Friday, May 30, 2008

Changeling Turkey: FINALLY!!!

Changeling Turkey: FINALLY!!!

This blog is "podcasting" Biography of a Grizzly. They have done a really nice job with it.

Sit back and listen to Biography of a Grizzly as it is read to you.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Manly Palmer Hall

I have lately been looking for people who know of the connection between Ernest Thompson Seton and Manly Palmer Hall. Hall was a philosopher and mystic of sorts, author of numerous books, including the classic Secret Teachings of All Ages. Seton dedicated Santa The Hero Dog of France to Hall. Dee Seton Barber told me that she rememberered Hall coming to visit Seton at the Castle in the 1940s.

There is a soon-to-be-published book on Hall's life entitled 'MASTER OF THE MYSTERIES: the life of Manly Palmer Hall’ by Louis Sahagun. Mr. Sahagun is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. I spoke with Mr. Sahagun today and learned that the book will be published in late June It already appears on amazon.com.

He says the book will contain information about the link between Hall and Seton. He told me that hall first met Seton when Seton lectured at the Author's Club in Hollywood. Hall wentup to Seton following the lecture, introcuced himself and told Seton, "Mr. Seton, I want to know you!." He also relates several trips to Seton Village.

I am looking forward to the book.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Lobo - The Wolf That Changed America (BBC Natural World)

Here is the link you have all been waiting for. Watch the BBC Natural World video "Lobo - The Wolf That Changed America.' http://www.veoh.com/videos/v7973289q3qTgwHB

This is a FANTAstic film and has ignited a huge amount of Seton interest in the U.K.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Let's Have a Little Bird Music

From the Winnipeg Free Press. Excerpts here. Click here to read it all.


BALMORAL -- It's the male birds that sing and it's mating that turns them into little Pavarottis.

But it was a threat to habitat that transformed birds here into recording artists.

Aluminum maker Alcan wanted to build a smelter near Balmoral, 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg, and one of the comments people kept making was "at least there's nothing up there."

"I thought, 'There's lots up here,' " said Catherine Thexton, who lived on a farm in the area with her late husband George. To prove it, Thexton would venture into the bush on their Interlake farm and record bird sounds.

The Alcan plan was scrapped but a recording industry was launched. Thexton's first vinyl record, In Praise of Spring (1981), sold more than 1,000 copies, followed by Meadowlark Music (1983), also on vinyl, which sold more than 7,000 copies.

...

Another of Thexton's recordings, Dusk to Dawn, sounds as if it's about all-nighters at a drive-in theatre. It came about after many nights when Thexton would lie in bed with the screen window open and wonder what bird and animal sounds she heard.

For example, she wondered if the "pahh" sound was an owl or a fox. (Naturalist writer Ernest Thompson Seton encountered the same dilemma. In his case, he determined it was an owl only after he killed the owl and found the noise stopped.) Dusk to Dawn includes the red fox and various species of toads, frogs and night owls.

With her parabolic microphone, shaped like a satellite dish, Thexton looks more like someone trying to intercept extraterrestrial signals. The apparatus amplifies sound 75 times for her recordings, but she has to pinpoint a bird's location. Even then, birds don't speak on cue.

...

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

Sunday, May 11, 2008

That Good Ol' Tipi Living

From Mother Earth News

A few summers ago I had the opportunity to be involved in a mountain goat research project. Needless to say, I was excited by the prospect of spending half a year in the wilds of Montana ... but I did foresee one serious problem. My assistant and I planned to live—from summer through early winter—on top of an 8,660-foot peak ... but we weren't sure just what in blue blazes we were going to live in!

I studied the alternatives and rejected everything from "space age" tents (too cramped) to geodesic domes (not practical) to log cabins (too permanent ... suppose the goats moved?). No, we had to have something roomy, portable, inexpensive, easy to build, and able to adjust to a wide range of temperatures. In short, what we needed was a tipi!

THE "PLAINS" ADVANTAGES

Most folks will probably be surprised—as I was—to learn that the best movable shelter ever devised was perfected hundreds of years ago by the Plains Indians of the American Southwest. But the more I looked into the subject, the more convinced I became that—although they look like uncomplicated structures—tipis are actually more precisely designed than most of the "high technology" houses that are being built today!

As Caleb Clark, the old trapper in Ernest Thompson Seton's Two Little Savages, said: "Ye kin live in it forty below zero and fifty 'bove suffocation an' still be happy. It's the changeablest kind of a layout for livin' in." And Caleb wasn't talking majority, either. A tipi can be snugged down to endure subfreezing winters or—with its skirts lifted—will keep its residents cool in roasting summer weather. Its conical shape sheds rain ... and withstands hurricane winds that would dislodge any tent (and a good many stone or brick homes!). And the Indian dwelling will hold the heat-but not the smoke -of a toasty f ire.

I was also surprised to discover how spacious the cone-shaped homes are. My fellow -goater"' and I found we had plenty of room in our 16-foot-diameter shelter. In fact, on occasion we had five people bedded down 'round the fire ... without a single crowding problem. And these practical accommodations have another, more subtle, advantage: Living in a tipi provides a unique, at-one-with-nature experience. A cone dweller is in touch with—and yet shielded from—all the changing whims of weather. Tipi walls let the sun illuminate the interior by day ... and provide a curved screen for firelit shadow dances at night Chipmunks may perch on the shelter's poles , violets sprout from its floor, or moonlight stream through the smoke hole—mixing with the glow of a fading fire—and form a sight too beautiful for words. Little wonder the Indians (who revered nature) considered a tipi a temple as well as a home.

Read it all here