph ... The alfalfa is such a huge one. And it's simply for cow food.
One of the things that makes the work hard is that the sagebrush is tough and the wire often has to be cut out of it, or the sagebrush itself cut. They're not very compatible.
In California's eponymous Antelope Valley, 30,000 pronghorns died of starvation when they declined to cross a railroad laid across their migration route.
Amazing volunteer work you are doing. Breaking up the borders, fences, and obstacles that hamper earth's natural flow in any way we can is moving in the right direction. Thank you for doing the work and sharing it with your readers.
Thank you! I wish I had more strength and stamina to do more, but it really does feel good, especially when you see the animals you're working to help roaming more easily through their home. (And pronghorn are so darn cool.)
I ordered Elementals a while back on the strength of the Kinship Series, and Gavin, Robin, and John. This is good news indeed, to hear that your essay is in Air. Of course!! Well done. 🌱
Oh, I'm so glad! I think it's going to be wonderful. I'm excited to read all the other essays, especially in Air, which was a topic guide I found weirdly difficult to approach.
Yes, once again the story of camas being eradicated for "cow food" reminds me that the "wasteland" of Australia was more akin to prairie before sheep and rabbits gobbled it all up. Time to turn it back to living land. I bought a sweetgrass basket in Charleston. It's a work of art, but it's to remind me of what I read in Braiding Sweetgrass, when I look at it.
I bet that basket is beautiful, and smells beautiful, too!
I need to read some more about Australian ecology. I read The Fatal Shore years and years ago and it's good but it's not really about the pre-colonial continent.
You are the best kind of dork. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and thank you for the audio of your campsite breakfast. Those sounds were like music to my ears. They brought back a flood of happy memories.
I am intrigued by the concept of private property rights trumping other's right to survival--unless, of course, those efforts to survive are conducted in a way that comports with, and contributes to, the dominate social and economic system; unless they contribute to the wealth and power of those who own the resources and make the rules. I will ruminate some more upon this theme.
It’s fun hearing from people who have visceral associations with those camp sounds! It’s always the same for me, too.
I got a chance to write about private property rights/ownership and survival for High Country News (will share on next post), but there’s always so much more to say: https://www.hcn.org/articles/the-theft-of-the-commons/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
As someone said in a comment a couple years ago, “skin in the game” counts for a lot more than “skin” in capitalism (but other, older, systems, too).
What a great way to spend your time! I feel inspired to try and take down some barbed wire now...
It is very satisfying but don’t forget the long sleeves!
The phone is gone! Yay! Yet another reason you're my hero! (I'm here for camera advice.)
We'll see how I manage to navigate it! The camera is DAUNTING. I am actually hunting up your photography course so I can go through it again with an actual camera and figure out what the heck I'm doing.
So beautifully put, all of this.
"Technology." That's the key - the teaching to people that borders and barriers and property ownership are human inventions, as much as barbed wire. They don't exist, except where we've imagined them up, usually hand in hand with theft from each other (and then, logic whispers, they can be imagined back down again). The hardest of tasks. Not an impossible one, hopefully.
This might be an interesting topic to dig into, actually. What in the human world objectively exists and what is a human invention that wouldn't exist without us willing/conceptualising it into being? I bet there are plenty of things that would be on an unexpected side of that line...
Not an impossible one and you know what makes it INTERESTING as well as probably and possible? Curiosity! I might know a newsletter about that ...
Is this almost a question of "if a tree falls in the forest and nobody was there to hear it, did it make a sound?" Or more like "is mathematics discovered or invented?"
Hey Antonia,
In Scandinavia there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing…I’m worried for your arms! Uninvited lecture over…just next time: long thick sleeves, please!
I really like the clearing of the wire to give the pronghorn a chance not to injure themselves.
And…no smartphone. Oh man. The whole technology shtick in this piece is interesting…I think what you’re saying is that some technology is cool, braid not barbed wire, and needed to just keep things moving enough. But the wrong technology, in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, owning the wrong thing is just bad news for all of us…radical or not so radical (I guess I’m the not so radical guy in this very specific domain).
I grow camassias (which, I think are related to camas) in the garden…their celestial blue is…well, it’s celestial.
Lecture welcome! I had meant to bring a sturdy long-sleeved button-up that I usually throw on for this kind of thing, but it had been a long week and I forgot. Lesson learned! And the scratches are healing, though I did go update my tetanus shot.
Technology is something I think about in this way all the time, yes. What we choose, what destroys versus what promotes life (like, pesticides and herbicides are a technology that helps people grow food but so was, and is, carefully-managed fire, and the spillover consequences of each of those are very different).
I just looked it up and it looks like camas IS camassias, of the asparagus family. How lovely!
Oh golly, those minutes of listening to you make breakfast conjured so many emotions, memories (backpack trail crew, Mule packer life)— and hopes/ plans for future such breakfasts.
Back in my Selway- Bitterroot packing days, we used to weigh down the mules as we hauled out rolls and rolls of the #9 phone wire that once criss- crossed the wilderness, lookout to lookout and all along the river. Hurrah for the volunteers who did the rolling! You 40 years ago…
Thank you for sharing that memory, Sarah! How beautiful. And , thank you in particular for hauling out that wire! Isn't it wild to think of people installing that across the mountain ranges all those years ago?
I love the feeling of making camp coffee with the sunrise. There's nothing quite like it, is there? Love that you share that!
Thank you, Nia. That was lovely to first read and then listen to. I can't wait to hear more about the moving away from a smartphone. The audio sounded very good, but mostly hearing you brings life to your words. I also wanted to point you to a podcast, which you might have heard: 99% Invisible and their episode called, "Devil's Rope." https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/devils-rope/ Be well!
I need to listen to that episode! It's not a podcast I listen to unless someone sends me a particular episode, and this sounds like a good one.
There was one section of fence that had a strand of antique wire on top. I might not have recognized it, but one of the older guys on the crew knew it instantly. Even when I want this stuff to disappear, I find it so interesting.
So beautiful Nia. I want to be out there with you removing that damned wire. Camas always has such a profound place in my heart, mourning what was done to the lands that once held such sustenance and beauty, as you write. Small moments of healing are still worth it in a world that insists on borders, fences, and privation.
I remember you writing about camas where you grew up in Oregon, I think? It's amazing to realize how much of the entire Pacific Northwest must have been abundant in food before being taken for cows and wheat. So much to repair ... but seeing camas blooming anywhere is such a gift.
Ooh elementals 😍
That sky behind you in the first set of photos is amazing & what a great way to spend a day. Thank you for sharing your insights and I look forward to hearing more about your new phone endeavor!
Thank you, Lindsey! And yes, the phone thing is an adventure! I've already run into a lot of unexpected snafus but am managing. Biggest thing is I really need to learn how to use my camera (this is not in my skill set). Also, I am taking a few days off with a couple friends and we bought a tarot deck yesterday. It's so pretty!
Yay! May it bring you lots of fun and insight!! Which deck??
Universal Tarot with Robert de Angelis's art. I thought it was the most approachable one that didn't feel like proclaiming a kind of expectation of the deck, if that makes sense?
Thank you for doing such necessary work, Nia, and I’m looking forward to Elementals!
Much gratitude, Greg!
What a great contribution you made to the world with those hours of work. It might feel small to you but it isn't.
Thank you, Michael!
I shall be ordering Elementals! I'm glad you've been off having fun and doing important work.
We're in Boise for the night on our way back from a road trip from Boulder to Santa Fe to Durango. We've seen a couple of pronghorn ruminating at the side of a farmer's field in San Luis valley, cows on public land in a wooded valley at 8500 feet, center pivot irrigated alfalfa all over the southern Idaho plateau, destined for export or dairy cows, and barbed wire everywhere there's sagebrush.
We also visited Taos Pueblo. There's a water story coming.
All the stories of the American West and hubris and water, right there in one paragraph ... The alfalfa is such a huge one. And it's simply for cow food.
One of the things that makes the work hard is that the sagebrush is tough and the wire often has to be cut out of it, or the sagebrush itself cut. They're not very compatible.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-28/alfalfa-hay-beef-water-colorado-river
And so on.
In California's eponymous Antelope Valley, 30,000 pronghorns died of starvation when they declined to cross a railroad laid across their migration route.
God, that's heartbreaking.
https://digital-desert.com/antelope-valley/antelope-of-antelope-valley.html
Boise-based singer-songwriter Eilen Jewell has a song "Boundary County" in which the protagonist sings:
"I miss the barbed wire and the sage
On that wild northern range"
Incompatible, but intertwined, literally and metaphorically.
There's a romance to it.
Here's one for you, "Before Barbed Wire" by Montana composer Philip Aaberg: https://open.spotify.com/track/2EHfKnqfodgkOJsSX4kzh6?si=9353333c8e6c40a1
Thanks. https://open.spotify.com/track/5yPBPkEKIRbAlxBib2eXBZ?si=c51ea1cca5c04ef8 Boundary County
Amazing volunteer work you are doing. Breaking up the borders, fences, and obstacles that hamper earth's natural flow in any way we can is moving in the right direction. Thank you for doing the work and sharing it with your readers.
Thank you! I wish I had more strength and stamina to do more, but it really does feel good, especially when you see the animals you're working to help roaming more easily through their home. (And pronghorn are so darn cool.)
Pronghorn are beautiful creatures. To see any animals being able to roam free is such a gift in our present world.
I ordered Elementals a while back on the strength of the Kinship Series, and Gavin, Robin, and John. This is good news indeed, to hear that your essay is in Air. Of course!! Well done. 🌱
Oh, I'm so glad! I think it's going to be wonderful. I'm excited to read all the other essays, especially in Air, which was a topic guide I found weirdly difficult to approach.
Yes, once again the story of camas being eradicated for "cow food" reminds me that the "wasteland" of Australia was more akin to prairie before sheep and rabbits gobbled it all up. Time to turn it back to living land. I bought a sweetgrass basket in Charleston. It's a work of art, but it's to remind me of what I read in Braiding Sweetgrass, when I look at it.
I bet that basket is beautiful, and smells beautiful, too!
I need to read some more about Australian ecology. I read The Fatal Shore years and years ago and it's good but it's not really about the pre-colonial continent.