THE PRAIRIE GAVE BREATH; I GREW AND DIED:

ALIVE ON THIS AIR THESE LIVES ABIDE.

SIGNATURE

                               Dorothy Livesay

I am still working through photos from our trip to the cabin

in July. On the way home we stopped to visit friends from

our days in archaeology. These are the Hand Hills in 

Southeastern Alberta. This area is described as fescue

and mixed grass prairie ( Peterson The North American

Prairie)  they also note that this area was used by native

people to  obtain stone for tools. One tribe that utilized

this area was the Blood or Kainai, they were considered part of

the Blackfoot Confererancy and their reserve is located quite some

distance away in the foothills by Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump.

It was actually the first rain we had on our trip and

the mosquitoes were ferocious.

Laraine's horses.

Other critters included the Great Spangled Fritillary

The Mountain Cottontail who can be identified by the

" rusty orange patch on the nape of his neck" Mammals

of Alberta, Pattie and Fisher. It is interesting that the

distribution map for Alberta indicates that they occur in the

Southeast portion of the province which is prairie and they 
do not seem to occur in the mountains.

The infamous Brown-Headed Cowbird

they are known for nest parasitism this behavior

is felt to have occurred because they followed the

herds of Bison and therefore laid their eggs in the

nests of other songbirds. The Cowbird chicks outgrow

the hosts own nestlings resulting in them starving or

 pushed out. Their range has expanded and they

now parasitize over 140 species. Birds of Alberta Fisher

and Acorn.

Yogi and Andi, Tim and Laraine's

Akhash-Maremana crosses enjoy a quiet moment.

During my years in archaeology I worked in the prairies,

 the foothills, the mountains and the parkland. Each area has it's

own special rhythms and unique beauty. While Helen and I have

settled on the parkland for our cabin for a number of reasons,

 the sweeping vista of the prairie is a truely wonderful thing to

experience and once you spend time in the area you realize it

is not empty but rich in both history and prehistory, and that

it has an ecosystem as beautiful and vibrant as any on the planet.

During our visit Tim who has worked at the

Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta

in the past, took us to see some dinosaur bones

he had reported to the museum. As you can see

they are fairly subtle traces of once great creatures.

A couple of weeks later a crew from the Museum

came out and removed the skeleton of a Triceratops

dinosaur. While Alberta is know for dinosaurs

Triceratops are rare in the province and about 30 %

of the skeleton remained which is fairly significant.

The story was widely reported in the media and it was

a lot of fun to have seen the bones with their discoverer.

It was a great visit.

"And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was 

one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight 

and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree 

to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. 

And I saw that it was holy."

                        Black Elk 

                                              Black Elk Speaks 1932

                                                        Oglala Lakota (Sioux)