This week is a bit of a one-off as I’m sharing a few minutes with Forrest Van Tuyl again. Forrest wrote the song Rock Jack and he sent the instrumental version to me for the intro and outro. In this segment, he talks about that song and the old-time and time-tested ranch structure that inspired it.

Here is an excerpt of lyrics from the song:

Fall settles in and the good work begins

The gather the harvest the gleaning

The day is shortening but the moon illumines the empty allotment you’re leaving

Rimrock and red ponderosas live til you learn what you’re ‘sposed to

Eat while there’s grass and trust your rock jacks and soon winter will be back.

I had to laugh because both Forrest and I struggled to find online images of rock jacks. He texted that it might just be the last ungoogleable thing out there. Well, we found some. Check ‘em out.

Our chat about rock jacks got me thinking about stone walls, which you find in the Maine woods fairly regularly. They, too, are the work of farmers and/or ranchers. All told there are hundreds of thousands of miles of stone walls in the U.S. Nearly all of them are in New England and were created between 1775 and 1825 when colonists deforested the country, moved the rocks to the edges of soon-to-be fields. Sometimes they were built with craftmanship, sometimes they were just rows of piled rocks.

By the mid 1800’s, many farms were abandoned and the forests came back. To see them, then, is to bear witness the intersection of human history and natural history.

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Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.