BS

Bob and Sherry that is. They had taken the summer to cross Canada and the US and return. They took their truck and camper and logged...was it 23,000.00 kms?  To Lanse Aux Meadows and back.  Correct me if I am wrong Bob.  Upon passing through Calgary they stayed for a few days and told us lots of interesting stories. However they were still not finished when they got here. We had a huge dinner of Wild Sockeye salmon on Tuesday, local grass finished (Chicken Jerry) beef rib steaks on Wednesday (we are all foodies) and the next day we went to the Bar U. Mostly to see the country side as they hadn't come up the 22 highway where the Bar U is located, snuggled up to the eastern slopes of the Rockies. The previous day Bob and Sherry had gone to Writing on Stone park and had come to Calgary up highway 2.

We heard lots of stretched out yarns from the driver of the percheron wagon that took us down to the old buildings.

Bob was eager to get his lips wrapped around a mug of cowboy coffee at the re enacted round-up cooksite.
Apparently my imported special picked, roasted and ground and  french press coffee just doesn't cut it for him.
I guess there is roughage in the grounds at the bottom of a cup of 'cowboy coffee.  By the way. Cowboy coffee or camp coffee as we used to call it is made by boiling the coffee grounds right in the the enamel pot which either sits on a grate or hangs directly over the fire. Cowboy burns on the hands when fetching a pot of cowboy coffee were often the side effects of drinking this sludge. Oops coffee. 

This is my Great Grandfather Wilson Blain and his heavy horse which I assume was a percheron ...judging by the feathers and the fact that my Great Grandfather was a practical man. I wonder if this horse came from the stock at the Bar U. That ranch was one of the largest breeders and exporters of the Percheron horse.  My family came from Ireland via Ontario in the  Petrolia area and travelled out west to Elkton /Cremona area where they farmed from the Nitchi Valley to Didsbury.  Breaking the land and farming with heavy horses. 

I love this bronze taken from a painting by Charlie Russell It sits outside in the parking lot of the Bar u Ranch in Alberta.