Life and Death on the Prairie

As quite a few people have noted, there is a dearth of blogging and visiting and commenting this summer. I was muttering to myself about it the other night as I was looking at my comments - saying that I was missing the friends who usually come to visit. Care Bear was listening. Nothing escapes Care Bear's amazing mind. (If you haven't visited her new blog yet, it is really fun).

She said, "Well, you should go to all of your friends' blogs and tell them to come over to visit."

I replied, "No, I can't do that - they'd think I was whining."

She quickly came back with, "Well, Grandma, you ARE whining!"

Oh, my - -

But thanks for coming over to visit! I love hearing from each and every one of you.


One of the reasons we took the trip to the prairie last Saturday was because we'd heard that the wild flowers were profuse and you know how much we love flowers!

About the only town you encounter on this trip is the little town of Ault. I love this sign in the middle of the town.






I love the sight of cattle grazing on the grass. We have several feed lots in our area and it is not my idea of how cattle should have to live. It is truly disgusting and smells are outrageous. But to see these beautiful creatures enjoying the succulent grass was peaceful to me.






We never did find a profusion of flowers that we were promised, but we did come upon these lovely flowers. As I got closer to take the picture, I realized both of them were thistles. It occurred to me again how God can make something beautiful out of something painful.

The wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't catch the flower until several attempts.

It's a bit fuzzy, but I love the ladybug hanging on for dear life. Can you see it?




As we stood on that overlook of the valley, we found this variety.

We went home a different route and came across an amazing variety of flowering cacti - fabulous.

I am quite certain this is the largest anthill I've encountered - what industrious little creatures God created! If you enlarge the second one, you can see them scurrying into that hole.

Appropriately, the last thing we saw was this really old, small cemetery.

When I was a kid, there was a small, very old cemetery at the bottom of the hill from my grandparents' farm. We would go in there and visit the gravesites, imagining what it was that took a whole family in one fell sloop. I felt the same fascination as I walked around and checked out the dates and the names. And then there was the wonderful one I visited on St. Simons Island that you'll recall if you've been with me for awhile.

There was a great variety of stones. Quite a few of them just had these little brass markers.




Some of them had the marker, but family had at some point added a headstone. And this one had wooden outlines for each of the three graves.




There was this weathered wooden one that had faded writing on it, undecipherable. But someone had been here recently enough to put a silk flower, unfaded yet.

This was fairly elaborate, compared to the others.

A whole family - 2 of the children didn't live to adulthood.

This one had been visited fairly recently as well, but the glass enclosed gifts were very faded.

I cut off the date, but this was a four year old, one of two that I found.

This one was very beautiful, with another very young person.

I hope you have enjoyed our little trip to the prairie.

From the Mountains to the Prairie

I have been singing "Home on the Range" to myself since Saturday morning. DC and I got up really early on the holiday and headed east, unlike the rest of the celebrants, who headed west to the mountains, or to the parks in our town. We went to the Pawnee Buttes National Grassland - a place where the wind blows constantly. I would not want to live there, and you won't catch me there in the wintertime, but our visit was very enjoyable, and we felt like we had a mini vacation when we got back home. You can see the grass blowing in these shots. The grass is incredibly green this year because of all the craziness we've had this spring and early summer - normally, it would be brown by this time of the summer, according to DC, who goes out there to do recreational target shooting once in awhile.

Another evidence of the abundance of wind - many wind mills . . .

I'd love to know the story on this one!



One thing that was definitely not there when the pioneers crossed this land - a very large wind farm.

I took a bit of video, but can't get it to load - they are creating electricity, are very quiet, and are using a free resource. Pretty green, eh??

The rock formations are so fascinating, with the wind farm in the background.

Another evidence of the constant wind - -

I felt like I had landed in a Willa Cather novel - and made me want to read them again. The meadowlarks were there in profusion, and their song was a treat - one of those Willa Cather books is Song of the Lark. I could just picture the wagon trains lumbering across this land on their way to the promised land. I can only imagine, and have read much about, the struggles as they had to abandon so much of what they packed on their wagons as they left with such high anticipation from their homes in the east or midwest. I wonder what they thought when they got their first view of the mountains in the distance.






We took a trail for about a half mile and found ourselves looking into this beautiful valley, with the buttes in the distance. But first we were warned about the birds that were nesting in the buttes - we were at the right time of the year to be able to visit beyond the point of this sign.

I think this is an example of the term "gully washer."

I can just picture the chief on his beautiful horse, with his feathers blowing in the breeze, checking out the valley from this rock.

The shadows began to make the valley look even more intriguing.

One more thing you wouldn't see in the pioneer days, but which I was very glad to find!

Coming Soon: Life and Death on the Prairie

Please go and visit Care Bear at her new blog, The Cupcake Store!