Kansas

Long, dusty country roads

In some ways, Kansas isn't too far removed from South Dakota - well, except it's usually about 10-15' warmer - they both have seemingly endless miles of gravel-bounded farmland and fields and lots of friendly people.  In places it seems as if you can see forever on a clear day - or at least the 10+ miles to the next small-town-with-elevator.  Whoever dubbed them the skyscrapers of the prairie certainly had it right!

Drifts of milo

 You do see more wheat and milo (grain sorghum)  than in SD, but there's also a lot of corn.

Wheat stubble

The view driving into town never gets old - and T keeps telling me spring and summer are even better color-wise.  The sunsets - and sunrises - are certainly spectacular.

Right out our bedroom window

Sunrise over tank batteries

Oil well

Of course KS has a few more oil wells and accompanying tank batteries storing oil and separated-off salt water - they don't smell so pretty.  But like hogs, it's the smell of money....  Luckily, there aren't any real close to us.

What is close to us, and which I can't wait to explore with the ponies is an absolutely gorgeous "dead mile" - well, not really a dead mile, since there's actually no track.  It's more a huge, unfenced swath of rolling prairie that stretches for a mile north and a couple miles(?) east. 

Just screams, "Come ride here!" doesn't it?

This gate is just over a mile up the road to the north.  T knows the owner and I'm crossing my fingers and planning a neighborly delivery of fresh baked goods that he won't mind if we leave a few hoofprints across it.

Mule deer

I'm guessing we'll scare up at least a few of deer, too.  For sure, there's no shortage.

Next trip down we work on corrective fencing and pony-proofing the barn area.  The existing fence is barb-wire, so the plan is to run electric around the inside perimeter to keep them off of it.  There are some trees that need to be trimmed up, and a few deadfalls that need to be cleared.

Barn, northeast side

The barn loft opens to the south - we'll need to clean out a bunch of old hay, but I'm told that needs to wait until it gets cold so that any snakes - yep, we'll be waiting until it's FREEZING! - are dormant.

The metal building is an old granary/equipment storage space.  It's sound and appears to need only minimal cleaning out, but I haven't done too much poking around inside yet.

Barn, northwest side

Doors to the barn are on the west - it opens out onto a series of sorting corrals, which right at the moment are wall-to-wall weeds.  A clean-out priority.  The old stocktank in the picture is part of a large and highly varied collection of metal junk that needs to be loaded up and hauled away, but that's a ways down my to-be-accomplished list at present.

Photo-recap

And I thought being on leave would see things slowing down a bit...  not so!

The boys have had a couple weeks of eating their fool heads off - not that they're complaining.

 I snatched an hour early last week and spend some time hanging out.

Sunny and I annoyed the sheep for a bit.  And that pretty much concludes the horse activity of any duration for this post, so feel free to stop reading here - LOL!

Corn Palace Festival week came and went with funnel cake and rides.  T and I celebrated our anniversary - by hauling fill dirt and rocks for the west edge of the house. 

So many projects, so little time! 

Then before we knew it it was time to get the kids packed up and head for the airport - what with the earthquakes, hurricane/flooding out east and the fires down in Texas, it was sort of strange to drive down through Nebraska/Iowa and see that they're still recovering from the flooding this spring.

Sandbags line long stretches of I-29 and the feeder roads, and there are plenty of detours.  But that's not in the news anymore.

We had fun poking around the Old Market in Omaha - so many neat shops and restaurants.

The kids weren't excited about sushi, so we did the traditional Spaghetti Works for supper, and T and I saved lunch at the Baby Blue Sushi Saki Grill for after their flight left the next day.  I had Silly Rabbit and Hot Poppers - Yum!

We wound our way down through KS, stopped off to visit C who's starting her first year at K-State in Manhattan.  111' when we parked the car but it's a dry heat.  We wandered the campus until she was out of class, then took her out for supper.  One of the prettier campuses I've ever been on - sorry, IU!

We spent the weekend with T's mom, then headed back for SD on Monday morning.  Since we weren't (for once) in any particular hurry, we took a few detours on the way.

 

Very cool.

Early Tuesday a.m. it was back to reality - well, sort of... We helped J work cows -  weaning calves and fall vaccinations.  I got to gather, but since we ended up using our truck to move the portable corral, I just rode one of their horses.  Ended up ponying another, which made things a bit interesting.  A lovely way to spend a fall morning!  But I was too busy to juggle the camera, so no pictures of that, unfortunately.

Bad Hair Days

Isn't that a face? All I can say is, don't ever let the sheep trim your hair, no matter how talented they claim to be!

And leave it to Sunny to be the only one to let himself be barbered. On one end, his tail is actually touching the ground. Now from the side he looks sort of like somebody grabbed his tail and pulled until his forelock got shorter. Doofus!

By the way, thanks for sharing your favorite winter warming items. Flannel-lined pants sure do sound grand this a.m. Yesterday was close to 60', but we had high winds to match the temp. Between the flying grit and the hunters next door blasting away, I groomed & hung out with the horses, but didn't ride. This morning it's still, but also chilly, foggy, and bitter. and it's already nearly noon, so I'm not holding out much hope for a warm-up. I guess if it was spring it'd seem balmy, right?

Speaking of hunters and deer - if this one isn't thumbing his nose....

We spotted this guy on our way back from Kansas last weekend. (That trip? Long story - don't ask.)

The orange sign?

It reads:
POSTED
Wildlife Refuge...

Obviously, Kansas deer get a better education that SD deer, because T's tallied three so far this weekend. The freezer will, indeed, be full of venison. And not to worry, it will all get eaten, too!

Greensburg, KS

We drove through Greensburg on Saturday. The damage that little town suffered was amazing. Even now over a year later when things are basically cleaned up, the scars are evident. New houses are going up, though...
Buildings are still coming down...

And there are lots of empty lots and foundations where things used to be...like on Main Street.
Classrooms may be conducted out of trailers... but there was a school, too (sorry, missed the picture on that one).
And the overall impression was one of rebirth and hope. There were hand-decorated and lettered wooden stars on many street corners reading "Hope" and "Smile" or bearing smiley faces.

We didn't get out and walk around - it was getting late in the day, and besides, it felt something of an imposition to walk around gawking like tourists. Not sure it was much better to do so from a moving vehicle, but it was an eye-opening experience, nonetheless.

SD goes to Kansas

We're all in Kansas for the week- well, Sunny didn't come, but the two-legged family members made the trip!

Not too much going on that's horse-related, but yesterday we did visit Ft. Larned. It's a national historic site that has living history events on designated weekends. This weekend we were lucky enough to catch a blacksmith working, a cook, and various other folks wandering about in period dress.

We visited early enough in the morning that it was (only) in the 80's, and there weren't too many people yet. Just as we were getting ready to leave, I spotted a horse trailer and the kids (we had H & M's cousin E along, too) found the horses a few minutes later.
A very nice gentleman in cavalry garb introduced us to his two mounts, a Spanish Mustang (American Heritage horse) - representing what the Native Americans would have ridden, and what looked like a 2-year-old Thoroughbred (cross?) which would have been similar to cavalry mounts of the time. Both were shiny and bright-eyed, but I was glad to see that the American Heritage horse was gelded - he rather resembled a Dachshund! Cute gelding, but definitely fugly stallion material, as you can see.It was too dark in where the blacksmith was for the pictures to come out well. We asked, and were informed that by the 1880s horseshoes where mainly mass produced, not handmade, but I did get a picture of the saddlery where tack would have been mended.

If you're in the Larned, KS area, I'd highly recommend visiting during one of the living history weekends - the reenactors were great, very friendly and knowledgeable, and the hands-on aspect was fun for us as well as the kids.
We then headed further southeast to Pawnee Rock. A natural rock formation sticking up above the flatness that is Kansas, Native Americans used it as a lookout point for bison herds and wagon trains. Later, stone was taken by locals for building purposes, so the platform was built to demonstrate the height and vantage point that the site would have offered. The view from on top was gorgeous!After that, we headed for Greensburg - it was really amazing how much clean-up has been accomplished. I have some pictures, but I think I'll let them speak for themselves.