Buffalo Bridge

10/14/2023

RAINAN’S FUN-RAISER RAFFLE
A generative community fundraiser focused on supporting continued accessibility to the rurals and wilds for Rainan Marrow.

Rainan has been coming out to Buffalo Country with us since he was 3 months old and didn’t have a name yet. His middle name Marrow was inspired by the bone marrow of the buffalo. Some of his earliest memories are of swaying on his parents while they dry scraped a Buffalo hide. Although he’s got a disease that makes it so he needs a wheelchair by day and special machines at night for his well-being, ours is a family camp and we want to find new ways to help him continue to call Buffalo Country one of his homes.

Follow his mama Epona for more information, share, like and enter to win one of these big beautiful baskets, and help us keep Rainan on the Buffalo Bridge crew!

02/27/2023

These bloodied hands-

One of the greatest secrets to rediscovering the path Home is that, much of what They taught us is evil, filthy, dangerous, unsafe, impure, wayward and damns a soul actually is the repository of magic, knowledge, wholeness, depth- this isn’t about the different faces of God or politics, though it has been made that way- this is about how close you are willing and able to draw to the well of life.

Photos .hamon

02/27/2023

The next generation.
Hamon photography

02/26/2023

…And then we were packing up camp, singing songs of gratitude, embracing one another, taking in our last breaths of that enchanted Paradise Valley air and bidding the Buffalo farewell.

This was such a brief trip, the kids couldn’t wrap their brains around it, and we wistfully dreamed into how camp might look next year… stay tuned, Buffalo Bridge is here to listen and respond to what the Buffalo need, what the hunters need, to adapt to what is being asked of us and figure out how to show up to that call sustainably and in honoring of our changing life phases, capacities and needs.

No matter what the seasons bring, years of no buffalo in sight or streams of them flowing across the land, years of camps bursting at the seams with family and life, or years of us doing elsewhere doing whatever else, the unchangeable core that smolders through us all is deep love and respect for the Buffalo.

(Photo credit to Matt Hamon, who by nature is more often behind the camera than not and is an integral part of our camp and animal processing badass)

02/23/2023

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co75S3MLy0I/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

35 Likes, 6 Comments - buffalo bridge () on Instagram: "Beauty of the Buffalo Hunt Pt. 2"

02/23/2023

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co72thEp9D0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

36 Likes, 3 Comments - buffalo bridge () on Instagram: "Beauty of the Buffalo Hunt Pt 1"

03/28/2022

THE HONORABLE HARVEST

Three Day Animal Slaughtering Class

With Harmony Cronin

May 13-15

How do we become worthy of asking someone* to die so that we may live?

Here at the Meatriarchy we spend a lot of time wondering about our relationship to animals, food, life, and the art of killing.  We believe that it is not enough to kill "efficiently" and "process" the animal well.  Instead, we explore how can we weave our lives to the mysteries of generosity, reciprocity, relationality, and humility.  We attempt to be a student of our gratitude, our joys, our indebtedness, and our griefs.

We will work to harvest these animals with grace, compassion, sorrow, and love.  To give thanks for their lives and the lives of their ancestors.  To respect the enormous gifts they give by learning how to tend to them in fullness and in beauty.  And to learn how to nourish and sustain the health of their families.

This is a workshop for those yearning for a more magickal, spirited, mysterious, and mycelial approach to animal slaughter.  If you consider prayer and song "woo", this class is not for you.

The class will teach the basics of how to slaughter and employ every part of the animal (meat, blood, organs, fat, eyeballs, bones, hide, etc).

You will learn how to kill, cut, wrap, cure, smoke, grind, and preserve as much of your harvest as possible, with a heavy focus on off grid techniques.  We will discuss many non-food uses of animal parts as well. You will leave the class feeling confident in slaughtering and processing your own animals.

Every day a gourmet dinner will be catered using animals we’ve killed, fresh organic vegetables from our garden, dairy from our cow, and other organic staples.  

A wall tent with wood stove will be provided for communal sleeping.

$800.00 Per Student.   $300.00 deposit to hold a spot.  

Please email Harmony at [email protected] to reserve a spot.

* I use the term "someone" when referring to animals, plants, and other beings dominant culture considers "things".

03/13/2022

Our time in Buffalo Country is coming to an end, a time when the buffalo have chosen not to walk out of the park and give themselves to the people, but rather stay, perhaps recuperating, gathering their strength and numbers, remembering their ancestral pathways. We give thanks for all that they are, all that they endure, and pray for the health and wellbeing of their families on these winded plains.

Even without their living flesh blessing our camp, their sun bleached bones grace us with remembrance. Their shadow-cast forms move across our canvas walls in the hands of the children, danced with wolf, raven and man through stories, laughter and song. Their bodies open and soften beneath our hands to be made robes and gifts.

We give thanks to the deer and elk who too live here with their families and have given us of their bodies this past month, feeding us and teaching us with their strength, deep rootedness and generosity of spirit.

Times are a changing, strange and troubled for so many. We are so grateful to have spent this month amongst kind-hearted, beautiful kinfolk, gathered close to share, play, explore, endure and dream together. May the blessings and lessons of this camp reverberate outward into all that we do in and for this beautiful earth we call home.

03/04/2022

Though the buffalo herds may not be moving out of the park, many other four-leggeds roam free and thus fall prey to the snaking cement roadways. Elk, deer, racoon and skunk have all blessed our camp, providing us with learning opportunities and their bodies for sustenance, tool making and leather making. We've got a buffalo from last year racked in a frame and are enjoying scraping in the sunshine, grateful to still be able to collectively tan and gift buffalo hides from our camp.

03/01/2022

Come for the Buffalo, stay for the Clan.

Folks come out to Buffalo Bridge geared up for and anticipating meat processing, hide tanning, exposure to the glory of Yellowstone and the Buffalo. What many do not anticipate is the unique culture this intimate, intense environment fosters. Sleeping, waking, working, playing and learning together in hyperproximity can be quite the adjustment for most folks. But we humans have this in our blood, and it's amazing to witness as we sink in to the cocreation of our living breathing camp.

02/24/2022

Waiting for the Buffalo
When they're coming, nobody knows
Our tents are warm and the wind is cold
And I'm pretty sure everybody's toes are froze

02/21/2022

We got our camp well situated just in time for a snow storm and cold snap. These infamous Montana winds can be the change that moves the Buffalo down out of the park. While we play wait and see we give thanks for our sturdy tents, fat-bellied woodstoves and each other.