Karina’s Valentine’s Day gift came early this year when her boyfriend, Adam, asked her out for a nice dinner, followed by a movie in downtown Moscow at one of our historic, renovated movie theaters.
When they arrived at the restaurant, the hostess seated them at a quaint little table for two. Soon after, their waiter came with a bouquet of flowers for Karina and set them on the table. They ordered their food, enjoying every bite and morsel of conversation. (Ah, young love.)
After dinner, they parked across the street from the movie theatre and walked through the doors. There were a few people at the front selling drinks. One gentlemen told them that they were the only people who had shown up for the movie so far (not uncommon in our little town). He followed up by saying he would get it started right away. They sat down near the middle of the theater. The lights dimmed and up popped a picture of …
I bet you’ve had a day like this: you accidentally cut a guy off while driving, so he sticks his unforgiving fist out the window and yells something like “Are you crazy, lady?” or maybe, “Go back to crazy town!” or my personal favorite, “Get off the crazy train!”
Well, now you may politely inform him that you were actually on your way to Crazy Woman Creek.
Crazy Woman Creek, courtesy of Wikipedia; Asiir
What a hootenanny of a place to get your glamp on! Below is one man’s recount of how the creek and campsite were given their names in the Bighorn National Forest.
The most persistent and credible explanation for the creek’s name has to do with a trader and his wife. According to Crow stories, in the mid-1840s, a man who was half Native American and half white built a small trading post with his white wife on the stream and were carrying on a successful business with the Indians. For some reasons, the trader began to give liquor to one of the older chiefs, a dignified man, who would then act strangely after his visits with the trader. The Crows soon figured out what was going on and the trader was compelled to provide all of the men in the village with plenty of “fire water.”
Once they had formed a dependency on the liquid, he began charging them more and more for drinks. Finally, he claimed to be out of liquor and said he would leave to obtain more. Since the trader had virtually all of the village goods by that time, they didn’t believe him. Rather, they suspected that he would now go to trade with their enemies, the Sioux. They killed and then scalped him in front of his wife and she was struck in the head with a tomahawk and left for dead, but not scalped. After the warriors had departed, a Crow woman saw that she was not dead and secretly nursed her back to health.
Thereafter, the trader’s wife lived in the area but was deathly afraid of the Crow warriors and would hide at their approach. Some of the Crow women continued to feed her for a time, but eventually she was never seen again and presumed dead from starvation or animal attack. The Crow annually returned to the area of the trader’s post and with time, the stream became known as the Crazy Woman’s Fork and then later Creek.
The preceding story has been attributed to a George P. Belden, a Second Lieutenant in the 2nd Cavalry, who was stationed at Fort Phil Kearny in 1867-68 and had lived with the Crow Indians in the years prior to his military service.
Click here for more legends on how the area was given its name.
There is also a book titled Crazy Woman Creek-Women Rewrite the American West and swag for sale on Zazzle! Wouldn’t a Crazy Woman hat be a great gift for a white elephant gift exchange? Or to wear while towing your glamper headed for a certain campground in Wyoming?
Look what I found while junktiquing last weekend. Enough wooden spools to decorate next year’s Christmas tree. $20 total.
Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Kristina Nelson!
Kristina Nelson (FieldsofThyme, #800) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Intermediate Level Scrapbooking Merit Badge.
“I have been adding elements to my own scrapbooks, such as crocheting small items using #10 crochet thread, embroidery, and fabric.
I created a scrapbook to give to my husband. I know the badge suggested giving one to a ‘younger’ person, but I have 6 kids to choose from. So, I created a memory album of our most happiest times together (just hubby and I) taking weekend getaways.
The most memorable weekend for us was going to an island on the lake. It was so relaxing that I placed a caption on the cover photo “Is it Island Time?”
Gather ’round, Downton Abbey fans …
It’s time to dish!
Julian Fellowes, the Academy Award-winning fellow who created and writes Downton Abbey, has just offered up an interview about the series’ next season. (Here’s some fun trivia: In addition to playing numerous acting roles as English royalty, Julian is actually royalty himself—his full name is Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford.)
You may have a titch more self-control than I do,
and I totally respect that,
but if you are desperate to savor a few savory snippets of the season to come,
then surrender to temptation and read on …
“I’m not giving anything away by saying that one of the main themes is the rebuilding of Mary, that Mary has to rebuild her life in a society which is changing,” Fellows says. “We would see women’s roles in the ’20s as being very much behind women today. But it was a big advance on what it had been 30 years before. And that’s all explored in the show.”
Fellowes also alludes to his plans to write a new period drama for NBC.
Want more?
Yee-haw!
The kooky-cool city of Austin, Texas, has just spurred a city-wide composting program that’ll collect compostable kitchen waste from your curb …
(with the tip of a hat and a thank you, ma’am).
Austin Resource Recovery recently launched a one-year pilot program called Curbside Organics Collection, and so far, they’re bagging a bounty.
In the past month, 7,900 random households around the city started hauling weekly collections of organic waste—stuff like food scraps, food-soiled paper, and yard trimmings—to their curbs. Pilot participants each received a 96-gallon cart to use for curbside compost collection as well as a food scrap container to help with the collection of leftovers in the kitchen.
What does the city do with the salvaged scraps?
“Organic materials collected at the curb are turned into nutrient-rich compost, mulch, and garden soils specifically designed for central Texas!” cheers the city’s website. “Collecting organic materials at the curb will keep greater amounts of valuable materials out of our landfills, reduce harmful greenhouse gases, and help Austin get closer to Zero Waste by 2040.”
Specifically, the sundry scraps are carted off to Organics by Gosh, where they are brewed into “black gold” (compost, of course) that will be sold for use in local lawns and gardens. The cycle from curbside waste to compost takes about a year.
Photo by Kessner Photography via Wikimedia Commons
“Austin Resource Recovery manager Richard McHale ultimately hopes to expand the curbside pick-up of organic waste city wide within the next three years,” reports Mother Nature Network.
A number of other cities across the United States are beginning to offer curbside compost collection service, so it’s worth a call to your city hall or waste management service to “get the scoop” for your neighborhood.
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
