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Over the past two months, we have had several class groups in to tour the museum. Some have traveled as far as Camp Crook and others include Baker and several grades from our own Ekalaka Elementary and high schools. For Archaeology Month, we featured our atlatl teaching collection, where students were able to use the spear thrower to hunt a mammoth and a saber-toothed cat. This month, we had the fourth grade in from Ekalaka to tour the Lambert Room and handle the Maiasaura...
BETHESDA, MD. A few months ago we explored the topic of antibiotic resistance in some depth. The media has continued to stress our imminent doom that would accompany a post-antibiotic era. However, an additional threat has been on the horizon for some time: antiseptic resistant bacteria. Antiseptics are different than antibiotics as antiseptics are able to target a wide variety of microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, eukaryotic organisms) and they kill or inhibit the growth of an organism within 30 seconds to 1 minute of...
Hello, It’s been several years since I have been to a horse sale. Unless, of course, you count bucking horse sales. I’ve been to Oklahoma City, Miles City, Kearney, Mesquite, Grassy Butte, Bismarck, and maybe some others for bucking horse and bull sales. I’ve been to cow and bull sales weekly for more years than I care to relate. I’ve been to production horse sales and for years we held one of our own. Where, coincidentally, the finest horses in the world were sold. But it’s been quite awhile since I’ve attended a horse con...
Last week I didn’t forget Mother’s Day, I just didn’t have anything new to say, until I looked up its history. A celebration of mothers was held by Greeks and Romans; they were honoring the mother goddesses, Rhea and Cybele. The first Christian festival was known as “Mothering Sunday.” That was the fourth Sunday in Lent, a time when the faithful were expected to return to their “mother church on Mothering Sunday.” Ann Reeves Jarvis created an American holiday in the years before the Civil War. She organized “Mothers’ Day...
Hello, Sometimes I worry about Shirley. Well, I’ve always worried about her. Do you remember about fifteen years ago when the bull nearly got her? She walked into a pen very nonchalantly, like the Queen she really is. And this bad bull took after her. It chased her up a fence and she got her coveralls hooked on a nail. The bull had her. I mean he had her nailed to the fence. And he must have realized who she was. That bull just stood there pawing and bellering and blowing snot on her south end! I shouldn’t have laughed. The...
I’ve been watching lots of advertisements for cars. Maybe those are more generously assigned to baseball games that I watch most evenings. Brands start with 2017 models of Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Nissan, Volkswagen, Subaru, Audi, Lincoln, Cadillac, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Lexus, Ford, and Chevy. Henry Ford would be astounded at the changes made. Ford and Chevy trucks don’t advertise much in urban areas where professional baseball contests are held. These cars have reduced fuel consumption, but it doesn’t take a lot of fuel t...
Animal preservation has been an important part of human history, essential to both survival and culture. From porcupine quill harvesting for tribal jewelry to ancient Egyptian pet mummification, the challenge of keeping organic material resistant to decay has been practiced in many forms. It wasn't until relatively recently that societies began to see the potential of animal preservation for the purpose of education and conservation (a story for another time perhaps). This...
We lived in numerous houses in Carter County and some out of it when I was growing up. Some of them, I do not remember so I will tell you about only the ones I do remember. We do have some writings by my mother called, The Travels and Travails of the Lavell family where she enumerated all of our houses. I am not going by that but by my memory. I was born in my grandparents’ house on Boxelder, near the Belltower store and post office. My grandmother, Lena Coons, was a midwife and helped a lot of women bear babies. She had f...
Hello, You know I always wanted to be a cowboy. Sometimes I feel like I made it, and sometimes I feel like I never could be one. This weekend was one for the cowboys. And the cowgirls. The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame announced the new inductees into the hall. The ceremony will take place in June. I have friends and neighbors that will be inducted. And my Grandpa, Herb Birdsall, will be honored as one of the early ranchers in North Dakota. Damn, I miss him. The hall also honored Brenda Lee Pickett and Ashley Alderson....
Since cable television left, I’ve been watching only national news on CBS, ABC, NBC, or PBS. No Montana news is available, but I can hear about Rapid City if I’m interested. With my choice of national news announcer, I can find the most pleasing voice to tell me the bad news. North Korea is ruled by a short, fat dictator, with a really bad haircut. All of the nation’s unnaturally thin soldiers are parading in a painful “goose step” made popular by Hitler. Those men and women will need an orthopedic surgeon by the time they’re...
Bob Renshaw reported that during the winter of 1911 he broke his axe handle and replaced it with a right-size sapling from an ash tree that was growing along Ramme Creek. His tools consisted of an axe, saw, pocket knife, and a piece of broken glass. Think of all the tools you have today in comparison. The spring of 1911 ushered in a dry year so Renshaw hired out again to General Sweeney to work and ranch on the place he had south of the home ranch. He stated that he lived in a small frame house (probably better than his log...
I don’t know what kings ate, but if they were smart, they would have dined on the sumptuous spears of asparagus to be found, wild, on stream or river edges. That’s where they grew in Columbus, Montana, although I had never eaten asparagus yet, so didn’t know the royal, wild vegetable I was missing. As a child, only my father ate asparagus, and my mother cooked it for him—probably overcooked it, the way Grandma prepared it. The result would have been a mushy, Army green vegetable. To this day I refuse to eat anything that colo...
Every farmer can attest to the benefits of crop rotation. Interestingly, the idea of crop rotation quickly followed the birth of agrarian societies. The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the original cultures to practice crop rotation nearly 4000 years ago and benefited from their ingenuity (Worthington, 2016). The Indus flourished along Pakistan and northwest India and assisted civilization in the development of modern agriculture. Although the Indus civilization has...
The use of porcupine quills in embroidery is one of the oldest decorative traditions among American Indian tribes. The practice predates European contact by hundreds of years and was replaced gradually by glass beads brought by white traders. In the museum, we have an example of quillwork from the Sioux tribe as adornment on a pair of moccasins. Once harvested from the porcupine, quills were washed and sorted by size. Quills that are between two to three inches long are ideal...
Hello, I’m sure most of you have seen the Chevy Chase movies about their family vacations. We were talking about rodeo trips the other night and I recalled our “vacation” with the kids in the mid seventies. Our nephew, Tom, was in the National High School Rodeo Finals in Helena, Montana. That is a long way northwest of here. He was a calf-roping finalist. This is before he became heavy. A lot of you won’t remember this skinny young kid. Anyway, we went with Shirley’s sister and her husband Lynn. I’ve told you about him b...
A few days ago, I was telling my daughter, Brenda, about some of the things that happened when I was in the band at CCHS. She said to me, “You are always decrying the fact that you weren't good in sports when you went to school, but it sounds to me like you were good in other things, including music.” She was right, of course, and I am going to try to tell you about my experiences in music in Ekalaka schools. Music first started for me in the second grade. We had a time of singing songs when kids who knew that song were ask...
Later this month, I will use the museum's teaching collection to conduct an atlatl training at Carter County High and Elementary schools. We sponsored a similar event last year as part of the Days of '85 celebration. However, the inspiration for including atlatls, or spear throwers, in our museum programming goes back to the excavation of Mill Iron Site. It was the late 1980s in Carter County, Montana. Archaeologists had been working for days to excavate what would become the...
I would like to start this week by fixing a mistake on my last article. The wages for Bob were $40.00 per month while he was working for General Sweeney, not $4.00 per month. Forty is small enough! Bob wrote that a highlight of that year was when Mr. Sweeney asked him to ride along on a wild-horse roundup along with other area ranchers and cowboys. “Real excitement for a Honyocker who had been raised on an Oklahoma farm,” he stated. September ended his time working for Mr. Sweeney. He then returned to his homestead. But wha...
Hello, I hope you enjoyed Easter weekend. Our Grandkids love Easter, what with the Easter Bunny and such. So for years, I have tried to persuade them that there really is no Easter Bunny. It is, in fact, an Easter Pig. Evan was pretty disgusted with this. He was quite confident that it was a bunny. When I questioned how he knew that, when no one had ever seen the Easter Bunny, that it wasn’t a pig. He informed me that he had seen the bunny. Once. In a movie! So I guess it must be. Gracy, our oldest and wisest grandchild l...
The first sign of Spring was the shining, tiny red face of the little crocus lining the brick perimeter of the southwest herb garden. I selected a red crocus years ago from the seed and bulb catalog. Most of them have survived. Then came the daffodils, then jonquils and a few flags, and finally a bi-color tulip: red and yellow. We formerly had many more flags, but thinning too vigorously and deer eating the tubers left us few. Our fence has begun — the fence around the garden that is tall enough to stop “Urban Deer” from...
I recently attended a continuing education class via tele-medicine on “Three things you can do right now for your own wellness.” The class was great! Usually, continuing education is a bit on the dry side, but this presenter was outstanding. Not only did he have a great personality, but he provided a great message! The three things he listed were basically what everyone else lists for improving health and wellness: manage stress, eat well, and move more! During this continuing education, the presenter gave an example of man...
The American dream has remained a tangible goal since James Truslow Adams popularized the idea in the 20th century. His ideal that “America is rich with opportunity for every person regardless of class and each person can fulfill their potential in accordance with their ability and work ethic” is alive and well. The United States of America has always been a home to innovative engineers and scientists. The resources available to the average American exceeds most of the world and preserves the river of innovation that flo...
Hello, If you get tired of reading about my problems during calving, this would be a good time to go to the sports page of the paper. Because once again I have to share my problems with you. You will often hear a rancher refer to a dark night as “being darker than the inside of a cow”. And only a rancher who has tried to straighten out a calf that is coming the wrong way knows how dark this is. Yesterday we had a heifer having problems. With Shirley’s help, I got her in and reached in her. No feet. No nose. And a calf is su...
By now all of you should know, I love baseball. I started watching pre-season Major League Baseball back in March, but the real games started on April 2, and I was right there to begin a season of watching. There aren’t many familiar names who stay with one team. The Cubs—Chicago Cubs—are my favorite, but Yadier Molino has stayed with the St. Louis Cardinals long enough for me to remember him. He’s their catcher and a talented hitter. When I got serious about following the Cubs, they had one player who stood out—Sam...
April is Montana Archaeology Month, and to celebrate, the Carter County Museum will be bringing you a series of articles about topics in the field. Pottery is a relatively rare artifact to find and is often preserved in pieces called "sherds" in archaeological parlance. The museum has a small collection of a variety of sherds that have been traced back to the Mandan/Hidatsa and Crow Tribes. By examining pottery and other ceramics, archaeologists can discover information about...
