Kief to Carrington North Dakota September 2008

Near Kief, ND September 2008

Left Dan & Marian’s Kief, North Dakota farm early Sunday morning, heading home to Virginia, driving southeast toward interstate expediency.  But first, gravel, the good roads.

Spooked a clutch of juvenile pheasants zig-zagging out of the ditch until their momma glided in, giving direction.  Then this church.  It’s elegantly simple, with finely balanced Lancet windows.  A stately icon of past settlement--of faith, enterprise and now quiet.  A rare quiet, broken by pheasant cackle, grouse wings, fox yips and moonlit coyote howls.  Soon, the flurry of dusty pickups will thump on gravel, punctuated by deer-season thunder.

Stopped for Daryle Beckley’s long-horned cattle drive on Highway 200 near the outskirts of Carrington.  Cowboys sipping coffee, teenagers colas, both eating kuchen and venison sausages.  It’s windy but not too cold.  If only I could slip out of our Toyota van and alight on one of their horses, riding to a place far different from our near-Beltway life. 

 

 

North Dakota on my Mind by Carol Wallwork

Spent the past 2 days in a right state, fearing the loss of ALL my 2010 digital photos into the netherworld of Aperture, Apple's photo filing system. My feelings have gone from incredulity to...yes, pure loathing for my computer.  I even imagined life without this arbitrary tool.  Things really started to look dark when my Apple One-to-One tutor couldn't find my photos. 

When I got home I scrutinized-for the 50th time-where the elusive images could be. Then, just as magically as they vanished I discovered them in a drop down option in File, called Switch Library.  There they were, all 800 of them, in another Library I didn't know I had.  Pretty cool that I figured it out myself.  But it was a searing experience. Believe it or not this is the less painful way to prompt a procrastinator like myself to buy an external hard drive, which I now own, as of yesterday.

So, before anything else untoward occurs, here's another installment of our northern journey, to North Dakota, that near treeless terrain where sky, cloud and wind reigns.

The eye plays tricks on one here...it's not as flat as one supposes.  In the East the grass is longer, further West, shorter due to less rainfall.

It's like a glimpse from the past to walk for miles and see no other living soul, knowing that there's maybe two people per square mile.  It'a almost a spiritual state, the closest I've been to what it must be like to sail alone out of sight of land.  You either go squirrelly or become curious about that vast sky, the grass, the animals. It's just you and the BIG.  You are tested here, in the land of few techno distractions. Dan and Marian ace this test.  They're souls of the prairie, born and reared here, so much a part of this landscape they're not at peace when too long parted.  They know this country like the backs of their hands, its cadence and measure, the big buck down by the slough, the pheasants' flurry when vehicles pass on the road, the snowy owl in the old cottonwood tree by the barn, when the June berries are ripe, and where the teepee rings are up on Letvin Hill.  They know how to sow, tend and harvest a good life from this land.  They're the richest people I know.

Carol with Dan & Marian

Preparing the harvest for dinner, Dan carving the roast & out the sliders the limitless view of the hills

Cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, potatoes & corn from the garden near the house