Forest ranger, park ranger, Navy sailor, lumberjack, and cowboy — those were some of the jobs Stanley Jones worked before accidentally becoming a movie actor and composer of classic western music. PLUS: Weird Annie had a bunch of weird raven children. Deus Pascit Corvus. New sounds by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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A summertime tour through "strange and weird places," where they held their annual rituals. This is Episode #228. It's on the level.

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Did you know the current (?) president's Quiet Quitting (via Twitter) on this Sunday in July was foretold by an astrologer on Twitter, two weeks prior? That's no lie, and you can check it for yourself. The same seer predicted, back in August 2020, that the current vice president would be the party's nominee in 2024, because it coincides with the VP's Second Saturn Return. Which is also hitting your Desert Oracle Radio host right about now. This is an Emergency Broadcast about Prophecy & Portents, with astrologically appropriate soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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What does one do, in these bunker days of summer? Too hot to work, too hot to think, too hot to sleep, and time is running away. When it's too hot to walk the dog at night, you know you've made a tactical error in life: You're in the Mojave, in July, in yet another historic heat wave. 

Well, sit yourself down beneath the swamp cooler vent, and get yourself a cold beverage, and enjoy this mid-July episode with soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this program on our Patreon.com/desertoracle page.

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Tonight we are celebrating the full moon and summer solstice, because it's a midsummer night's dream in the desert. Which means we're halfway to winter solstice, and only three months & change ’til Halloween. Maybe that's why we're talking about Puck of Pook Hill and homemade cranberry sauce. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, who has a Bandcamp site worth your attention! And thanks for supporting this radio program via Patreon.com/desertoracle .

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It's hot as hell and we're throwing everything in the hobo stew tonight: Desert-animal antics, Wild West extravaganzas, history's mysteries, William Shatner shot up into space, etc., etc. The soundscapes are by RedBlueBlackSilver and the rest is by your host & underpaid mail-order professional, Ken Layne. This is Episode #224, Slumgullion Stew.

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Public-land managers in the US Southwest seem determined to drive the pinyon jay to extinction. A half-century attack on pinyon & juniper high-desert woodland has led to a 78% drop in pinyon jay populations just in the past 50 years. You can take action, and the Pinyon Juniper Alliance is a good place to start.

The pinyon jay is the steward of the pinyon forests, for which the forest feeds and houses this crucial blue crow. Of the thousands of pinyon nuts the blue crow puts away for the winter, usually working with its mate and both returning to the spot throughout the year to store or collect, the few pine nuts left behind grow into new pinyons, expanding the reach of the woodland. More woodland means more wildlife, more carbon-breathing conifers, more precious Western water stored in the ground, more wildlife corridors that connect mule deer and desert bighorn and mountain lions along mountain and valley to vast zones of wilderness.

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Tonight we're talking ravens, fishes & loaves, and the soul-crushing indoor indoctrination of the Empire's State Religion. Sir James George Frazer, Pliny the Elder and the Gospel Mark are all involved, whether they like it or not. (And the "Bible Friends" podcast mentioned on this episode can be found here.)

Thanks for listening to the show, and for supporting the show via our Patreon page or at our online store, DesertOracle.com.

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Dr. John Milton Bigelow did not shy away from hard work, challenges, or adventure. At the age of 46, he signed on as surgeon and botanist for the Mexican Boundary Survey, following the U.S.-Mexican War that fulfilled the gold-hungry manifest destiny of the Americans. 

This adventure took him through the Chihuahuan, Sonoran and Colorado deserts, where he catalogued the great variety of desert plants along with several other botanists on the expedition — including C.C. Parry, namesake of Parry’s Nolina. The work was so pleasing to Bigelow that he readily accepted similar appointments as field botanist in some of America's wildest lands. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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Mariposa Grove was a sacred grove for millennia before it became part of the Yosemite Grant, lovingly tended by Yosemite Guardian Galen Clark for more than a quarter century.

Sacred groves and forests are protected for their spiritual and ecological importance. Such groves are found today throughout India (home of more than a million holy forests), Japan (many thousands of chinju no mori surrounding Shinto temples), and Ethiopia (35,000 primal forests circling Ethiopian Orthodox churches). 

Sacred groves protect many rare, threatened, and endemic species of plants and animals, and are often the last stand of ancient forest in a community. Biodiversity thrives within these sanctified nature preserves, while festivals dating back to antiquity provide people with a deep and lasting connection to their culture, religious practices, folklore and history. Learn more about Galen Clark from the National Park Service.

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