What are you doing today?

But I choose to imagine our Montana, Wyoming and generally western members as characters in a spaghetti western, even if it is all in the pasta.
Well, we do have lots of cows and horses. Real cowboys are sort of a dying breed in the era of subdivisions and corporate agriculture, but there are still a few around.
 
Well, we do have lots of cows and horses. Real cowboys are sort of a dying breed in the era of subdivisions and corporate agriculture, but there are still a few around.
This makes me sad . I’m kind of a semi-serious western history buff . On the one hand I sympathize greatly with the Native indigenous people and the deal they got and on the other hand I idealize the frontier spirit of individualism that was here from the fur trapper days until the end of the open range . I think Lewis and Clark would cringe at what became of the wild lands they saw if they were alive today . Montana artist C.M. “Charlie” Russell pined away at the loss of the fence less open range . Watch the movies “Monte Walsh” - both versions , the 1970 Lee Marvin and the 2003 Tom Selleck ones - “Shane” , “Open Range” and “Dances With Wolves” . They all realistically (sort of) depict a vanished age that is lost to history . The photography in “Shane” is excellent and being done over 70 years ago is a glimpse into the tail end of the pre-commercialized days that would soon come . @WhistlingBadger is right that real cowboys are a dying breed . Yes , they still exist but only on hobby ranches and not the big corporate outfits . The day is fast approaching when cowboys will be just like SCA members recreating a bygone age for amusement . The west that you see in the Kevin Costner series “Yellowstone” is not real and nothing like it ever was or is . @GaryE is right too in that this period of history was short lived . The fur trapper era lasted about thirty years , the open range days lasted about thirty and the family farm and ranch days lasted about thirty to forty before the big boys really took over in the 1990’s . In my lifetime I’ve seen the small independent shop keepers and merchants get swallowed up by the chains and franchises and now the bigger corporations are eating the smaller ones . We are rapidly deteriorating toward a dystopian world like Bladerunner . Will things ever favor the independent individuals ever again ? Not if the Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of the world have anything to say about it . And nobody pipes up and laments this or inspires change . Where is Edward Abbey ? We need him and those like him . Instead we idolize politicians and movie stars .
 
Well, we do have lots of cows and horses. Real cowboys are sort of a dying breed in the era of subdivisions and corporate agriculture, but there are still a few around.
Well yeah. You and Back in the Fold and Jaylach and Lavender - that's a crew gathering water change buckets by the waterhole and eating beans around the campfire like in Blazing Saddles.

The closest my family got to the western myth was my great grandmother riding on a parade wagon with Buffalo Bill, and hanging out with Calamity Jane as a child (the family had a boarding house in Boston that the Wild West shows used). They moved to Canada because her Dad was an ex-slave with light coloured skin, and here race was not on identity cards like in the US. There's always that reality in nostalgia.

Those realities. I am very proud that my great grandmother met and liked Sitting Bull, even if she was a kid and he was in Boston doing a demeaning show.

When I was in the Badlands in Saskatchewan, very close to the border, you could still scan the dry land and find artifacts from the Sioux families who took refuge up north after the Little Big Horn.

When I lived in Quebec - there is a little town called Saint-Tite that has an annual 'western' festival. Quebecois cowboy music is big out in the rural areas, and Saint-Tite cowboys are still around. Think of a dude ranch with really hard edged French speaking farmers dressed as cowboys. I think it's one of the oddest homages to the wild west sub-cultures out there, Cosplay that started in the 1930s. and never stopped.
 
“Growth for growths sake is the ideology of the cancer cell” - Edward Abbey .
And that is where we are today . The cancer of capitalism and big (always bigger) money is killing mankind . We need a plague .
 
Well, I think the real trouble is that they keep making more people, but they aren't making any more land. I am grateful to live in a place where I can still go walk for hours, sometimes for days, without running into another person. Those areas are a bit harder to find than they used to be, but they're still around.
 
Well, I think the real trouble is that they keep making more people, but they aren't making any more land. I am grateful to live in a place where I can still go walk for hours, sometimes for days, without running into another person. Those areas are a bit harder to find than they used to be, but they're still around.
You are VERY lucky to live where you do in that part of Wyoming . There are still wild places there and you are even more lucky that you can make a living and stay there and raise a family there . Where I live up here in Montana I can still find little pockets of wild places that are really not far out of town . Everybody heads for the mountains and the popular trails but nobody goes out on the prairies and badlands . There’s places I can go , like you , where I don’t see anybody at all for long stretches and I like that . Don’t see any cars and don’t hear anything but birds and the wind .
 
Today is my granddaughter’s birthday. Will there be any wilderness left outside of national parks when she is our age.
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Today is my granddaughter’s birthday. Will there be any wilderness left outside of national parks when she is our age.
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Sadly , no . I even fear for the National Parks . If I heard right they’re pushing for more helicopter flights over the parks and the tourism industry is always wanting more and more hotels , gas stations , souvenir stands and restaurants . The National Parks will be big outdoor Disneylands in less than fifty years . The capitalist corporate politicians will sell off the wilderness to logging , mining and tourism interests and what little is left will be playgrounds for the beautiful people . Your Grandchildren and mine will be like Edward G. Robinson in “Soylent Green” having only a dim memory of what the earth used to be like .
 
You can wander the wild woods of northern Maine, but don't stub your toe on the hidden stone fences. A lot of what we think of as wilderness was inhabited before... the post Civil War movement west. As a species, we've already altered much of what we think we haven't. The buffalo herds don't roam, the predators are reduced and invasive plants are everywhere.

In Gabon, as deep into the forest as we got, we found a wrecked mini-bus in one seemingly pristine stream. It told two tragic stories.

I honestly don't think I have ever been anywhere unaltered by our species. It isn't a matter for the world of our grandchildren - it's now.
 
I got this baitcaster about 2 months ago at a thrift store for only $4!!
It seems to be an older Daiwa Lexa 100H.

It was my first time tying on a backing line and using braided line, so that's awesome!
I'm really glad I found this deal and I was finally able to get braid. I've been wanting to use that type of line for a while now.

I tested it in the backyard and it works flawlessly!

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