Lord…! I’ve not often come to tears in my life (and that lack it is a flaw) but when I have teared it has often been over an heroic animal; the stretch run of a horse race, the “putting down” when I was thirty of the 31 year old mare...
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On Monday evening T and I went out to Oskar Blues to listen to one of our favorite local "Old Time" music groups, the "Hogtown Squealers". They delivered a spirited and driving rendition of "Thunder Road" which reminded me of the movie Thunder Road (1958) which reminded me of the...
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a dream that never had a chance that wasn't meant to be--and all of those cliches it could have been identified it was so easy to identify but dinosaurs protest it had to do with energy the fundamental source of human energy and productivity and pride the feelings of a...
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When I met Kim Schade in January 2012 he told me about how he harvests several hundred acres of hay the old fashion way using 60 year old tractors and horse teams. That brought back memories so I invited myself to hire on the haying crew at Schade Ranch. In the spring and summer of 2012 there was no rain and no grass so no hay. I have Medora, ND set up as a location on my weather app so I watched as the snows came all winter and the rains came all spring and, sure enough, I got the call from Kim several weeks ago to come to "hay camp". He says the grass is so green that the badlands look like Ireland.
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The Bakken, the largest oil formation in the Western Hemisphere, encompasses some 25,000 square miles of North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The center of the activity in North Dakota is Williston and when I rode AmTrak out in June I was counseled to avoid Williston and de-train a couple...
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Thomas was born in 1909 and around 1989 he wrote about his first job, as a fatherless only child, on his mother's farm. He was likely about 8 years old at the time. Burton sometimes let me operate the reaper and binder, which was used to harvest oats, rye, and...
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When I signed on to help with harvesting the 2013 hay crop at the Shade Ranch in the Little Missouri grasslands south of Medora, North Dakota, I knew that horse teams were used there and so I had visions that came straight from the pages of Ivan Doig's 1979 memoir,...
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There is a farm on the Orangeburg Scarp in South Carolina, that we called ours for 94 years until 1984. And on that farm we had some cows which made necessary a new bull every year or so. In the winter of 1978-'79 we had a dream of getting in...
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Leaving the Farm Mother Earth to ashes held for years on a mantle place not the first hostage period at the foot of the ancient Scarp Just finally freed scattered on the Little River at Corn Mill Shoals spin dancing with the keeper broken by the dart of a Brookie...
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My memory of when my world was new is less cluttered than the sea of activity and emotion of later years. I remember the first day of the first grade. We were only about a dozen and all sitting in the grass in the sunshine by the big Hackberry tree outside the gym door and Jackie shared her lunch with me. That was the kindest thing that someone outside my family had done for me. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget.
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Because of extra rain and snow received in the Northern Chihuahua Desert during the winter, the desert wildflower climax this spring is said by some to be a 100 year event. These photos were taken as we entered Big Bend NP from Marathon with the Chisos Mountains in the background; then on the Cattail Falls Trail below the Window, and finally along the River Road from Lajitas to Presidio. Photos by Tom Thom (Canon G11 and iPhone 4S)