You would have a tough time being a vegetarian in my neck of the woods, if you depended only on wild plants. Most of the tribes subsisted on meat, supplemented by plant foods for variety. Here are five of the native plants used for food in the Helena area. (Although Montana huckleberries are famous, I didn't choose them because they are in more ( Read more... )

This was a tougher question for me than the water question, because the Helena area is quite diverse in its soils and geological history...And to be honest, soils is an area of which I am pretty ignorant, other than the real basic stuff. So I took this as a real opportunity to learn something new about my home valley ( Read more... )

Ok, so the challenge I mentioned yesterday starts today. Question #1 is "Trace the water that you drink from precipitation to tap." On this side of the Continental Divide, our watersheds, including the valley's Ten Mile Creek and Prickly Pear Creek, flow into the greater Missouri River watershed. This is one reason why we in Helena are not part of ( Read more... )

Today is Thanksgiving, also known to many as "Turkey Day." In my Ioway-Otoe tribal language, "turkey" is either "wayin'xanje" (big-bird) or "tagrogro" (an onomatopoeic word which sounds much like the gobble of a turkey ( Read more... )

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(continued from Part 1) I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows formed in the sand I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a tea-cup to a large bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible ( Read more... )

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bi·o·re·gion·al·ism (bī'ō-rē'jə-nə-lĭz'əm) n. The belief that social organization and environmental policies should be based on the bioregion rather than on a region determined by political or economic boundaries. bioregionalist (bi'o·re'gion·al·ist) n ( Read more... )

Looking around for new Montana folks to connect to, who seem to be of similar subversive and ancient (same thing really) mind about nature and such here. Maybe not bioregional animists, but people who love Montana for what it is, and aren't just promoting it as real estate. I'll be reading these blogs and seeing what they have to say ( Read more... )