Just Another Hay Baler

Ima Cemetery

Nelson A. Miles

(Wikipedia) Nelson Appleton Miles (August 8, 1839 – May 15, 1925) was a United States soldier who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, and the Spanish–American War.
... Miles played a leading role in nearly all of the U.S. Army's campaigns against the American Indian tribes of the Great Plains. In 1874–1875, he was a field commander in the force that defeated the Kiowa, Comanche, and the Southern Cheyenne along the Red River. Continued

Western Interconnect

Hell or High Water - Official Trailer HD

Broadview Wind Gets Vertical

The towers are sprouting all over the northeast portion of Curry County as the first sections of the Broadview Wind Project go up.

Old House 32

Floyd, NM (vicinity).

A Whole New Landscape

Northeast Curry County is poised to see a dramatic change in its skyline as several hundred wind turbines have been staged to be built in the area. One can't help welcoming the economic shot in the arm it will bring to the region, and the road improvements up there have been nice too. Several months ago, I couldn't get to Hollene Cemetery from Bellview because of the washouts, now it's smooth sailing.

It has always seemed to me that 85% of Southwestern geography is sky, now I guess, it will be closer to 80.

The Road to Field

Field Cemetary

If you can't get a feel for eternity in a Southwestern Cemetery, you'll probably never get it anywhere. Of course, a brief look at the stones will bring you right back to earth, or in this case, Field.

Located in Curry County, New Mexico, Field sits atop a slight ridge on the western edge of the vast plain known as the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains. It's a ranching community, and like so many others, the largest population density, by far, is in its cemetery, along with a good amount of pathos and, as previously mentioned, a healthy dose of the infinite.

Old House 11 Revisited

Out on the caprock

I like this scene, one day I'll do it justice.

Old House 28

Broadview, NM (vicinty)

Caprock Wind Farm owner plans solar plant

Caprock Wind Farm (Sixgun Siding)

(Quay County Sun) The owner of San Jon’s Caprock Wind Farm plans to add some solar generating units to the wind energy complex, starting some time in 2016.
A representative of Infigen, the Australian company that owns the Caprock Wind Farm, and a bond attorney, on Monday requested authorization from the Quay County Commission to seek  industrial revenue bonds for the project.  The commission unanimously granted the authorization. Continued

How Green Was My Mesa

 

 

What a difference a little rain makes. After 3 years of drought, the rain has returned to the Llano Estacado and greened things up nicely. The above pictures give a nice before and after view. Both taken at Wheatland Cemetery, the first on May 5th, before the rains came, the second was taken yesterday. The rest of the pictures were taken yesterday in the McAlister/House area, which seems to have turned out even greener. The photographs are mostly of the roadside as it represents a part of the landscape that is rarely irrigated. We made a big loop covering Tucumcari, Wheatland, Clovis, Melrose, House, McAlister, etc., and it all looked relatively verdant. The drought isn't over, that would take a lot more rain, but, as you can see in the pictures, there's more rain coming. Let's hope it continues for a good long time.

 

 

 

 

Garrison Keillor: By the Book

(NYTBR) The host of “A Prairie Home Companion” and the author, most recently, of “The Keillor Reader” collects hymnals, phrase books and tales of heroic collies. And “I’m a connoisseur of bad poetry of the elegiac variety.”

 

What are the best books about Minnesota? 

 

Ecclesiastes tells you all you need to know about Minnesota. “Whoever increases knowledge increases sorrow.” You can say that again. “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong nor bread to the wise nor riches to men of understanding, but time and chance happeneth to them all.” That’s got Minnesota down to a T. You run fast and you trip on a gopher hole, you are heavily armed and well trained and you shoot yourself in the foot, you’re so smart you go broke. Continued

First Irrigation Well in Bailey County, Texas

"Dug by hand in 1909 on farm of Willard Burns. A pit well (large enough for workmen to enter), it measured 6 by 10 feet across and 15 feet deep. A 10-inch centrifugal pump removed 1,000 gallons of water per minute. Upon its completion, settlers from miles around gathered to hold a "water carnival", which became a local custom whenever wells were dug. Hundreds of such wells made agriculture profitable in this low rainfall area. Well and pump were abandoned when turbine pumps came into use, 1920s. No signs of it remain."

Palo Duro Canyon

If you're ever in Amarillo, Texas and need to kill some time, head straight to Palo Duro Canyon, just 20 miles south of town. They say it's the second biggest canyon in the U.S. and I don't doubt it.
It costs a mere $5 a person to get in the park which grants ticket holders a day of driving, hiking, and touring a nice museum. Camping and horseback riding are also available. We took the drive down into the canyon and enjoyed the dramatic geology along with the very pleasant canyon eco-system, which was much less breezy than the rest of the panhandle.
Off season weekday traffic in the canyon is very light, allowing us to take our sweet time. A quick car tour doesn't take much more than an hour or two, but one could easily spend days there hiking around. The park is just a few miles off of I-27, which intersects with I-40 in Amarillo. Highly recommended!

Selected Letters of Willa Cather

 

(NYTBR) ... The great turning point for Cather came in 1912, when she traveled to the Southwest and realized that the region she had tried so desperately to flee as a young woman was, for better or worse, the place that had the deepest hold on her imagination: “The West always paralyzes me a little. When I am away from it I remember only the tang on the tongue. But when I come back [I] always feel a little of the fright I felt when I was a child. I always feel afraid of losing something, and I don’t in the least know what it is.” A few months later, when she returned to Red Cloud, Neb., all of her ambivalence was gone. The sense of homecoming struck her with the force of an epiphany — “The whole great wheat country fairly glows, and you can smell the ripe wheat as if it were bread baking” — and filled her with artistic purpose, a sense that she’d finally found her subject. Within months, she’d completed “O Pioneers!” — the book she considered her true first novel — and launched a meteoric career that would bring her enormous fame; countless honors, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1923; and an enduring place in our literary pantheon. Continued

The Schoolhouse Blizzard

(Wikipedia via Falmanac) The Schoolhouse Blizzard, also known as the Schoolchildren's Blizzard or the Children's Blizzard, hit the U.S. plains states on January 12, 1888. The blizzard came unexpectedly on a relatively warm day, and many people were caught unaware, including children in one-room schoolhouses.
The stories:

Plainview, Nebraska: Lois Royce found herself trapped with three of her students in her schoolhouse. By 3 p.m., they had run out of heating fuel. Her boarding house was only 82 yards (75 m) away, so she attempted to lead the children there. However, visibility was so poor that they became lost and all the children froze to death. The teacher survived, but her feet were frostbitten and had to be amputated.

Holt County, Nebraska: Etta Shattuck got lost on her way home, and sought shelter in a haystack. She remained trapped there until her rescue three days later. She soon died due to complications from surgery to remove her frostbitten limbs.

In Great Plains, South Dakota, the children were rescued. Two men tied a rope to the closest house, and headed for the school. There, they tied off the other end of the rope, and led the children to safety.

Mira Valley, Nebraska: Minnie Freeman safely led thirteen children from her schoolhouse to her home, one half mile (800 m) away. The rumor she used a rope to keep the children together during the blinding storm is widely circulated, but one of the children claims that is not true. She took them to the boarding house she lived at about a mile away and all of her pupils survived. Many children in similar conditions around the Great Plains were not so lucky, as 235 people were killed, most of them children who couldn't get home from school. Continued

Photo: Trout School, Felton, PA. (Falmanac).

The Meteorology of Little House on the Prairie

(BoingBoing) If you read The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder's novel about narrowly avoiding starving to death during a ferocious winter on the South Dakota prairie, then you'll remember how the trains stopped running because of the snowfall. In fact, that's a big part of why Laura and her family were so hungry — their harvest had been lean and the train carried the supplies they were dependent upon. Continued