Tag Archives: Community

The Baboon Congress

The Troupe

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Header photo by Tambako the Jaguar via Flickr
Today’s post comes from Sherrilee

As the emails fly back and forth this week about straw bales and manure, I’m reminded again about what a wonderful community has sprung up here. When we first started hitting the trail, some of us were immigrants from the Trial Balloon blog; we were fans of Radio Heartland and before that the LGMS (Late Great Morning Show).

As the months and years have gone by, we’ve lost some and gained some. We’ve written more as Dale has amped up his activity in other areas. We’ve developed some verbiage of our own and the days we talk about food, books and music are usually run-aways.

But what I love most about this group is its spirit of community. Here just SOME of the things that we’ve done over the years:

  • When a baboon needed help around the house, a couple of us showed up to do some chores.
  • When another baboon was in a car accident, a dozen of the troupe showed up to do spring gardening at her house.
  • When a HUGE tree fell over during a storm at someone’s house, we had chain saw party and got the tree chopped up and hauled away.
  • When one of our own was in an ice cream development contest, we all voted and when she won, we had an ice cream social to toast her victory.
  • When a baboon’s child was needing some help with math, another of us tutored her.
  • When a baboon’s husband was traveling west for a project, another baboon offered her home for part of his stay.
  • A kitten became part of another baboon’s family after being found on the farm of another baboon.
  • We started a book club. Meets every 2 months and still going strong.
  • When a founding member decided to move to the West Coast, several baboons helped get everything sorted for the estate sale and then helped pack up what needed to go to Portland.
  • We’ve had more than one “plant” transfer – plants from one baboon home being transplanted to another baboon home.
  • One baboon has given heirloom seeds to others in the troupe (and also provided multiple gardening tips over the years).
  • Carpooling to various baboon fetes has been arranged

I’m absolutely sure that I’m missing quite a few interactions between baboons over the years and I’m not even including all the various social engagements and field trips that we’ve organized.

Although we are a social group most often convened in virtual space, we may still be a worthy subject for study by some enterprising anthropologist. Just as Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees in the wild, someone with a grant to document the behavior of Internet baboons would find plenty to write about here.

Goodall’s groundbreaking book carried the rather dry title “The Chimpanzees of Gombe – Patterns of Behavior.”

What title would you give a scholarly study of the Trail Baboons?

The Baboon Congress, The Future

Winds of Change

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Header image by reynermedia on flickr / creative commons 2.0

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

If you believe everything you hear from Moody’s and Forbes, North Dakota is rolling up the sidewalks and blowing away. That isn’t quite the case, but some people have lost jobs and are leaving the area. Conservative legislators are talking about State agencies needing to make cuts due to decreased tax revenue. (All they will have to do is not fill all the unfilled positions in State Government and they can make up the shortfall). The lines are still long in Walmart, though, and traffic can still be a problem in town.

Two weeks ago, our County Commission approved a conditional permit for the construction of a wind farm south of town between Dickinson and Schefield. A week later, the same County Commissioners ordered a moratorium on the approval of any other wind farms. The rationale was to see how the wind farm company treats the landowners and the communities that could be affected by the turbines.

The wind farm is a very controversial topic in our county. A few months ago, this same company tried to get a permit to construct a wind farm just east of Dickinson. Those turbines would have almost surrounded two small communities. There was such division and strife and upset among the people who would have been affected that the County Commission denied the permit. They reasoned that community peace and harmony were more important than the revenue that the company would bring to land owners and the county.  The land owners in favor of the wind farm reasoned that they should be able to do what they want with their land, and what right had the County Commission to tell them otherwise. There are fewer land owners involved in the wind farm that was just approved, but letters to the editor from those impacted indicated that division and strife is happening in this case, too.

The first modern wind turbines in our county were put in place by the Holy Sisters at the Benedictine Priory east of town. One of the nuns was an engineer who reasoned that if they could supply their own electricity they could save money heating and cooling their enormous convent. She designed and managed the construction of much of the system. The Sacred Heart turbines are smaller than the ones that are being built now.  I tend to think of wind energy as “good” energy, making less of an impact on the environment, but the controversy in the county has made me see that having a bunch of wind turbines on your property could be a real problem. I guess that they are quite noisy, they cast shadows that can be visually distressing, and they can be hazardous to migratory birds. Some of the landowners may have a wind turbine as close as 1700 feet from their front door.  It also seems that wind energy companies are no more ethical or easier to work with than are oil companies. This is what the County Commissioners wanted to assess before they approved any more wind energy production.

It is hard to know what attitude to take regarding energy production. Oil pipelines leak. Oil tanker cars on trains explode. Fracking can contaminate the ground water. Coal plants destroy the atmosphere, and now wind farms cause division and strife in communities. The City of Dickinson just got an award from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for its infrastructure prioritization policy for municipal building projects during our recent oil boom. Projects concerning life safety received the highest priority while those that affected all citizens and projects funded by outside grants came next. Someone made some good decisions at the right time, and I guess we will be ready when the boom comes again. It remains to be seen if our county becomes covered with wind turbines. I am glad I don’t have to make that decision.

Which way does the wind blow?

Music, The Baboon Congress

The Community Piano

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Today’s guest post comes from Jacque

Several summers ago, probably 2011, but really I am not certain, someone with a community project grant placed a piano on the corner across the street from my office.

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The piano was painted light green with colorful patterns and a small mural. It provided intense community interest and activity, attracting people like a magnet attracts metal. There were players who were accomplished musicians playing a concerto from memory, church organists playing traditional Christian hymns, children playing chopsticks, and cool dudes noodling a bit of ragtime. I could hear music throughout the day. The old piano was tinny and out of tune, suffered relentless sun, and washed by watery downpours if someone did not cover it with the tarp connected to the backside.

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It was a difficult summer for me because I had chosen to continue my business despite a major problem and set back the year before. Re-organizing the business required working many hours as I transitioned to a new bookkeeper, a billing service, recruited some new therapists, and developed the structures the business required. Looking out my office window to the corner where the piano was positioned was a blessed relief to this drudgery.

To my delight, there is a new old piano on the corner again this summer.

This noon as I walked back to the office from eating my lunch, a girl was seated there, just noodling. I don’t know who thought of this idea of community pianos, but to whomever it is, thanks. It brings such a feeling of communal joy. When people are gathered around it like a campfire, listening to someone play or singing along, everyone smiles as they throw themselves into the experience. Though I may not know the name of the folks gathered there, we are part of the community in that musical moment.

We are communing.

We are community.

What gives you a sense of community?

The Baboon Congress

Things Left Unsaid

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Today’s guest post comes from tim

i am so pleased that our blog has proven to be self sustaining.

i miss dale ad his notes on things like the planets being so  close together last week that they looked like one. i dont like relying on the outside world to bring me my trail info. last week on my way home the guy on the radio was telling me and he was a weather guy not a planet guy but i guess he sounded the alarm for me.

our little family has taken form as guest  bloggers with clyde is clicking on all 8 cylinders and sherrilee barbara and jacque cranking out the blogs.

we made it what a month so far. my ideas focus and unfocus as the days go on and if i dont hurry up and take notes they are gone. 

what was that great idea i had?

dale has realized by now what it is like to be a normal human being with 24 hours of your own without having to dedicate 2 or 3 hours per day to tour merry band of blogmates who reside here on the trail. i have come to realize what a remarkable run 6 days a week for 5 ears truly was and am thankful for the ride.

i hope he returns but i think we have proven that we have the ability to start a conversation for the day and carry on in the baboon tradition. the old regulars the occasionals and the newbies. returns he old alpha for bringing us together

i remember the first physical coming together at the russian museum where i got to meet a fistful of baboons and the extension of the camaraderie was formalized. since then the rock bend the bbc the state fair the concerts and other activities (pj i want to meet up with you at the farmers market and learn your favorites and i am an early morning person so it might work and hmong village is not forgotten either)

sometimes the best stuff comes from unexpected sources and if you think about it too hard or too long its gone.

time waits for no one and the trail is a nice place to practice spouting off what you have learned and observed and thought about with those who stop in.

what do you wish you had said to who?