Jeanette Walls is a writer I’d aspire to be, if that’s how it worked and ink could be conjured. In Half Broke Horses she spins the story of her grandmother, Lily Casey, in a series of episodes that sing like old cowboy songs. “Mustang breaker, schoolteacher, ranch wife, bootlegger, poker player, racehorse rider, bush pilot and mother of two,” Casey made me want to be stronger, laugh louder and learn to fly. Maslin’s review in the New York Times took a typical “lacey pants” slant to the aphorisms and expressions such as “you’re really frying my bacon”, describing the style as “pert…repetitive and grating”. In my mind, Walls’s form and language spoke to the style of storytelling in the West, to her characters and their humdrum, wild, bootstraps lives. Liesl Schillinger’s review, while more of a recap than a critique, ended by describing Walls as “the third generation of a line of indomnitable women whose paths she has inscribed on the permanent record, enriching the common legend of our American past.” Legend has its own tenor, and Walls has hit it beautifully.

Illustration by Shannon Freshwater; image from Half Broke Horses.

I first found Teri Greeves at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. I later learned that she grew up on the Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, just a few miles from Bill and Carole Smith’s Wyo Quarter Horse Ranch. Those gorgeous hills I’ve looked at while washing dishes or sitting in someone’s truck bed talking on the phone, that’s where Teri learned to bead when she was eight years old.

At the museum, I was mesmerized by these bright cuff bracelets that were for sale in the store. But Teri’s larger work is far more extraordinary. All I could think when I saw these high-heel bright pink high top tennis shoes depicting girls in ceremonial costumes and girls shooting hoops, Rezpride and Rezgirlz side by side, was “No way!” I’m always in awe of the artist intelligent and graceful enough to meld beauty and power with a sense of lightness. I also love her beaded book “Indian Couture: A Book of Dance and Dress” for its detail of design and movement, the thoughtfulness of all the gorgeous warriors in her “Prayer Blanket” and the truly very funny piece “NDN ART”. But if I could have a piece of Teri’s in my own collection, it would definitely be a pair of beaded sneakers. I can’t imagine anything more fun than a sparkly work of art to walk around in, making people smile.

Photo courtesy of Jane Sauer Gallery, Santa Fe, NM. Check out more of Teri’s work there, or at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ.

I didn’t know what a tomatillo was, exactly, until last week when I opened a bag of them in my kitchen. Most of my vegetables in the summer and fall come from Helsing Junction Farm in Olympia, Washington. We pick up our box of fresh produce every week and I dig through it with relish, excited to see what new vegetables I must learn to cook. Occasionally I’m stumped by something I can’t even identify, and I must call a friend to ask, “What is this thing that looks like celery on the bottom and dill on the top?” (Fennel!) Or, “How about a pale green bulb with some green sticks poking up?” (Kohlrabi!) When I discovered the tomatillos, I was fascinated by their thin, paper-like husks and their gorgeous green skins, slightly sticky and perfectly smooth. I quickly made them into a salsa and then, slowly, fashioned enchiladas to smother. I use Barbara Madison’s recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. She says to chill the salsa before serving, but I like to eat it warm.

Tomatillo Salsa
8 ounces tomatillos, husked
2 serrano chiles, quartered lengthwise (cocktail jalapenos from a jar work, too!)
½ small white onion, sliced
5 cilantro springs
Salt

Put the tomatillos in a saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until they’re dull green, about 10 minutes. Drain. Puree in a blender with the chiles, onion, cilantro, and about ¼ teaspoon salt.

In Seattle, several of our neighborhood bars have chosen taxidermy as the cool du jour. Animal heads watch over hipsters eating (very sustainably-raised beef) burgers and drinking micro brew or Rainier Beer from the can. But the Days Inn in the Thermopolis, Wyoming, outdoes them all. Their Safari Club restaurant is thick with trophy heads (and some very big fish) from around the world. Hundreds of photographs line the walls, taking you back to the days of Roosevelt and Hemingway when men wrestled with large animals from the wilds of Africa to the mountains of Montana wearing short shorts, carrying big guns and documenting it all. If you’re anywhere in the area, I highly recommend a visit. (And if you’re not going to go for the chicken fried steak, the shrimp alfredo is excellent.)

If you’re as lucky as my brother’s friend Doug, you might inherit some taxidermy from your great uncle. (Below, Doug teaches his great-uncle’s deer about the Constitution.) For city dwellers with modern homes (or anyone who likes the animal but not the taxidermy part) you can create your own trophy wall with bison, buck, moose or rhino made out of cardboard. If I hunted, as our friend Raven does, to keep our house in elk meat for the winter, I would hang the racks on our trees, as he does, strung up with lights as a greeting, an honor, a reminder.

Thermopolis this spring is at least a thousand shades of green. People who’ve lived here for fifty years say the mountains look better than ever. The rivers are high, running fast over rocks that usually stay dry. The sage brush has had a growth spurt not unlike a class of teenage boys, sudden and surprising, its color a cross between mint and slate in the sun, a silt-rich glacial blue in the moonlight. In the fields, colts and kids, lambs and calves are testing their legs and crumpling down to rest. Horses are full of tall grass, frisky like children at a birthday after the cake. Town is peppered with people on motorcycles and bicycles, playing put-put golf and lining up at the ice cream drive-thru in the evenings.

These photographs were taken on my drive this week, from Seattle to Missoula, Thermopolis, Red Lodge and back. Thanks to Linda and Raven, John and Kari, Carole and Bill and the Carbon County Historical Society for the good cheer and good times.

Photos by Margot Kahn

Colt, Thermopolis WY

Cows, Thermopolis WY

Storm Brewing, Butte MT

Cows and Calves, Butte MT

At the Truck Stop Cafe, Livingston MT

Mares, Thermopolis WY

Across the River, Thermopolis WY

Road to the Ranch, Thermopolis WY

Looking North on Route 78, Red Lodge MT

Looking West on Route 78, Red Lodge MT