Reznjun

this is our new year, when life starts all over again. thats what our old people told us. the grass is starting to green up. the trees are beginning to bud out. some animals are having new life.  we are conditioned to say new year based on the calendar year. not many live with nature anymore, but this is our new year. i told a friend of mine that years ago when i was lived in san francisco on some kinda government relocation program. he liked that. he thought it was more in tune with nature. he said ‘your people have the right idea.’  the calendar year is off.

it is not officially spring yet until we do our spring ceremonials. we are taking care of that this week. our people always enjoy themselves at the dance. i cant wait to get my garden in. i will have to burn off one patch. then i will till it all under. that will take place after the dance. i started some seeds in flats to get a jump on growing. i saved some seeds from the best plants i had last year. i kept the seeds from the heirloom tomato plants. they were good. heirlooms plants are hardier than hybrids.

i went to a poultry swap meet the other day. i went to price some chickens. the hens and rooster i have are getting old. i want to replace them. they wanted too much for them at the meet. or as my mother would say when we went garage saleing ‘mes ke deh’. too much. i will wait til i find some at a better price. i will buy some to raise just for the meat this year. fatten them up then butcher them and pop them in the freezer. that is the fate of the old hens i have. they will become tortilla soup.

i seen one of the first signs of spring when i went to town. spotted some garage sales, so i had to check them out. i found a good deal. i bought a band saw for thirty bucks. it will go with the new jig saw i bought. i need them to cut out the bottoms of the whisky barrels i use to make drums with. i have some friends that will keep me supplied with buffalo hides.

i am still having a problem with spammers. they are the parasites of the internet. sometimes i have to delete a couple hundred spam a day. so if you subscribed to my site and were deleted dont take it personally. it is hard to tell who the spammers are. one way around that is if you want to read my site send me a note telling me you are a reader and not a spammer. then i wont delete you. i have too many spammers that subscribe then post spam everyday.

i have to finish up a roach headdress this week. hopefully i can get another one done before that art market they are having at our casino. it is hard to get a supply of roaches set aside. they all usually sell.

i got a message the other day on facebook. someone i met previously was asking about a pow wow drum. i emailed back that i had one i made with a buffalo bull hide. we agreed to meet this morning so he could look at it. we met at the citizen band complex in rossville. as soon as he heard the drum ring after i hit it he said he would take it. i thought he might. i was proud of that drum. i put alot of work into it. i can still remember my shoulders and upper body burning from all that scraping on that hide. the hide of a bull is harder to work. that drum had a real good sound to it. i know they will enjoy it.

i was out and about today delivering tobacco for our spring dance. i got to talk with lots of our people. many were looking forward to it. it is always something our people enjoy. the other day after one of our ceremonies someone asked me about the hate mail i had received. i told him one was particularly hateful. the anonymous writer said he or she was tired of hearing about my “fake ass ceremonies”. the guy i told that couldnt believe someone would have that kind of hatred. i agreed. i said i didnt care what they thought of me but to hate on the ways of our people is disturbing. many of my friends told me not to pay much attention to people filled with that kind of ignorance. i assured them i dont.  our people dont make anything up. we respect our ways and try our best to carry them on. they were handed down to us by our ancestors who loved the ways as much as we do.  that writer must really be ashamed of being indian. was too ashamed even to put their name to it.  its sad to hear of some of our people that are beat down that bad.

i was at our senior citizen site and got to fill out an application for the art market that will be held april 10th at our casino. native artists will sell their art which includes beadwork, jewelry and hand made crafts. i will take some of my roaches and hand drums over there. kinda looking forward to that.

i got a call about the mound tour i went on last year in quincy illinios. they are having it again this may 22nd. i was invited to come over again. i met a guy that worked in the northern part of illinios. they have mounds up there also. he was telling me that a potawatomi chief named senajwen was buried on one of the mounds. i told him i would like to go visit the site someday. it has been arranged for me to go up there before the mound tour. the farmer that owns the land will meet us there. he is the one that knows where our tribal ancestor is buried. i told them i will bring my pipe to smoke there. they said they will let me have time there to do whatever i wanted to do. that is nice of them.

it  must be getting to be spring my chickens are starting to lay eggs again. i was tempted many times to just butcher them for tortilla soup. i resisted because i love to have fresh eggs. my trips to the clinic will allow me to enjoy them. my cholesterol levels are now okay. i had to go pick up my arthritis meds today. they are the only ones i take now. i told them at the pharmacy that my other ailments are gone now. they said that was good. it is nice to live without pain. i will continue to make my appointments.

i may let my big garden plot lie fallow this year. i have used it for a few years now.  i wont plant anything in it. i will add lime to it and till it under. the plot i had turned over last year will be the only place i grow vegetables. i still have alot of things that i canned, dried and froze last growing year so i wont need to plant as much this year. that will save me much labor. i will just plant things we will can.

i am now anxious for our spring dance. our new year.

the sun set on the k u jayhawks yesterday. they started slow as they have in a few other games. then they started playing  but came up short. they should have won that game. i still think we have the best team in the country. any team would wish for a 33-3 record. its just that we wont have a championship to show for it. it was a disappointing loss. but to be honest you can look back on the season and know what happened. we had very talented players that didnt always play up to their abilities. we threw the ball away too many times. we left opponents wide open in momentary defensive lapses. we forced it when we didnt need to. the same thing happened yesterday. i will pencil them in for next year already. i think cole and xavier should both stay another year. the best they can hope for is to be drafted by a losing team. they owe us a championship. thats what they came to kansas.

i am now in a position to have to cheer for k state and missouri. i would like to see the big 12 teams win. we have the best league in the country. at k u we begin the chant ‘wait til next year’ again.

we got more snow on the first day of spring. we probably had more snow this winter than we have had in years. it will be good for our gardens. the grader came thru and opened the road again. the wind always blows our road closed. we have a problem with drifting. the top of the hill in our hayfield is a problem every winter. the snow just piles up there. we just have to live with the weather.

might have another speaking gig. a guy i met during my travels wants me to address his group. i said we would talk about it. he is also interested in a pow wow drum i made with buffalo hide. i am glad someone wants that drum. it has a real good ring to it. i put some work into that drum. i can still remember my shoulders and upper arms burning from all that scraping.  a buffalo hide is tough to work.

i still have to post the pictures of the roaches i have finished here on my site. just havent had time to get to it. i was on the road a week and i had to help at some ceremonies. first i have to edit the pictures. load them in my computer then crop and resize them for web sites. gotta get that done.

got back home from yet another road trip. havent had time to write. sometimes i just dont feel like blogging. i get hate mail from people that have nothing better to do than to hassle someone– anyone. they hide behind anonymous letters. i guess by expelling hate, it makes their life better. so i do provide a service that adds meaning to their life.

i went to oklahoma again. i have alot of friends and relatives down there that i dont get to see often. i take advantage of any opportunity to go visit them. plus i do like to travel. i probably always will.  

we stayed downtown at the sheraton. that is the hotel where the jayhaws are staying at while playing in the regional. i wish i could have been there this week instead of last week. maybe i could have seen the players. i did get to high five them at the game i went to this year. i make that a ritual of mine every game i go to.

i got my walking in by checking out the downtown area. i logged 12 miles while there. i went to bricktown. they have a nice two mile walking trail around a canal. they also have alot of eateries. i heard some nice jazz so i went into the place to eat. i ordered blackened catfish, red beans and rice and seafood gumbo. that was a fine meal. after that i headed over to the ford center to watch a pro basketball game. pro players are so much better than college players. it was a good game. got to see some ex k u jayhawk players. i also got to eat 3 different meals with my cousins. we were always laughing. it is nice to see family.

we even got to hit a few casinos. oklahoma is full of them. we went to a big one near the texas border. you could probably put all the kansas casinos inside that place. it was huge. i had walked 3 miles that day so i got tired of walking around that casino. it had all kinds of people in it from all walks of life. it was quite a drive down there and back to the city. we hit rush hour traffic that got worse because I 35 was narrowed to one lane for 19 miles. it took us an hour to travel that short distance. we got home around 4:30 in the morning. my cousin and i visited all the way back. she gave me hints on how she tans hides. i will try that again. i want to get the process down.

while driving we had a gps on that we borrowed for the trip. we named it after an old lady i knew. it had a female voice that would tell you to turn in a mile, then half a mile. then would go off in a nagging voice if you had to go a different direction. it would say ‘recalculating’. it made me laugh.

i had to fill out my ncaa basketball tourney brackets. my family and i do that every year. we place a small wager on it and see who wins the pool. naturally i picked the k u jayhawks to win as i do every year. this year will be the year when they win it all. i have confidence they will.

the weather man is predicting 2 to 4 inches of snow this weekend. winter is not over yet. we have our spring ceremonies to do yet. then we will have a bunch of them for the next month or two. sometime in there i will have to start my garden. that is always hard work. gardening takes half a year or so. the payoff is fresh vegetables that taste better than anything from the store. and i know what i have in what i grow.

have to get ready for a ceremony that will take the next few days. we never know when they will come up. we just do them.

back down in my motherland again for a few days.  i came back to visit my family here. mary and i have a room in downtown oklahoma city. i went walking along the canal in bricktown yesterday. that is a nice scenic walk. i also went to the murray building that was bombed years back. i was walking down the street and they had directions to the site so i went. gotta remember the innocent people there that did nothing wrong to merit what happened to them.

i have  hit the pavement the last day or two. it kinda reminded me of my days when i was on the street. i used to walk everywhere. i would cover miles in a day. i would just go prowling around whatever city i was in at the time. when i went on the government relocation program i went to oakland california. i had just gotten of the bus and was walking into the station. some street hustler came up to me and opened his coat. it had a collection of watches. he asked me if i wanted a new watch. i told him ‘give me a break man, this is my first day in town.’ he kinda chuckled and said yeah and moved on. i walked around that town alot. i also used to go to berkley. or as the natives called it ‘beserkley’. they would gather in the commons area of the campus and play drums. i used to like to listen to them.

after i covered the oakland area i went across the bay to san fran. that was a crazy town. they had so many different types there that no one was different. everyone wanted to have a different number, so after awhile they all looked the same. its kinda like that everywhere. the more that people try to be original they more they are just like everyone else.

i have been busy here from the time i get up til i go to bed. i ate dinner last night with my kin at a local gaming parlor. we sat around and laughed while we ate. it is always fun to see them. we checked out the slots after we ate. the gaming gods smiled down on me. i am still up some bucks for the trip. tonite we have tickets to see the thunder play new orleans. i have only been to one other pro basketball game. that was 20 years ago. it was in denver. i dont even remember who they played. out in the sticks in kansas the only pro players we see are the ones that play at k u. oklahoma has nick collison playing for them. and new orlean has ju ju. it will be nice to see these former jayhawks play again. okc also has durant playing. hes one of the best players around now.

i will head over to visit another cousin i havent seen for awhile. he called me last night so i told him i would drive over to see him. i know so many people down here that i wont have a chance to see all of them. and they have a casino in every little stop along the way. i was going to go check out a museum but time hasnt allowed me to do that. never enough time in a day when you got so much to do. gotta head out.

this is the time of year i have been anxiously been waiting for. first we have the big 12 tournament then the ncaa tourney. anything less than a national championship for the jayhawks will be a letdown. we have the best team in the country. just have to show all the doubters in the land now.

last night was a prime example. the hawks who are ranked number 2 played k state who were ranked number 5 in the whole country. k u was ranked number 1 for most of the season. k state is one of the hottest teams right now. the game wasnt nationally televised. probably a good thing too. if it had been, we would have missed the first 10 minutes of the game watching some no name teams from the east play a meaningless game. then the announcers would give the wrong name for players and brag up how good the other team is. then do a complete reversal in the last few minutes of the game saying how good k u is.

k u won the game as i predicted. i texted my sons before the game and said they would win by 15. i thought they were due for a big game. they owed us one for letting the okie state game slip away. the jayhawks always play up to their competition. they should get the number one overall seed in the ncaa tourney now. wont matter. i will put them down on my bracket to go all the way. my friends and family always fill out tourney brackets. we toss in a few bucks and pay the winner. i dont care about the pool. just want a national championship.

i walked two miles yesterday. as i was walking i heard geese. or as my mom would say ‘gi no twak peshkushiyuk’. i looked up and seen geese spread out across the sky. i kept hearing them. i watched them for awhile. that was the largest bunch i have seen in years. they were heading north. spring must be getting close. as i watched them i wondered what the word for a bunch of them was. i remembered a ‘gaggle’. so then what is a bunch of gaggles. maybe a google of gaggles. probably not.

speaking of google. our state capital is renaming itself google for the month. even the television stations are listing that as the name. this is in an attempt to lure the company here to install high speed internet. so now when injuns head to town they will say ‘i’m going to google’. or will it be ‘going googling’. who knows. the internet company our tribe is doing business with never did call me back. the deal was in exchange for them installing their equipment on our tower they were to provide service to our tribal members. i went with my cable service since they didnt want my business.

i am finishing up another roach. just have some outside trim to tie. pow wow season must be coming up. i am getting alot of hits on my site asking for roaches. so i got to churn them out. i still have some hides to make into hand drums. always busy…

well the k u basketball team got beat and the sun did come up again. life does go on, no matter what. it probably was better to lose to okie state than to lose either of the last two games coming up. our team has to beat k state and missouri.

i took advantage of the warmer weather to log some miles walking. i walked 3 times last week. i have found that you have to exercise when you have the opportunity, whether you feel like it or not. spring is getting here. i am always busy with my garden when spring comes. it is so close that i am looking at seed catalogs. i will start some of the seeds i saved from last years garden, especially  the heirloom seed.

i didnt tune in the olympics until yesterday. i was sorting porky hair and needed something to watch in the background. they had cross country skiing. it lasted for two hours. i watched it even though i am not that much into winter sports. i did switch the channel when hockey came on. my brother larry used to watch hockey. i told him all they do is skate around for awhile then punch someone in the face. i missed what they called the game of the century or something. didnt matter. my kids were home for the weekend so i spent time visiting with them.

 i watched the olympic highlights later just to see what i missed. i noticed they had indians dancing once. then at the closing they introduced some more indians. they were the host tribes of the land where the olympics were held. that was a nice touch i thought. i like to see indians.

my woodpile is dwindling down. winter is almost over now. i like to keep a fire going. i prefer the heat of a wood fire to that of a gas furnace. keeping a fire reminds me of my younger days. we had to used a wood stove to cook on. and we used a pot bellied stove for heat. with modern conveniences today we dont really need to use woodstoves anymore. i just like them.

dont know what this new month will bring. well it is per cap month. thats always a treat. and denver pow wow is this month. i am planning to go to that. i am not a die hard pow wow fan. i go for one day then check out the big flea market they have. pow wow is just the excuse i use for a road trip. i may head into the hills to see the casinos. i also have to go find a hot spring to soak in. i get alot done in the short pow wow weekend. with all the snow we had it has been a long winter…..