Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Making Peace, Piece by Piece
4/6/11 07:58 am


Apache in the yard yesterday. A very learned Apache at that. Very interesting character is Rabbit. He has a degree in criminal justice and practiced for a time after college but missed the outdoors and fresh air. At 61 he has no gray in his hair which is very common for Native Americans not to go gray until very late in life. (This must be true for me as I am a throwback to the Oklahoma Choctaw in our heritage. Just a drop in my bucket but it seems to be genetic.) He makes rain sticks and I want to trade for one for some necklaces he needs restringing. I pretty much spent all day talking to him as he worked and as I worked cleaning out the aviary. He is extremely through, and very conscientious about what he does. Rabbit not only cleaned out the space we had contracted him for but raked and cleaned the entire yard including the side yard which is "no mans land." He talked about living on the Res and how the Mescaleros are warned not to get "white man's disease" when they leave. "Greed is the disease and money and power are corrupting", he stated. All the trappings of the white world have a tendency to pollute the young natives lives, he sadly acknowledged.

His appearance is straight out of a Geronimo movie, wizened face, headband, muscular arms. He looks as if he could leap on a pony and raid a village. But he is very kind and yet I could see he was demanding. His helper Chester (really, his name was "Chester ") said hardly two words the whole time except that he wasn't afraid of dogs, he lied. Dogs know when you lie and before he could even get into the yard, Chang lunged at him growling. Yogi didn't like Chester either and Frida promptly went and hid. Zeno was the only one that even gave him a howdy but Zeno is such a gentleman. Chang had to be confined inside. He did not like Chester's vibe but had no problem at all with Rabbit who obviously was unafraid and ignored the dogs.

Rabbit loves art, you can tell and spent a good deal of time talking about it and that he makes it too. But besides the great company I enjoyed with Rabbit, I got a very organized and clean back yard. It looks magnificent, well, except for the dead stuff. But everything happens for a reason, I reason and if we hadn't had a freeze, we wouldn't have got this stuff done. And the money that we got from our second hand stuff sold to Elaine from Santa Fe has paid for all the work and materials!

We are heading for Ruidoso on Saturday and were just planning on spending the day working and heading home but since my cousins are in Alamo and my Aunt has just been diagnosed with cancer (incurable and inoperable) we are going to meet up and visit a bit on our way up. This will entail us spending the night in Ruidoso and Mary has graciously consented to watch Nate and feed the dogs. Nate can fend for himself but the dogs need feeding and Nate needs some "body" to be here at night. He loves Mare and she knows his routine(s). Saturday night is usually "soup" night and Sunday he can figure it out.

Plan on picking up the railroad ties we have on our property for our garden here. We have room now for some new beds and raised bed gardening is the only way to go on this rock we live on. (Otherwise, you have to dig through the caliche and I assure you, that is NO FUN!! Been there, done that!!) Plus, when we rake up the pine needles, I need some for mulch in the new (and old) beds so we will be bringing those home too. And, I am hopefully going to contact the environmental department to see if our idea of a composting toilet will fly with them. Cec is skeptical as he believes, perhaps rightly, that they are so intent on paying for their new water treatment plant that the requirements for water on the property will be a law. Hope not as hookups are really expensive now and the monthly water fees would kill us. Guess I will find out, one way or another.

Now that the aviary area is cleaned out, I can really start thinking about a few hens. Cecil is not sold on the idea, mainly because of my health and that is understandable. I have days where I can barely move and taking care of any livestock be it chickens or dogs or whatever can be a chore. My finches were extremely labor intensive and I think that is what he remembers and I swore I would not have anything that required care ever again. I lied. And besides, chickens are easy and you get a lot of benefits from them. I have already designed the course of action I just need to get my best friend and mate on board. He was really skeptical about the "pit bull" too but the clown has wormed his way into his heart as has Frida, the "nutball". We care for four dogs 4 days a week and they are hardly any trouble (less than children, I assure you.)

Anyways, chickens are very easy to care for and highly entertaining. Plus, fresh eggs!!! I will have to choose my breeds wisely and fortunately for me "My Pet Chicken" sells you just three tiny chicks so you don't have to buy a huge flock. They will have to be breeds that can take the extreme heat and cold, don't mind being caged (a really big cage for three chicks) and are docile and friendly. I don't want no flighty chickens even tho I will name one Amelia Earhart! They will be pets as well as workers. (Chickens like to work.) They only lay in the spring and summer and take a vacation in the winter. Their needs are small, scratch, water and feed. Clean up will entail a straw bed that can be used in the compost and garden (chicken shit is good shit) and they love bad bugs and any leavings from the kitchen. Composters! If there are any left over eggs, I can sell them at the market(s). Sound good? I think so. Now if I can only get the "old goat" to agree. Wish me luck, I am pretty good at convincing him and he is more than likely wanting to make me happy and chickens would make me ecstatic!!!


Note: caliche is also known as "hardpan" and is pretty much like cement and very common in the hills of Phar Lepht.

Links:
Apache ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mescalero
Oklahoma Choctaw ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw_Nation_of_Oklahoma
Geronimo ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo
My Pet Chicken ~ http://www.mypetchicken.com/about-chickens/

The journal, tracing life as it is lived. I also have a close association with native nations. A good friend of mine is an Ojibwa poet by the name of Duke Redbird, a very interesting fellow. At 72 he is all grey with his locks half way down his back...
I had a teacher many years ago who was an archaeologist, he use to take me on digs and I was allowed to keep the odd piece of pottery and arrowheads. I made jewelry out of them for my girlfriend. She has 500 year old jewelery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9_gbYRA9PE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwa

Thanks for reading Kurt, I guess the getting gray thing is tribal. The Pueblo people and the plains people of the desert Southwest tend not to gray until their eighties.

We and family and friends have picked up many an arrowhead, beads, and even a matate (a grinding bowl of rock which I use in the yard for a birdbath) in the area around here.

Old jewelry is very cool, I have a neckpiece that I made of ancient, ancient shell beads that a friend found. It is from a tribe that is long gone now. It is very powerful or feels that way when I wear it. I also have a piece of old trade bracelet (called "Pawn" for the tribes traded for blankets, liquor or some gee gaw or another) that my mother gave to me... It is too heavy with turquoise and silver to wear comfortably.

Ya I remember travel through your neck of the woods and meeting natives festooned with turquoise. Finding native relics around here is hard. they tend to be buried and are often found when excavation is being done for houses, or mining. I use to do a lot of painting that was native influenced. i took them to a gallery and turned down because they didn't deal in native art. i tried explaining I wasn't native but they stood their ground. We have a lot of controversy around here regarding Indian land claims. There were a lot of treaties signed by our gov't that were never honoured. As a child my father was a real woodsman and taught his craft my sister and myself. She is better than me, but it has given both of us an appreciation for the land.

There a antiquities everywhere here. The trick is to leave it alone mostly as it is a history book according to the anthropologists but it just lays in your path... I can tell your appreciation of the land by your art which I love.

You and Cecil really are pretty special and very creative folks. The next time I fly down to Mexico I'll have to parachute down for a visit.

mi casa es su...! A safe place to land.