"We have left less than one-tenth of one-percent of our prairie.

The rest of it died to make Iowa safe for soybeans."

Loren Lown quoted in

Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and

Promise of the American Prairie

 

I have not posted for awhile I thought I would finish

with photos from our trip home from the cabin in August.

Shaun a bit more woodsy now trots down the lane before

our two day car ride. The 9 hour round trip has been

split over two days with the dogs which allows for stops

and sight seeing. As always I am fascinated by the flat

landscape and vast sky of the prairie.

 

 

"On a bus headed South

The sky opens to a great bowl of prairie

distance is everything here.

the currency of wind, grass

the dance of clouds with their shadows"

 

draft

Guy

 

 

Some of the best places to stop are the access roads

leading to the oil & gas pumps and compressor

stations nestled amid the immaculate monoculture

crops of the southern prairie, better living thru chemistry.

Still one does find that even there nature continues.

 

 

A  brief passage thru the Badlands.

 

I believe I once received a tin Marx copy of this exact
barn for Christmas, I was a very lucky little boy. I also

recall my dog Lassie ( a pom ) gnawed the heads off

the plastic sheep.

"I used to think that the soul

Grew by remembering, that by retaining

The character of all times and places it had lived

And working backwards, year by year,

                                                      It reached the center of a landscape "
               
                                                                      from The Near Future

John Koethe

"So gradual in those summers was the going
     of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
     leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
     opening into the sky was something of ours
to have and keep and that the brightness we could not touch
     and the air we could not hold had come to be there all the time
for us and would never be gone"

from The Speed of Light

W.S. Merwin

I have not posted for awhile so I am still on

our trip to the cabin in July and August,  I

thought a tour was in order. Shaun and Whateley 

check  out the dog run.

This corner will

house the kitchen maybe next summer. This

trip was about furnishing the other rooms and

bringing the dogs. 

This will become the bathroom.

The bedroom.

The loft gets very hot so I suspect

it will function as storage something 

we always need.

The kitchen area can also house a 

workspace/desk with a lovely view.

The living room was an addition to the original

place. The cabin was basically a kit.

Shaun really liked the addition of the couch.

The lovely chairs were from friends of Helen's

 mom. Many thanks we love them.

The addition of this room also allowed Helen's

brother Brian to add a beautiful screened in porch. 

Thanks Brian.

On the first day it was finished Helen was sitting there

when a young black bear walked by ( within 10 feet )

not expecting anyone to be around, it ran off into the bush.

Finally Whateley is reunited with Mr Snakey

We added a feeder to the cabin, a gift from 

Pam and Ralph and had Goldfinches and Least 

Chipmunks. Next year I will put it a bit further away.

"There are threads of old sound heard over and over
phrases of Shakespeare or Mozart the slender
wands of the auroras playing out from them
into dark time the passing of a few
migrants high in the night far from the ancient flocks
far from the rest of the words far from the instruments"

Remembering 

W.S. Merwin