Talking to the moon

the long version

Following his university education and his service as a pilot in World War I, John Joseph Mathews returned to his beloved Osage country. He built a sandstone house on a blackjack-covered ridge in the midst of his ranch, and there he lived for ten years, stirred by a natural world that was still undisturbed by the demands of civilization. His observations are based on the white man's seasons as well as the Indian cycles of the moon, and he discourses upon the eccentricities of man, the behavior of animals (including the communicative talking to-the-moon coyote), and the encompassing and particular beauty of his wilderness home.