standard end of the month rant

I have a pretty strong interest in religion. I tend also to maintain an interest in education. From time to time the two do meet.

Recently the two have been meeting more than usual.

It seems that in the past few days, the topic of religion in education reared its ugly head in the legislature. There is a movement afoot to allow parents to pull their children out of classes in which material is being covered that they may not agree with. It looks as though this would translate to parents having the right to pull kids out of science classes in which evolution is discussed.

The government, of course, denies it. I wouldn't expect them to do any less. But when the time comes I'm pretty sure there will be a rash of students pulled from science classrooms across the province.

Which raises a couple of questions: i) what rights do parents have regarding what material their children are taught?; and ii) what place does religion have in the classroom?

From a practical standpoint, I can see this turning into a disaster for teachers. Will we now be required to send advance notice of all material to be covered in class to allow parents time to ponder its worthiness? Will classes no longer be able to contain a discussion component in case 'disagreeable' material comes up? Are we to be censored for everything said and done in our classroom?

I understand parents wanting their children to have values similar to their own. But isn't it the parents' job to transmit those values? In the end everyone has to live in the same world, will be faced with ideas they disagree with and will be forced to defend their own beliefs against them.

Which brings me to the second question: what place does religion have in the classroom? There are a lot of people who say it has no place - many of whom I share numerous political beliefs with. A classroom free of religion, they say, is a tolerant classroom; one in which all students are included.

I understand the position, but I can firmly say that that's a load of horse turds.

As an English teacher I've found that literature cannot be well understood outside the frame of religion. Nor can the history tied to so much of that literature. I cannot communicate ideas about French culture and history without a discussion of religion. Yet there are people who would challenge me because I dare to mention such things within the walls of a school.

The debate really gets ugly when we turn to the sciences - the argument between intelligent design/creation and evolution rages to this day in communities across Alberta. The majority of science teachers I know have found their peace by teaching evolution and devoting ten minutes to creation during the last class of the unit.

The reality of the situation is this: to a very great extent, students' opinions, prejudices, values and beliefs are already solidified long before they arrive in a classroom. A student who enters a classroom believing in creation is unlikely to leave it believing otherwise. Children's attitudes are shaped by the conditions in which they are raised - a child raised by parents who value independent thought and open-mindedness is more likely to demonstrate those traits than a child raised otherwise.

I don't mean to suggest that teachers and schools have no effect on students whatsoever - if I didn't think that schools could play a positive role in kids lives I wouldn't work in one - but to suggest that schools are the sole mean of communicating knowledge and ideas is naive. They are simply one of countless vehicles by which culture is communicated.

"But Stu," you cry, "you still haven't really addressed the idea of religion in schools!"

There you are right, dear reader, I haven't. But patience, for I shall do so now.

Schools cannot escape the realities of the context in which they exist. The outside world will always find its way into the classroom. As teachers we can encourage students to think critically about everything they know. No more, no less.

There can be no such thing as a truly secular school. We can remove all mention of religion from the curriculum, banish it from the science lab, exorcise it in the hallways but we cannot remove those ideas from teachers' or students' belief systems.

The world needs to accept that education is an organic process and cannot be totally bent to any one group's will. Compromise is a fact of life. Sometimes we have to grit our teeth and bare it.

And that, my friends, is where I leave you. Other rants need ranting, other subjects needs flogging and I intend on giving them their due.

Merry Thursday from the brush plain.

don't let the bastards get you down

Suddenly I pine for the days when the news only talked about taser use in Canada.

I find that the media has one particularly bad habit - they like to choose a topic and beat it until it can't move anymore.

For a long time it seemed as though the Canadian media couldn't get enough of the Robert Dziekanski case. Every other word out of newscasters' mouths seemed to be 'taser'.

Now we've switched to swine flu. Personally, I got more enjoyment out of the tales of police brutality.

I don't want to diminish the threat posed by a potential global pandemic - I don't want to stand here and say that this isn't the big one while major populations get wiped out.

But am I a defeatist to think that if this is the big one there's nothing we can do about it? That there are things we can fix in this world and things that we can't and this may fit into the 'can't' category?

I'll admit that I don't take this particular outbreak all that seriously. In my personal opinion, the world has been submitted to an awful lot of crap over the past few months (see global recession, major earthquakes, large scale flooding, etc.) but now we've gotten ourselves so worked up that we're convinced the sky is falling.

Quite frankly, this is no black death. Islands are not disappearing into the sea (yet). The rivers have not turned to blood. I have yet to see a single locust: frogs are also in short supply. I killed a couple of flies last night, but it was hardly a plague.

We seem to engage in a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth any time life gets a little uncomfortable. It strikes me as being a lot of wasted energy.

More than anything, tales of economic collapse and impending pandemic have turned into get-out-of-jail-free passes for governments of all levels. Important environmental initiatives are abandoned in the name of saving the economy. Civil liberties are suspended to battle a flu that may or may not (probably may not) cause widespread death.

Wasn't it Hermann Goring who said "All you have to tell them is that they're being attacked" in order to make people do the bidding of the leaders?

This time, apparently, the attacker is one we cannot see. But they assure us he's there.

Dear reader, fear not. Things are not as bad as we may hear. The world, although a scary place, is not falling apart around our ears.

There's a lot wrong with this country, society, world, but people have made it through worse.

That being said, I think I'll lay in a supply of guns and amo. Maybe some tinned food. Set up a perimeter around my house.

Just to be on the safe side.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.

fish tale

I have always loved fishing. Never mind the fact that I rarely do it any more, but I'm very comfortable in that class of people who are more than willing to cancel everything and take off for a day of (in my case, normally unsuccessful) fishing.

When I turned thirteen I was given a fishing pole for my birthday. That pole made many trips with me on my bike to the local fish pond. To my undying shame it has only ever reeled in two fish.

I'm not sure why I've had no luck with the fish. Maybe it's because no one ever really showed me where the fish are at. Maybe I use bad bait. Maybe the fish can sense my desperation on shore.

Both of those fish were caught on the same day. It was the day after my grandpa Somerville's funeral. One of our neighbours, a stereotypical outdoorsman by the name of Wayne, stopped by and told me to get my pole - we were going fishing.

Wayne knew perfectly well that I never caught anything. He had watched me for years during those evenings and weekends that I spent trying to coax a fish onto my hook.

When Wayne picked me up I was just a little worried that my bad fishing ju-ju was going to transmit to him. In retrospect it probably did - Wayne usually caught his limit when he went to the fishing, whereas on this day - miracle or miracles - the fish decided to come to me.

Wayne passed away not too long after that. I have not caught a fish since. Life got busier, drought came and the water level at the pond dropped, and fishing moved further down the list of priorities.

I've decided that this summer that has to change. I've decided I want to learn to fly-fish. I fully expect it will be a disaster. Probably one resulting in me embedding a hook in my forehead. Probably one that will not result in me catching a single blessed thing.

I don't care though. So what if the fish feel safer with me around 'cause I scare off the real predators? I've got enough sense to realise that now is the time to take up something like that. I have the time and the desire, so why not?

Maybe someday I'll even catch a fish.

Until then. wish me luck. And keep the antiseptic on hand, just in case.

of grouse and men

There are days, I'll admit, when I miss the city. Sometimes a guy just needs to drink some good coffee or browse through a used book store. Luckily, those urges come few and far between. The rest of the time I feel pretty grateful that I live as far as you can get from civilization and still be in Central Alberta.

Last night I went for a walk. In and of itself this is not unusual: I go walking most days the weather permits, and fairly often when the weather doesn't permit as well.

People who drive everywhere miss an awful lot. The luxury of motorized travel seems somewhat less pleasant when you think about what you see when you're on foot. If you keep your eyes open, at least.

Over the years that I've wandered through the pastures around the family farm I've seen and found a lot of things: countless deer and moose antlers, porcupine quills, birds nests, strange bog plants, fossils, interesting rocks. Even now our house is filled with found objects, a situation not aided by the fact that my beautiful wife shares the same affliction as me.

With the warmer weather this past week I've been able to get out and about again. So far I found a woodpecker on her nest in a tree, watched a few porcupines wander around, tried my damndest to not trample a field of crocus, listened to the meadow larks - for the most experiences I've had before, but still enjoyable nonetheless.

Last night, though, was by far the highlight.

My whole life I've listened to grouse drumming out in the bush. They sound like small engines starting up far away. I've spent years trying to see the birds at work - damned camouflage makes them pretty hard to find, and me being not what you would call 'light-of-foot" means that every small animal within a quarter-mile is well aware of my progress through the bush. The presence of the panting Labrador doesn't help too much either.

Last night victory was mine. At first I thought that maybe my eyes just weren't focusing, but one far off branch looked markedly bird-shaped. I wouldn't have stuck around if the branch hadn't twitched. And then it danced and drummed its wings. And I consider myself pretty lucky to have been there.

There seem to be a lot of people around Alberta who claim to love the natural world but aren't prepared to do a thing to help it. Either people sit around and pretend the wild isn't there or they do their best to tame it. I suspect that the majority of people wouldn't have the patience to sit around and wait for a plain grey bird to drum its wings. Either way it does little to help the wild bits that we've got left.

I feel pretty lucky to live in the middle of nowhere. I just hope it's the same nowhere left for my kids and grandkids in the future.

Regards from the brush plain.

snooty book-judgers of the world, unite!

I have always been a reader. I cannot remember not being able to read, nor can I remember not wanting to read. I've always carted around books, magazines, newspapers, flyers to fill in those moments when I can sit down and relax.

There has only been one brief moment when I couldn't bring myself to read, and that moment filled in the three or four months immediately following my last university class just two springs ago. After four years of being forced to read education theory I couldn't stand the thought of a book - every attempt to sit down and read led to headaches and queasiness.

I'm happy to report that I got over it, and have been reading full tilt for the past year and a half. Generally three or four books at a time, and generally works of non-fiction.

I'm not a novel reader. Never have been. When I read I like to read political theory and history, which I suspect places me in the ranks of the ten most boring people on earth.


Just this morning I finished one: Canadians by Roy MacGregor. I highly recommend it.


Perhaps that was predictable: books about being Canadian naturally catch my attention, but more important was the book jacket - rustic looking with a stencilled maple leaf, simple sans-serif font. It had all the ingredients of a great read.


"But Stu," you ask, "How do you know?"


Because, dear reader, I judge books by their covers.

Yes, I know, I'm supposed to avoid that. But it works - because very often a good book seems to be worthy of a good cover. Take, for example, Margaret Atwood's The Tent, a collection of short stories with an amazing cover illustration. Or Secrets From the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean. Or Louis Riel by Chester Brown. All of them have great covers and what you find between them is worthy.

There are, of course, other considerations one must make when choosing a book. Sadly, in my case, they are just as shallow as the perceived quality of the cover.

Take, for example, paper. Many very good books are printed on very crappy paper. I wouldn't know, I rarely finish those ones.

I like books with thick, smooth pages - books that have some weight to them and feel like a plank in your back pack.

Or text - some fonts are superior to others, as are some inks. Generally, if the book has a page describing the history of the font used it is a piece of literature worth consideration.

And then there are stickers. When your main choice in booksellers is Chapters, stickers can be hard to avoid. I have no problem buying those discount books with the forty percent off stickers on them - most of my hardcover books were acquired that way - but I'll be damned if I buy anything with "Oprah's Bookclub" on it, or a "Heather's Pick" sticker proudly displayed on the cover.

And so, dear reader, I'll admit it - I'm a booksnob and I judge books by their covers. Maybe I need to join some sort of booksnobs anonymous group. Who's with me?

"My name is Stu, and I'm a booksnob."

movie time on the brush prairie

Food is beautiful. View and discuss.



http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/peter_reinhart_on_bread.html

do you think teenagers are boring?

Given the choice I would probably spend my entire life out of doors. I feel comfortable outside, whereas my time spent indoors is normally marked by twitchiness and irritability. It makes teaching difficult, and sometimes I have no choice but to relocate my classes outside for the whole week.

This past winter was hard. The long stretches of cold were not conducive to outdoor excursions and I finished off the season paler and crankier than usual.

But now spring is truly here. True, this is Alberta and winter is likely to rear it's head a time or two before July, but I don't really mind: now that the days are longer the world has become more pleasant and a bit of snow and cold is less likely to slow me down.

Which puts me in interesting contrast to my students. The last couple of times that I took my classes outside were met with hostility and whining - it's seems that the sunlight makes the screens of their laptops more difficult to read.

Not, of course, that they're actually working on their computers - for the most part they're trying to email the kid sitting next to them. Truth be told, I don't get all that upset if I take them outside and they don't work - I resist the attitude that every minute of the school day should be filled with work - but couldn't they be a little more creative about it?

I was one of those kids that liked school: I did well, I think my teachers liked me, and I had classes that I looked forward to. But looking back a big part of what I learned came out of being a teenager with time on his hands.

I'll admit, when I was in junior high and high school I was what some people may call a "nerd," and I was a pretty straight laced one at that - I didn't go to bush parties or sneak off to Memorial Park to buy drugs and have sex in the school parking lot. For the most part my friends were in the same category as me. But when we had free time we used it to joust with rolling office chairs and brooms or to smuggle slurpees through the french classroom window. Once we stole a classroom door. It was fun, but we had to think to pull it all off.

I don't want to sound crotchety and old before my time (and yes, dear reader, I do realize that that's exactly what I sound like) but how boring have kids gotten that the best they can do is spend their time trying to text their buddy across the room?

Maybe, in some way, it can be construed as an improvement in society - some would suggest that it shows the violence, prejudice, sexism, etc that marked a lot of the school shenanigans of the past have disappeared. But you can't tell me that the kids have gotten nicer, that bullying has disappeared, or that respect is more widespread.

To say such a thing is horse shit. Kids are nastier, bully harder, and have less respect that I remember and others will tell you the same. Through the widespread introduction of technology into society we have simply added another dimension of alienation to already alienated youth.

I could rant and rave for hours about this. I don't want to.

One day I will have kids of my own. I look forward to meeting them. I hope they'll be good people.

And when the time comes (although I'll probably think differently by then) I hope they get themselves into some trouble.

Because if they don't life could get pretty damn boring.

obligatory monday morning post

This is my first day back at work after a week of Easter holidays. As such, it is only natural that I am exhausted and ready for a break.

I like my time off - it's when I get to do so many of those things that I miss when I'm teaching: working cattle, small construction projects, clearing brush, etc tend to fall by the wayside during school. And education not being a physical profession, I often fail to maintain the level of fitness required for farm labour: the past few days have left me stiff, limping, and sleepy.

But what a productive week it was: I read a couple of books, constructed an outdoor chicken enclosure, cleared brush from our garden, tagged calves, moved cattle, and covered a good seven or eight miles every day on foot. It was glorious.

"But Stu," you ask, "in all that time you failed to post a single thing to your blog. Isn't that neglecting your blogger-duty?"

Ah dear reader, you may be correct. I did fail to post anything in that week. And I'm happy for it.

Because I think that a lot of bloggers become caught up in the self-important delusion that what they post is of vital importance to society.

The one thing I promised myself when I began this blog was that I wouldn't start believing in my own moral/literary/political/intellectual superiority.

Am I succeeding? I sure hope so - thus far I think I've maintained an air of humility.

But you'll have to excuse me now: I feel a twinge of self-righteousness coming on and I need to quash it before it becomes a full blown ego trip.

Until next time, regards from Alberta's brush plain.

hi-ho silver!

I should've been a cowboy.

Other than a line from a great country song, I often feel that this is the truth.

Some of the more astute of you may have noticed that, during all this talk about farming, I rarely speak about the joys of growing grain. There is a simple explanation for this - I find very little joy in dirt-farming.

Now, I can't write off grain farming as complete torture - I love combining in the fall and seeing that grain pour into the hopper - but in general I find grain to be a dirty, machine-infested business that I would prefer to avoid.

I am, at heart, a cattleman. I belong on the back of a horse loping across the prairie in pursuit of escaped cattle. And I look really good in giant hats.

There is, of course, more to it than my love of headwear. Grain-farming is about changing the land and making it work for you, and sometimes that land comes back for revenge: ranching, or at least some forms of it, requires you to work with nature and make concessions from time to time.

But the real reason may be that, in my experience, scratch a cowboy and you find a guy or gal working hard at something they enjoy. I have a lot of respect for that.

There are, of course, a few things preventing me from turning cowboy right now. Number 1 - I am suffering a lack of horse at the moment and refuse to be one of these pick-up truck bound cowpunchers; Number 2 - my hat is a bit too big and keeps blowing off; Number 3 - I specialize in roping fence posts and empty oil barrels, both of which are known to behave differently from cattle on the range.

I guess that for now I'll content myself by going to horse sales, listening to Corb Lund and dreaming of the day that I'll have a fine string of horses out back, some longhorns out on the prairies, and a whole day of cowboying ahead of me.

Regards from the brush plain.

the great turkey saga continues

I've mentioned it before: turkeys are extraordinarily hard to come by.


That fact has been driven home again today - my small turkey order, secured and supposedly ready to be delivered, has fallen through.


It probably wouldn't be that hard to get my hands on turkeys if I was willing to lower my standards, but I'm firm on my original position that I do not want white turkeys and I do not want to order them in increments of 20. I want four or five brown, preferably heritage, turkeys.


Is that so much to ask?


Apparently it is. Because I am not willing to drive the 100 - 150 miles to pick up a small number of birds from the hatchery. Nor am I willing to spend money on a white bird that doesn't possess the instinct required to drink water and is incapable of reproducing naturally.


As I said before, I take it as another sign of the death of a tradition - that of the family farm.


And apparently the disappearance of small family farms is even closer than I had originally thought.


When you live out in the rural areas you receive a large number of free newsletters produced by various agricultural groups. One such recent newsletter contained an article citing a report to the federal government stating that Canada needs to eliminate small, unprofitable farms and farms supported by off-farm income.


Which simply illustrates the fundamentally flawed philosophy that presently guides government attitude to agriculture - that it should be regarded as an industry and governed as such: when it's time to cut the fat, farms should be treated the same as other businesses.


But really, when we look around and see the large-scale failure of the industrial model, does it make since to apply the label of 'industry' to a way of life that has existed in one form or another since civilization first began? Because to me 'industry' denotes large scale, centralized production and/or control of a sector, ie. the automotives industry; the mobile communications industry; etc.


By their very nature traditional farms are small to medium in size, local, hostile to centralization, and difficult to place under umbrella terms. They represent some of the few situations where the anyone maintains ownership of the goods they produce. They cannot follow 'good business models' because it is impossible to separate the assets of the 'business' side of a farm from the assets of the 'family' side.


It baffles me that, as it becomes obvious that the solution to widespread collapse is decentralization, diversification, and a focus on 'small,' government continues to support the corporatization of agriculture.


Which I think has an interesting reflection on my situation - it is unlikely that I will ever be able to rely solely on farming to support my family. I will always need some sort of off-farm income to fend off debt (because the thought of large-scale debt makes my skin crawl). That's not to say that our farm is poor - in fact it's one of the better, larger ones in this neck of the woods. But with skyrocketing input costs, unreliable markets, and little government support I don't think that we'll be able to hold out against large feedlots and industrial agriculture forever.


"But Stu," you ask, "if it looks so bad, why don't you just give up?"

Ah, dear reader, never mind me - I'm a natural born pessimist; it's in my genetics - the Scots were never accused of being too cheerful: we're the people who gave you bagpipes and the raincoat, neither of which speak of hope for the future.

When I step back and look at it, it really doesn't seem too bad - the focus of buying local speaks of good things to come for those family farms willing to step in; the lifestyle is hard to beat (no boss, no interoffice email, never have to ask for time off); and there are few other jobs where you can point out the fruits of your labour for all to see and say with pride "I did that!"

And so, dear reader, as a symbol of my hope for the future I will not give up in my search for turkeys - already I have a line on a few gobblers not too far away. I am not beaten yet: I shall be persistent like a ...umm...a very persistent thing.

Remember, we're all in this together.

canada: northern nation with an identity crisis.

It is, yet again, a grey and dreary day out here on the brush plain and to be completely honest with you I'm starting to get a bit sick of this.


Not that I'm one to complain about cold weather - in general I'm the first one to complain when the temperature beats 25 degrees Celsius. As my excuse I'll cite my northern genetics - when your ancestors hail from the hills of Scotland and the swamps of northern Ontario you tend to be predisposed to cool and wet.


But this is simply ridiculous - the only time I've seen the sun for days now has been when it comes out to blind me on the drive to work in the morning. If mother nature's having a laugh it's about damn time she got over herself and smartened up.


So, as a silent protest, I've decided to wear sandals all week long.

I can tell you that it hasn't been easy - there's always that tense moment when I have to cross the snow bank between the school doors and the parking lot. So far I've only fallen in twice, and the frostbite went away quickly both times.

My students look at me like I'm nuts, and maybe their right, but this is Canada - we have a very long tradition of pretending to live somewhere in the tropics. Perhaps that's just our way of recovering from the nine months of winter.

I read somewhere once that Canada, alone amongst the northern nations, spends a lot of time and effort pretending to be in the south.

I see their point - Scandinavians spend a lot of time whipping each other in saunas (actually, I'm not too sure about this one - I think I saw it on an episode of Inspector Gadget); Russians adopt enormous fur hats as part of their national dress; Canadians insistently wear board shorts from the vernal equinox to the winter solstice (at which point the risk of death from wind chill becomes far too great and we switch to capris or those zip-off cargo pants).

Maybe it's because we're a young country - still insecure with our place in the world - but I think that before we can really come to a consensus on things like Canadian identity we need to make our peace with the north.

"But Stu," you ask, "if you're all down with the north and whatnot, why are you still wearing sandals? Is this not a tad hypocritical?"

Well dear reader, I suppose it is. But consider this - I may be wearing sandals, but I'm also wearing two sweaters and a toque.

Which makes me significantly more in tune with the north than the kid I saw earlier today wearing board shorts and a t-shirt.

But not as in tune as the other guy I saw wearing moose-hide moccasins and a sheepskin hat.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.

things that go bump and screech and howl in the night.

Something strange has been happening.

Maybe it's because the climate is changing; maybe it's because of increased development along the foothills and mountains; maybe it's because there are fewer people to chase them away but the wildlife has been changing in my neck of the woods.

This past Tuesday on our way into Red Deer we came across a herd of four elk just on the other side of Mackenzie Crossing near Big Valley - before that I had only seen elk in the west country. For them to be wandering wild so close to our home boggles the mind.

Perhaps it's not that strange for elk to run across the grasslands of Central Alberta again - I believe that at one time it was part of their range anyway: but how about this; every month or so we hear reports of bears in the neighbourhood. Now, I don't think that I'd even heard stories of bear near Endiang before, but glimpses of shaggy black creatures far off in a coulee have convinced me the sightings might be real.

Moose, deer, bears, elk, raccoons - we have them all now. Some people even say there's wolves in the hills to the west: I'm inclined to disbelieve those particular claims, but after I heard howling that sounded a bit, shall we say, wolf-ier than coyotes I'm willing to give some truth to the claim.

I guess it's a side effect of the continued depopulation of the region, as well as the continued suppression of the prairie fires that used to restrict the brush to small pockets here and there.

My question is this: is this a change to bemoan because it speaks of the decline of an area, or should I be happy because nature's taking back what's hers?

I think for now I'm just going to enjoy it- it's a few more footprints to learn, a few new sounds to recognize.

But one thing I know - if I go out in the woods to day, I'm in for a big surprise.

And yes, dear reader, have no fear: if I go out in the woods to day, I'll be sure to go in disguise...

the low down, stuck-inside-all-day blues

As the weather warms up and winter loses its grip I get the urge to run around outside and whine when Iit's time to come in.

I hate being inside.

When I became a teacher this was one factor that I failed to take into account - when I spend extended periods indoors I get twitchy and irritable; my pupils dilate and muscles tense up; every nerve in my body starts feeling around for a way to get out.

The classroom I teach in now is by far the best - the classrooms I did both my practicums in had no windows, or the windows were permanently blocked lest children, and student-teachers apparently, were tempted by the lure of the great outdoors.

If you were to walk into my present classroom though you'd find pupils working studiously while their teacher stares out the window amd dreams.

I think for me that is one of the appealing points of the farm - it's a job that still requires brains but you get to spend your life outside, if you choose to that is. More and more it seems that farming means spending hours of each day in front of a computer keeping the books, researching new technologies, or communicating with other farmers.

I'm going to resist that outcome though - if I ever get the chance to farm full time I do not want to run the place from an office chair: I want to get my hands dirty and have the satisfaction of looking with pride at the fruits of my labours.

Until then, though, I have to look for every opportunity to get outside. I will savour the short walk from the school to the car on the way to my meeting tonight, and if there's some daylight left afterwards I'll get what value I can out of it.

And once the dark comes, I'll go inside and get out all the camping gear. Lay it out. Smell it.

And then, I'll wait.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.