Women made civilization possible.

filmfanatic.org

The programs in the 1950-60s were focused on Westerns, though I do not know why. Matt Dillon, Lone Ranger (with Tonto, played by Jay Silverheels), Rawhide, Have Gun Will Travel, and many more filled our living room with galloping horses, lots of gunfights. Many up and coming stars began their acting careers in a Western.

What is seldom seen are the dramas with female wives who are racing around in long prairie skirts, always working in the background.  Working? They were the workforce until children grew enough to pitch in.

Who are these women? Why in the world were they always stirring pots over log fires, especially when hell is breaking loose around them?

Old Farm and country photographs

1906 Yakima

Kentucky, 1920s

Workers in hayfield. Women are cooking.

Nebraska, 1886

 

1920s, going on honeymoon

grinding corn Kentucky

Fool Thunder and family. Hunkpapa Lakota. 1880

True west magazine

earliest photo of Native Americans

1853

1906, Osage

Native Americans and European immigrants, being a woman was desperately hard. Sunrise to sundown, women worked hard to feed and care for her family. 

Women settled the West, more so than the men. Sure, men were charged with protecting family, keeping them safe, chasing bad guys. But, women provided more than food and children--they civilized the West. Churches, schools, and a sense of community emerged from the strength of these special strong women.

Salute the women in your life. You are lucky to have, or to have had, these God-blessed women who make the world bearable. Give them some roses, just for the heck of it.

She will deserve every petal.

Dominoes

What if...

It is the “What-Ifs” that make me wonder and speculate about different roads created and taken, people born or died or never existed at all—so many “what ifs”.

What if….

…there had been no slavery and Africa was left to develop on its own?

…all treaties made by the federal government to the First Nation had been honored?

…Hitler had never been born? Or, at least, had been born in a remote part of Iceland?

…the Irish Potato Famine had not happened?  Or, if the English government had intervened to help?  Or, if America had intervened?

…Napoleon had fallen off his horse early in his career and suffered a disabling injury?

…you or I had decided a different path in our teen years?

Really, it is a game of dominoes.  Lay the tiles one way or another.  And then stand them up, give a push….then watch all fall.

source

Taproots? What the heck?

Source

Monday’s post was an explanation about taproots.  While this topic does seem a deviation from my normal posts, this topic follows a book I am reading and an interest I have held for some time:  Healing Secrets of the Native Americans by Porter Shimer.

What did Native Americans use to battle illnesses that afflict all mankind?  What about headaches, infected injuries, liver ailments?  Kidney stones? Bad breath?  Cancer?

With a strong understanding of the plants and their medicinal advantages, early man were beyond Old World methods, some of which including bleeding the patient to remove the “evil humours”.

In 1916, my grandmother, Amy Nichols, was studying to become a pharmacist.  While I could not take her huge volumes of her studies, I did receive a book on botany that would prepare her to study the natural healing characteristics of plants. 

Source: $ 15 and it is yours!

The book?  Gray’s school and Field Biology by Asa Gray, published in 1887.

Well, now.  This book is as boring and dry as the pages upon which the information is printed.

It is WHAT was found within the pages of the tome that surprised me. 

That will be posted…later. It has changed my entire view of Amy Nichols and her sister Pearl.

Let's hear it for the....taproot!

Source: one heck of a taproot

The importance of the taproot is underrated.  Sure, carrots and radishes can hold their own in the garden, but what about the other taproots?  The unsung heroes of the lawn and garden?  Or, perhaps, what about the enemy taproots that fight and cling?

Such a strange topic, isn’t it?  This is my challenge for today: finding a topic that is unusual, while having meaning to all who have any sort of garden or lawn.

Many readers have amazing gardens.  Elephant’s Child amazes us with her photos and dedication to the beautiful garden she enjoys.  Gary Pennick’s delightful gnome and fairy grotto combines with some wonderful plants around his abode.  Inger is surrounded by desert growth which dazzles in the winter and spring.

And who can forget Joanne's sunflower at Cup on the Bus?  Talk about a taproot that really digs deep!

Please visit Joanne's site, highlighted above.

Native Americans appreciated the medicinal value of herbal taproots for their healing properties.

So why is the taproot so important?  And, for that matter, what is a taproot?

The taproot is the main root that anchors the plant.  From it dispatches secondary branch roots that seek out water and nutrients, as well as further anchoring the plant.  The taproot is vital to a plant’s survival.

Source

Whenever you are trying to pull a weed from the ground and having a hard time of it, it is the taproot’s fault. You aren't (or may not be) a weakling.  Just don't hurt your back.

There.  If you have read all this blog, then you have become all the more wiser.

G-H post: part 2-- Gift of Sacred Dog

From this source

How the horse came to the New World is fairly well documented.  Spanish and French explorers shipped them over early on in their conquest of the New World.  

Some horses either escaped or were left behind.  These horses became the mustangs, the wild horses that filled the plains and dominated history for the Native Americans.

But, questions niggles at my brain:  what did the indigenous tribes think about the horse?  Did they realize what the horse would give them?  Did they view the horse as an extension of the Spanish, as an animal to serve them, or what??

The book, Gift of the Sacred Dog, grants the reader a better answer about the horse.

The horse benefited the Native Americans, allowing them to survive and prosper.  At least for a while, anyway. 

This G-H dual post celebrates the beauty, nobility, and power of the horse, one of God’s creatures.

See you tomorrow on the I-J posts:  Icons of Just living...