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Anne and John Anderson's garden at their home on Tamblyn Rd. was featured in a recent Ontario Horticultural Association's District 17, garden tour. Anderson's garden has a wide variety of features, including ponds, secluded seating areas, and this bamboo stand. Other local gardens featured in the July 8th tour were Bryants of Pollard Rd. with their roses, and Henry Lorrain's Day Lily Garden also on Pollard Road. One hundred and seventy three people signed the Anderson's guest book that day. , The tour was part of a four seasons tour, a fundraiser for the District 17, which is to host the Provincial Horticultural Convention next year. BTfflB BLACK ARTHUR BLACK PLEASE GET ALONG, LITTLE DOGIE! Remember Rawhide? Perhaps it was before your time. It was a TV westém, really big back in the early 60's, all about a gaggle of cowboys who drove cattle across the West and the adventures that befell them in the doing of it. Rawhide was primarily • notable as the debut vehicle for a lean, squinty-eyed newcomer by the name of Clint Eastwood. The other thing that's remarkable about it is that, as a program concept, Rawhide would never make it off the drawing board today. Are you kidding? It was about cattle drives. The ' cowpokes in the show used to whoop and yell and wave their Stetsons and lasso stray calves and gallop after runaways. runaways. The theme song was a punchy, up-tempo ditty with lyrics that went "Move 'em on, git 'em up, git 'em up move 'em on, move 'em on, git 'em up, Rawhide (whip crack)." Wrong, wrong, all wrong. Cowboys don't drive cattle anymore. Not in this age of caring and empathy. The old and evil cattle drives have been replaced by 'holistic herding'. Also, known as'low stress livestock manage ment'. And how does that work exactly? Well,. fdT starters, the Bom Again cowboys no long whoop and holler and gallop. Instead they coo and wh isper and take extra care to make no sudden movements that might alarm or discomfit their four-footed charges. Instead of 'driving' a steer in any given direction, the excowboy- excowboy- turn ed-emotion- counsellor gently moves into the steers 'space', then backs off when the steer moves towards him. And the animals animals are never, ever approached from the rear. You think I'm making this up, don't you. Well, I'm not. According to Steve Cote, a spokesman for the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service "low stress livestock handling handling is changing the whole face of the West." I can see where if cattle had the votes, they'd poll solidly in favour of New Age Wrangling, but what's in it for the cowpokes? "It's hard to believe at first" says Cote, "but the results are there for everyone to see - the cattle are happier, healthier and more obedient if they are not shouted at or subjected to stress. They tend to stay together and not wander away, and consequently consequently life is easier for the cowboys." Cote even claims that the cattle will even accept being branded if they are talked to gently - which I find a little hard to believe. I've never had actually had a piece of white-hot metal bearing a ranchers monogram monogram slammed into my naked haunch, but I'm pretty sure no amount of sweet talk would persuade me that it was a good idea. If these sensitive New Age cowpunchers care about their cattle so much, why don't they deep-six the branding branding irons and break out the Magic. Markers? Still, holistic herding does look like an idea whose time has come. Predictably, a lot of the old ranch hands thing it's so much longhorn puckie, but the men who pay their salaries are singing a different different tune. Horace Smith is a rancher who runs a 17,000 hectare spread on the Nevada/Idaho border. "It's not easy for a lot of (the coWboys)" says Smith, "but times are changing and they have to change with them." "And," Smith adds bluntly, "if the-cowboys don't want to charige and do it our way then we do'n't want them." Oh, I can see a , lot of change heading due Westward. Language alone is going to have to get a lot more sensitive. Perhaps cattle cattle drovers will be issued with name tags that say "Hi, I'm Wilbur, your personal Travel Facilitator". 'Cattle drives' could be renamed 'ambulatory inter-species be- ins'. And what's to be done with those macho, decidedly uncool rodeos? Well, I suppose suppose the calf roping portion could be re-designated as rotating seminars On Coping With Externally Imposed Restraints. The bucking bronco section might be overhauled and presented as "Equine applications of . Newtonian Physics, or, What Goes Up Must Come Down." All I know is, I'm glad John Wayne moseyed off to the Last Roundup before holistic herding rode into town. I don't think the Duke could have handled the whole dadbumed concept. But who knows? Maybe John Wayne had his sensitive side tob. After, all, his real name was Marion Morrison. And I'm not making that up, either. ART GALAXY Sapimer programs Call 261-1657 to register 5323 Main Street, Orono www.korenscreativearts.com • •••••••• I\ DAYLILY GARDENS OPEN GARDEN WEEKEND! Sat & Sun July 22 & 23 10am to 4pm We will be at peak bloom. This will be a great opportunity to preview our upcoming introductions and see 13,000 new seedlings in bloom! Daylilies will be for sale as well ' as 'garden specials'. One of a kind Birdfeeders and Birdhouses by Kristin McCrae and Hostas from Happy Hollow Nursery will be here. Refreshments, parking and washroom facilities available. Admission is free. Taunton Rd. 5th Cone. 5th Cone. 3rd Cone. 4th Cone. 3rd Cone. HWY.2 HWY401