Solstice count

Early morning light on the formations

 

So it's been a few weeks. This semester (I will spend my life dividing the year into semesters, which, when you think about it, is Not Normal) was the most hectic yet since we loaded up the covered wagon and moved to this prairie outpost. Sometimes it's difficult to know where, if anywhere, the fixed points of our orbits are.

 

The constancy of change is nowhere clearer than in the drylands and flatscapes of the prairies. We have shifted our annual Christmas Bird Count focus to Badlands National Park and surrounding areas, and this is a lovely and somber region indeed at the winter solstice. The light slants low; it blazes up and dies down quickly, like a small fire on bone-dry wood.

 

It was a day for deep, peaceful silences, cracking ice, a light so brilliant that everything seemed illuminated from within. It was not a day for flocks of birds. This is South Dakota. In winter. Birds aren't stupid. Most of them headed out over a month ago, late this year. Everything that could hide or hibernate did so, leaving us to the colors of winter grasses, tall formations, and ice. The bighorn sheep joined us all day, moving down to marginally warmer grazing.

 

In short, it was prairie magic.

 

 

 

Bright light and deep shadows

  

Two-track leading to formation. Eventually. Not in a straight line.

  

Vintage survivor facing the sunrise.

  

Low formation

  

Curve of the frozen river

  

Timelessness

  

Truck, Interior, SD

  

Smiling playground...thing....Interior, SD

  

One-legged cowboy

  

The zombie apocalypse will at least have semi-live entertainment in Interior

  

I am still not sure what is going on with this formation 

Bicycle wheel

  

Mule deer on the move

 

Major ears on these things

 

Silent tracks

 

Bighorn being cool

 

Deep mud cracks and ice. It has been a fiercely dry year.

 

House, Interior

 

Jail, Interior 

It is just like us to oversleep and miss the coyote calling contest by a week. That was no doubt a highlight of the social season.

 

Dad 

Junior. Seems late in the year for one this small....

 

Patriarch at the side of the road

 

Wary watchfulness

 

Sweep of the river. We saw a short-eared owl flying across this in its own sweeps, but it never got close enough for a good picture.

Conata Road in gold light

 

Cabin

 

Sunset behind the Black Hills

Here's hoping everyone found time during the holidays to tap into that same deep peace and silence.