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The Meadowlark Cure

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Western Meadowlark. The author’s favorite songbird.

From childhood, when I stood at the end of a long dirt road waiting for the school bus to come grinding through the Honey Lake Valley, and where in spring the irrigation sprinklers created a kind of rhythm-section background to the yip of coyote pups on Bald Mountain, I have been a fan of meadowlarks.  The meadowlarks then, as now, were thick in that country, and mornings they trilled in the buckbrush, or on the fenceposts, or on some pungent sprig of sage.

In my mind there has always been something resolutely sweet-home about the various songs of the western meadowlark.  They have a unique ability to root my feet into the ground, and to pique my powers of observation, and to wrap me in something inexpressibly profound.  I can’t explain why that is, precisely, but it is one reason I’ve enjoyed spending so much time in and around Paisley, Oregon, while working on the Len Babb Movie Project.  The meadowlarks are abundant in that country, too.

Songs of the Western Meadowlark

Like my partner Jim Cornelius I’ve been quiet on Running Iron for some time.  Some of that is the sheer volume of work I’ve been doing, but there are other reasons. One is that I no longer find much profit in discussing American politics with anyone, and I’ve certainly lost any interest in writing about them.

Post George Floyd, I’ve not been persuaded by any of the rioting, looting, firebombing, CHOPPING and CHAZZING, murdering, and defunding efforts, that I’m comfortable with the overall protest message.  Quite the opposite: if all that I’ve seen so far is supposed to represent a better way of doing things, I’ll take a pass and buy more ammo to help defend my increasingly hardened positions.  Groupthink, Maoist struggle sessions, a progressive zealotry that sees racists and racism in every corner aren’t my jam.  Also, I don’t kneel, I don’t wash feet, and I don’t stop at checkpoints.  Twice I’ve stood up and taken an oath to defend something I think is valuable, our constitution, and the assaults on the institutions I believe in don’t make me a friend of the movement.

Still photo from The Len Babb Movie Project. credit: Craig Rullman, The Len Babb Movie Project

If you want to stomp around the Lincoln Memorial in a kind of spastic, point and screach orgy of historical and contemporary ignorance, spray-painting homicidal slogans on Abe’s forehead, banging gongs and blowing whistles at imaginary enemies while wearing a t‑shirt that says “Beta Cuck 4 Life” then by all means do so.  If you want to defund police departments and usher in the crime spikes we are seeing all over America, be my guest.  But if you want anarchy, and force it on my family and me, here’s my end of the bargain:  I’m going to shoot you in the face and take your wallet.  I’m righteously lethal when poked so you had better cut a wide path around me when you go hunting for someone to enlighten.

It is probably a requirement for me to acknowledge that you have a point of view.  It is definitely not a requirement for me to adopt it.

I’m also opting out of watching any kind of professional athletics that isn’t rodeo.  Also, I don’t mean PRCA rodeos.  My spirit now inclines towards ranch rodeos which have different events and aren’t a marketing blitz.  The high end of ranch rodeo marketing tends to be a banner on the bucking chutes for Lloyd’s Feed & Supply – or some such otherwise unheard of family enterprise out on the big empty.

Still photo from The Len Babb Movie Project. Credit: Craig Rullman, The Len Babb Movie Project.

Thing is, I just don’t want to be forced into watching baseball through the lens of social justice zealots. Football has been unwatchable for years and I won’t miss it.  I’m worn out absorbing lectures from athletes, actors, and other celebrities — many of whom seem to believe that having large sums of money also comes with an inherent wisdom and moral superiority.  It doesn’t, naturally, so why would I sit through that just to watch a bunch of millionaires disrespect things that are deeply important to me?

And anyway, I’ve already purchased a side of rawhide – I don’t have any dead cows laying around or I’d take their hides and flesh them out myself — and begun an inventory of my braiding tools, long stored away, because I intend to spend this fall and winter editing my film, writing stories on topics that interest me and seven or eight other people, and taking up some rawhide braiding projects for which the rewards will be real, personal, and lasting.  My first projects will probably be disasters, but they will be my disasters and launching points for getting better at a craft that I can enjoy while listening to Cornelius’ podcasts about Kit Carson.  Professional sports? Meh.

The rawhide projects are due to a recent development that I take great pride in.  I was contacted and asked if I would be interested in doing some writing for the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association.  I was, instantly, and subsequently met most of the officers during my first and only – so far – zoom session.  What a thrill it was to be in that meeting with people so very highly accomplished in their art.  I encourage readers of this page to go the TCAA website and spend some time looking around.  And buy the book Cowboy Rennaissance.  It is an absolutely stunning book containing the works of North American master craftsman — functional art pieces without equal anywhere in the world.  It’s a coffee table must and the work — silversmithing, bits and spurs, rawhide braiding, and saddles — I’m not over-selling it, is mesmerizing.

Samples from “Cowboy Rennaissance”, a publication of the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association featuring unsurpassed functional art made by members of the association.

I wanted, and was quite surprised and honored to be asked, to work for the TCAA because we don’t have to travel to Mongolia to find imperiled cultures.  They exist right here in America, and it would be a tragedy to lose the kind of talent and skill that the TCAA is desperately seeking to promote.  Please check them out, read and watch the stories and videos about these amazing craftsman — you will not be disappointed.

Finally, work on the movie continues apace.  I’ve received permission to use some music from Tom Hall and Dave Stamey, and Jim Cornelius just recorded his fantastic song Charlie Russell Sky for the film.  Mike Biggers is working on his own composition and together they recorded an instrumental piece that is quite fine and will be in the movie.

I can only film as I have the money to film, which is about to run out again, but I was in Paisley last Sunday — and will head down again next week — working on the project and also on assignment for a piece I’ll be writing for Range Magazine.  That’s where I was reminded of the power of meadowlarks to sedate and elevate my sometimes turbulent soul.  As I pulled into the Murphy Ranch for a sit down interview with members of this 4th generation ranching family, I could hear the meadowlarks along the pasture fences.  The songs were sharp and shrill and poured into my truck window — a hard and beautiful reminder that sucked me instantly deeper into the stories I’m trying to tell, deeper into a meaningful way to walk the earth — while the looting and the firebombing and revolutionary tremors shake a world I want almost nothing to do with anymore – and with smoke from those fires now just one mountain range away.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/len-babb-movie-project

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Craig Rullman

Craig Rullman

Craig Rullman is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and occasional buckaroo. He is the author of The Bunkhouse Chronicles: Field Notes from the Figure 8 Ranch, and Director and Producer of a forthcoming documentary film -- The Outside Circle: A Movie of the Modern West.

Comments

  2. Elisa says

    Craig,

    Thank you so much for sharing your truth.…it rings loud amongst all of the noise!
    I think everyone in the world right now should take a breath, listen to the Meadowlarks- then perhaps more would know it is the songs of earth that are pure and true and that is what we should be listening to. 

    Elisa

    Reply

  4. TJ says

    Awesome photos and brought some of my own perfect days in nature. Had a big Raven follow me for about an hour during a recent solo hike. Haunting birds; weird how much eye contact he made and how close he came. 

    I came to despise crows down south. I have had several interesting, almost weird encounters with solo Ravens in the high country of the Sequoias and now here.

    Can’t say I disagree on any of this Craig and of equal importance is balancing our energy towards the right issues in and outside of the home. Walking away from it altogether sometimes, or arguably for good, is also the right move.

    Movie looks great and what an important, cool historical American treasure.

    ??

    Reply

    • Craig RullmanCraig Rullman says

      Thanks, Todd. We are blessed here on the Figure 8 to have a lot of different birds. Many hawks, owls, and a pair of Golden Eagles that nest in Whychus Creek Canyon nearby and frequently fly over the barn. Some blue-green swallows have taken to raising their chicks in a corner above the back deck. They can make a mess but I let them have the space. When the chicks are hatched and flying they leave. Bluebirds, robins, and of course quail. I could go on and on. I love them all.

      Reply

      • TJ says

        I think you mentioned certain places (especially the PNW) are like living in a post card if you let it touch you the right way and concede to the seasons being in control.

        And agreed — I think of the resources and time I would spend to leave my tourist destination in California to drive 400 miles just to get dirty, scare myself and get and lost in the Sequoias on my bike with my boys, or alone.

        I suspected it as early as 12 years old surfing with my pals, that I was better off in the mountains. I love that I actually must consider Grizzlies, moose and wolves in addition to Black Bear and Cougars now.

        Grateful to be here and will do my part to protect and take care of it.

        Reply

  5. Cary Schwarz says

    Good stuff Craig. I’m the better part of the way through your book and have listened to one of your podcasts…I’ve been creeping ok? lol. You’re answering some of the questions I have, and of course many others are cropping up as I learn. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you through your work and look forward to deeper conversations. 

    Interesting choice of a background here. The Fight Over the Waterhole is a favorite of mine and is, of course rife with symbolism that is relevant in a number of ways now. I’d be interested in your particular reasons for choosing this painting when it is convenient for you.

    Reply

  6. Ugly Hombre says

    “We don’t have to travel to Mongolia to find imperiled cultures. They exist right here in America, and it would be a tragedy to lose the kind of talent and skill that the TCAA is desperately seeking to promote. ”

    This is fact and sad… American western ways are fading. Damn sad…

    I have a old Tarantula friend out in high desert Arizona who is the “Hatori Hanzo” of Colt SAA gun smithing and the practical use of the venerable thumb buster. Mentioned him before, many cult of the Colt guys know him or his rep..

    When he was a kid he broke his Colt shooting it constant breaking it and then taking it to a old man gunsmith, to get fixed.

    The old man got tired of that and told him “Kid I am tired of fixing your Colt I am going to teach you how to tune it so it won’t break and then after you learn, you can fix it your self- if it does bust. what I show you you won’t teach, until I’m gone.

    The old man was a pard of Elmer and was the gunsmith and practical coach of William S. Hart.

    My pard laments that the Cowboy action guys lost the old ways of shooting the single action, and made it more of show.

    Not sure how much he has taught out, probley 1/10th of his skill.

    Old western skills- much of it is gone and fading faster and faster..

    Great post thanks!

    Reply

    • J.F. Bell says

      This has been one of the great disappointments of working in the firearms industry. 

      I got into it because I loved the old stuff. You can’t help but marvel at the workings of a single-action Colt — the simple and robust qualities of the thing, the relative few parts. It’s a straightforward machine built for work in hard times and difficult places. Same for the old lever rifles or just about anything Browning (the genius from Utah, not the new FN crap).

      You pick up an old Single Action Army or a Government Model or Winchester 97, you can feel it. You judge from the wear marks at the muzzle and the leading edges of the cylinder that this one spent some time in an unlined leather holster. The finish on the grips is long gone. There are crescent indentations on the bottom of the frame were somebody, lacking a hammer, made do. You wonder at the men who carried it. What they did, where they went, if they ever had cause to draw in anger. 

      Hard to imagine that someday long in the future the AR-15 and the plastic fantastics will ever summon that same sense of wonder. I doubt it. The new stuff is too disposable, too rooted in the ease of manufacture and modifications, and sales ledgers and accounting books are hardly the soil or the circumstance to grow legends. On the rare occasion the new powers try to cash in on the classics they ruin it — a crossbolt safety here, a Series 80 block there, frame-mounted firing pins and disfiguring billboard warnings everywhere. 

      I would much sooner have confined myself to mastering an old art rather than dabbling in a new one. Alas, most of the Old Hands have passed from the industry, their particular wisdom gone with them. What remain are the custom AR builders (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) and the never-beens who make a living teaching a new generation how to turn semi-collectable $500 military rifles into $250 sporters. 

      One marvels at what we’ve lost on our way to the future.

      Reply

      • Ugly Hombre says

        “Got into it because I loved the old stuff. You can’t help but marvel at the workings of a single-action Colt — the simple and robust qualities of the thing, the relative few parts. It’s a straightforward machine built for work in hard times and difficult places. Same for the old lever rifles or just about anything Browning”

        Yes Sir, agree‑, the deadly, archaic feel of the old Colt is a wonderful thing, the fanged hammer waiting to strike down, the five beans in the wheel best you don’t be a idjot when you pick me up aura. Even Wyatt Earp learned that lesson hard. A reminder of days when Americans had common sense- long past. Thumbuster’s, Lever guns, pump shotguns, Bowie knives, 1911’s — every American should have one.

        Its a shame SAA’s are so damn expensive those days that well heeled bean counters are buying them and sticking them in the back of the safe- so after they croak and their widows hook up with Julio, they will go to auction and pull in big bucks, and than back in the safe till the next time. Like virgins.

        I like a gun with some honest wear on it much better.

        I don’t have any plastic guns, they do nothing for me, they are modern, fast, dependable, high capacity, cheap, easy to replace, combat efficient, and I am not any of that… well maybe cheap..

        I don’t think “this was granpappys Glock” will every be heard. But WTH do I know? Back in 86 when I first saw one I thought “what a piece of junk that will never fly”. lol taken again..

        “One marvels at what we’ve lost on our way to the future”

        Yeah, and the path to future don’t look good.

        I stopped the clock in the ugly hut- the past is a much better country. I try to take it with me when I go out.

        Reply

  7. lane batot says

    Listen closely to those meadowlarks–the Lakota have a tradition of them giving warnings and advice to people throughout the ages with their songs and calls–they are even called “The bird that speaks Lakota”! Of course, here in the East, we have the Eastern Meadowlarks, but they are about the same bird. Whenever I hear one, my memory takes me back to my maternal grandparents’ house in North Georgia(which my grandfather built himself–he was also a blacksmith as well as a carpenter), which had a large field beside it that they just let grow all Summer„and never cut till the fall–a perfect place for the meadowlarks to nest, and they were always singing there–one of my Granny’s favorite birds! I have my own Lakota name for them, because of that association–Alowan Unci–“Grandmother-singing-a-song-of-praise”. Those were good days, all long gone now.….except in my memory. The birdsong changing is interesting(I have read about the White Throated sparrows in Canada too), but, thanks to Laurens Van Der Poste, and his classic novels of South Africa “A Story Like The Wind”, and “A Far Off Place”, I find it rather ominous! In his books, they talked of the “birds changing their tunes”, and it prophesied tragic, trying times ahead. I have noticed some changes in bird song locally myself–in particular one of my favorite woodland birds, the Wood Thrush. The songs used to be more complex and richer–they have become stunted and shorter now, though still heart-breakingly beautiful. I have to wonder why.….

    Reply

  8. Steve Erickson says

    It’s good to have meadowlarks in your life. Sand hill cranes have a similar effect on me. Keep on going.

    Reply

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