Feels Like Home To Me
It’s dry and dusty, but it feels most like home.
We’re on our way out to Yellowstone, on a good old-fashioned family vacation. In the meantime, we’ve stopped at my grandparents’ ranch for a couple of days of rest and relaxation.
I am infatuated with this tract of land.
At first glance, life seems sparse. Brown ground, only a little green hunkered down low, if you look closely enough. The nearest people are three miles away by road, two miles if you’d rather walk, a little less as the crow flies. The land is as strong-willed as the people; grass should have abandoned it years ago, yet each spring it reappears. For ages, the creek has been dry (or nearly so), but the trees still grow there, shining greenly each and every summer. Ground that would be used as farmland in friendlier climates works wonders as pastureland. Cattle wander to areas most ranchers aren’t even interested in, finding water in hidden pools sheltered by spruces.
In the winter, snow falls and melts, intermingled with the sixty-degree and negative twenty-degree days that make the area infamous. During the spring and summer, the land dries almost methodically, occasionally scorched when crackling lightning storms leap to life and spark the buffalo grass.
At night, the world takes on a different view. Unobstructed by city lights, smog, or haze, the stars shine as they did when the world first began, open to all wandering eyes.
This is land that looks remarkably identical to its 1905 counterpart, land that has been almost unchanged for over a century. The houses found are newer versions of the ones that once stood in the same spots; the roads are more permanent versions of old trails. The people are largely descendents of the original settlers, having made the same compromises with Mother Nature over the years. These are people that have accepted the land as it is, without trying to change it for their own good.
Urban sprawl is decades from reaching this place. Defiance runs through the grass—people will not be able to populate these fields until they have beaten back Mother Earth, and she’s up to the challenge.
I find my peace here. Quiet days, filled with whatever is needed—chores, hiking, playing with cousins—followed by quiet nights. The ability to yell without being heard, or to run without ever finding an obstacle larger than a tumbleweed. No rushing, no meetings, nothing on a time schedule except for meals and feeding the cattle. A life lived more comfortably, even without all the frills. A life where those things just don’t seem as necessary.
A life where true freedom feels more possible. What more could I want?
We’re on our way out to Yellowstone, on a good old-fashioned family vacation. In the meantime, we’ve stopped at my grandparents’ ranch for a couple of days of rest and relaxation.
I am infatuated with this tract of land.
At first glance, life seems sparse. Brown ground, only a little green hunkered down low, if you look closely enough. The nearest people are three miles away by road, two miles if you’d rather walk, a little less as the crow flies. The land is as strong-willed as the people; grass should have abandoned it years ago, yet each spring it reappears. For ages, the creek has been dry (or nearly so), but the trees still grow there, shining greenly each and every summer. Ground that would be used as farmland in friendlier climates works wonders as pastureland. Cattle wander to areas most ranchers aren’t even interested in, finding water in hidden pools sheltered by spruces.
In the winter, snow falls and melts, intermingled with the sixty-degree and negative twenty-degree days that make the area infamous. During the spring and summer, the land dries almost methodically, occasionally scorched when crackling lightning storms leap to life and spark the buffalo grass.
At night, the world takes on a different view. Unobstructed by city lights, smog, or haze, the stars shine as they did when the world first began, open to all wandering eyes.
This is land that looks remarkably identical to its 1905 counterpart, land that has been almost unchanged for over a century. The houses found are newer versions of the ones that once stood in the same spots; the roads are more permanent versions of old trails. The people are largely descendents of the original settlers, having made the same compromises with Mother Nature over the years. These are people that have accepted the land as it is, without trying to change it for their own good.
Urban sprawl is decades from reaching this place. Defiance runs through the grass—people will not be able to populate these fields until they have beaten back Mother Earth, and she’s up to the challenge.
I find my peace here. Quiet days, filled with whatever is needed—chores, hiking, playing with cousins—followed by quiet nights. The ability to yell without being heard, or to run without ever finding an obstacle larger than a tumbleweed. No rushing, no meetings, nothing on a time schedule except for meals and feeding the cattle. A life lived more comfortably, even without all the frills. A life where those things just don’t seem as necessary.
A life where true freedom feels more possible. What more could I want?
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