Tag Archives: photographic proof

Reemergence

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One of the tales we have posted in the past dealt with the heart-breaking story of the Scottish Thistle farmers of the Jackson Hole area in Northern Wyoming. Briefly, they were early immigrants to the area and brought with them their ways, traditions, farming techniques, and a streak of bull-headiness seldom seen in an area noted for its stubbornness.

As described in this earlier post http://www.bigshotsnow.com/thistle-farm/ these new comers to the valley were bound and determined to sow their seeds and reap the harvest of thistle thereby capturing and dominating the thistle market. But due to ignorance and the refusal to take any advice regarding the agricultural limits in this part of the country they met with a stunning defeat, a failure of magnificent proportions, that bankrupted each and every family in the thistle industry.

Soon they were seen leaving the area. All their earthly goods piles into wains of all sizes, their women walking listlessly behind them, some carrying nursing babes at their breasts, the children, the few who had not died from the harsh unforgiving conditions dragging their hoes behind them. The little furrows they left the only sign of their passing. Some of the older men pushing their wooden wheelbarrows ahead of them, still filled with unplanted thistle seed, their hope for the future, as they headed for the new promised land in Nevada. They had heard that the conditions there were perfect for growing thistles and with that dream in their hearts they left Jackson Hole and its surrounding area forever.

The remaining thistle left behind unattended soon withered and died until there were no more thistle plants left alive in the valley. It was as if they never were. However every once in a while a fence rider would come into town and after a few daiquiri’s, or a Golden Grasshopper, both without the little umbrellas in them, this is the west after all, would tell of seeing a thistle plant growing next to a fence post. Of course he was immediately cut off and thrown out of the bar. No one wanted to hear that crazy talk. It was like the stories of Bigfoot or happy marriages, there are some things you just don’t talk about.

For years the plains were empty of thistle, stories of their reemergence swept aside as the ravings of sunblind drovers and frost bitten cowboys. Then one fateful day in early March a prospector came staggering in to town nearly dead from exposure. Clutched in his hand was a thistle. Just the red part but undeniably a thistle. The town needless to say was on the edge of mass hysteria, some not knowing whether they had been snakebit or struck by lightning. Others ran around in circles hollering “Woe are we! The thistles, they’ve returned.” Others unable to stand the stress and strain immediately got blind drunk and were last seen staggering off into the wilderness. It was a time of chaos. A time of fear.

Before long, cooler heads prevailed and the largest posse ever assembled in Teton County, Wyoming was galloping out to find and root out these thistle plants wherever they may be. They were out seven months but finally they returned with a small group of thistle tied across the packhorse’s panniers. The thistle’s heads lopped off as a symbol of victory and worn around their necks as badges of honor. They assured the nervous townsfolk that they had eradicated the thistle from the countryside and it was gone forever. A huge sigh of relief was heard throughout the land and people began to go back to work, safe in the feeling that thistle was gone and gone for good.

But the story is not over, as they seldom are, and it was one of The Institutes own researchers that was responsible for bringing it back to life. We had sent our own Scottish descendant of one of the very first families to settle in the area, Somerfed Fyfe Olgilvy Callum Ewan McLean-Kennedy/Burns or as we all knew him, Tim, to see if there was any truth to the stories of the Reemergence of the Scottish thistle. What he brought back was nothing less than remarkable, clear photographic proof that thistle was alive and well and growing in Teton County. Tim wanted to keep the location secret to protect the plant but we said no Tim, this is too big a story. We have to inform the public. People have to know about the return of the thistle. It’s their right. What the future will bring with this knowledge is anyone’s guess, but I can tell you this, the story is not over. Not while The Institute is still in existence. We will out the truth regardless of consequence. Even if it creates a thistle emergency in Jackson Hole. Let the seeds fall where they will.

Somethin’ Bad Must a Happened

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In our travels around the country we’ve noticed a disturbing trend regarding old buildings. They tend to fall down. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s one of those wooden, Northern Territorial designs found in remote Montana and Wyoming, or one of the adobe styles found in the desert areas of the Southwest, if you see an old building it is likely falling down. Due to the universality of this phenomenon we were sure Somethin’ bad must a happened.

We were puzzled by this and began comparing it to old buildings in Europe and other oddly foreign places where they’ve had old buildings for years and they don’t fall down. OK Some in upper England fall down and just lay around in a pile of rocks, but we chalked that up to the fact that they have VAT on everything over there.

Why then do ours fall down. We’re a lot smarter than they are. We’re better looking. We don’t have to suck up to royalty and aristocrats and other door knobs that hang out over there. What’s happening then. We build other good stuff that doesn’t fall down. Why are we archaeologically challenged?

We posed that question to a couple of archeologists we found scratching in the dirt along side the road. “Oh My Gosh!” they answered, “Really? Like falling down flat and stuff?” when we asked our question about deteriorating buildings. “Yes,” We said, “completely coming apart, totaled, like that motel room in Daytona you guys had over Spring break. Just a pile now.” They were speechless. We thought it was because they were overwhelmed by the social implications of our infrastructures disintegrating but it turned out they were struck dumb because they couldn’t figure out how we knew about the motel room in Daytona. Upon further questioning it turned out that they weren’t even archaeologists like we thought at all, but two college students collecting beer cans and trash along the road as part of a work release program. We thought those sticks with the nail in the end were an archaeologist’s tool but it was just standard State-issue roadside cleanup implements.

We then went straight to the horse’s mouth, or the archaeologists mouth in this case, and found real archaeologists at the University of Montana. We were not going to be fooled again by people that just looked like archaeologists but didn’t know archeology from a hole in the ground. These guys wore glasses, talked good, and had name tags that said Archeologist on them so we knew we had the real thing.

They were surprised and somewhat startled by our questions and it wasn’t until we began supplying them with photographic proof that they would venture an opinion. The older one, who we thought looked smarter and a lot like an archeologist that would be in the movies remarked that he could make some definite comments regarding the image above, and why there appeared to be some deterioration going on.

“Number one” he said in a deep resonant voice and a far away look in his eye, “was that whoever built this structure made one major mistake. They built it out of dirt, and to my trained eye, they used cheap dirt. Probably procured at rock-bottom prices at some low-end dirt retailer. Not to mention names, but perhaps someone like Dirt Depot. You can tell that by the fact”, he went on learnedly, removing his glasses for emphasis, “that the dirt didn’t cling together as it should have, there’s no clingy-ness or ‘adhesion’ to use an archeology word, and as a result it fell down. We don’t use dirt much these days in building for that simple reason. That and it is nearly impossible to find good quality building dirt anymore at a price someone who is willing to live in a dirt house will pay.”

“Number two, and this is very apparent if you look closely at the picture. Whoever the contractor was neglected to put a roof on the structure. This is of paramount importance when building any kind of building someone would live in or spend any time in. A roof keeps the weather from falling into the building from the top due to gravity. It stops it and sends it to the outer edges of the roof, which again to use an archeology word, is where the ‘eaves’ are located, and the weather, presumably moisture, drips off the top of the building onto the ground making a mess around the outside of the structure, but it does keep it off of the occupants inside and prevents it from soaking and saturating the walls, which has been proven by numerous tests will often make them collapse due to internal muddiness and loss of structural intent. It is my belief that is what happened here. No roof, muddiness ensued, building fell down. Pretty clear-cut to us trained in this kind of stuff.”

We had several more “Yeah, But…” questions but these were busy guys and soon they were off to do archeologist things in some god-forsaken wind-swept desolation that these guys like to hang out in. We yelled our thanks as they drove off in their jeep and one cheerfully waved a pick axe at us in farewell. We weren’t entirely convinced of our experts opinion but as we had no more time to spend on this problem and we were hungry we decided to do lunch. We passed by several restaurants built with this dirt type of construction for one that was made out of cinder blocks. We figured this was much less likely to fall down around our tacos than the dirt ones. If you are in the market for Western real estate we highly recommend a cinder block building or even a well made double-wide with tie-downs. You’ll be a lot happier a few years down the road.