Ghost buildings

Rattlesnake carved on porch post, Fairburn, South Dakota

The photo series I am calling "Architecture of the Open Places" has topped 1000 shots, most of them taken in the past three years. The focus (so to speak) is on small structures in vast landscapes, tiny blips against endless horizons. I look for the buildings that have held on to an essential character in spite of the ravages of time, weather, and broken dreams. 

South Dakota has always been a hard place to homestead, to farm, to ranch. It is pitiless and merciless. These structures have stood up to the harshness in many ways. Wood has lost any vestiges of paint, metal shows rust in all colors, glass has aged and broken...but something is still there. 

Some entire towns out here are deserted or nearly so, having lost whatever economic driving factor they ever had. The buildings are the last witnesses. I don't know if I find them or if they find me. 

Skulls and masks carved on other porch post

Fairburn, South Dakota

Stove on abandoned hotel porch

Hotel, Fairburn, South Dakota

Church, Pringle, South Dakota

Cabin, Custer County, South Dakota

Storefronts, Ardmore, South Dakota

Cabin, Pringle, South Dakota

Shed, South Dakota

Faith and funeral pie

Women's History Month challenge for March 10 — What role did religion play in your family? How did your female ancestors practice their faith? If they did not, why didn’t they? Did you have any female ancestors who served their churches in some capacity?

Historic St. Thomas Chapel, Dover, Delaware

Gene and I both have pictures of our respective parents' marriages in Methodist churches: his in Pennsylvania, mine in Texas. My maternal grandparents were rooted deeply in the life and activities of First Methodist. Everyone they knew was Methodist. My father may have raised a few eyebrows, being raised exotically Presbyterian and asking for forgiveness of debts instead of trespasses.

When I worked in western North Carolina, I heard a local historian and folklorist explain that, in the high Appalachians, the settlement or town generally tended to be all of one faith, depending on which flavor of clergyman first made his way into the deep woods and high altitudes. There was most likely not going to be more than one church built, so everyone lined up behind the banner of the belief that got there first. They were generally solid Protestant churches, nothing fancy or extreme, just places to pull the community together for two things we have nearly lost today: fellowship and mutual help.

For our grandparents, the term "community of faith" was absolutely literal. Their church was who they were. They came from a time when Sundays were all-day events, with Sunday school, services, a quick break for dinner (not lunch), and then singing with supper on the grounds afterward. As they moved to town and the churches grew bigger and grander, they clung to this pattern. The men went to men's Sunday school classes, the women to ladies' classes, and everyone participated in a few social and service circles during the week.

Both my grandmothers defined themselves by their churches and their participation. There were awards for perfect attendance, longest attendance, and greatest service. No life event happened without the church ladies being there with food and helping hands. Our older girls were and are teachers, not preachers, in their faiths. They led by example and service.

When I came across this recipe in Dolly's files, I was startled and initially appalled. Then I did what I should have done in the first place and read up on it. It's actually a lovely thing. Raisins were scarce, a real luxury food at one time. You didn't ever waste them. To have a whole pie filled with raisins was actually a loving and generous gift to a bereaved family. It celebrated the life of someone special and dear. Everyone brought enough food to get the family through a few weeks' worth of sad arrangements and adjustments. It was a promise from the community of faith that life would go on. You took this over, still warm, and helped out, knowing that someday you would be helped out in turn.

Pennsylvania-Dutch funeral pie

Make 2 crust pastry for 9” tin and line tin.

Cook covered until tender (5 minutes): 2 cups seeded raisins in 2 cups water.

Stir in: ½ cup sugar mixed with 2 T flour. Cook over low heat, stirring, and boil 1 minute. Remove from heat ad add ½ cup chopped nuts, 2 T grated lemon rind and 3 T lemon juice. Bake at 425* for 30-40 minutes. Serve warm.
--Dolly Shaffner Hess

Our families' circles of faith were and are drawn to include, not exclude.

Good day in the Badlands

The Wall near the Ben Reifel Visitor Center, Badlands National Park, with tipis

I don't have time to leave work these days, not with all the preparations for next week's grand ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building. But I had a meeting with friends and colleagues at Badlands National Park today. This is not an onerous drive. It's 75 miles. You can get out there in under an hour via interstate, or just over an hour on the blue highways.

Or it can take you 3 hours to cover the territory by meandering all over the landscape on the tiny unpaved roads chasing storm clouds, rainbows and wildlife.

It was spectacular. Fall is starting, no matter what the calendar says. The grasses are brown and red, the cottonwoods are turning yellow, the meadowlarks and killdeer are wildly restless. Afternoon storms change the light in a million different ways every minute. The angle of the light has slipped lower; summer is over up here. The winds are cooler. I cannot remember when I last watched every minute of a 2-hour sunset.

I came home, unlike my camera batteries, fully recharged and ready for the week ahead. Not trying to set any overland speed records worked wonders. I did have time, after all. Here's hoping you enjoy the scenery, too.

First signs of fall

Sign in Scenic, SD

Gate, Scenic

Pteranodon sculpture, Scenic

Distant Badlands, Sage Creek Road

Bison and prairie dog

Badlands in early fall colors

Storm clouds rolling in

Badlands sunshine and shadow

More storm clouds over Interior

Holy Rosary church, Interior

Presbyterian church, Interior

Jail, Interior, undoubtedly not in use

Welcome sign, Interior

House, Interior, with spectacular light

Yet more storm clouds

Double rainbow, Conata

More sunshine and shadow

Clouds and light, Sage Creek

Storm cloud sunset

Lacreek NWR

Young ferruginous hawk on his mountain

It should have been another errand- and chore-filled day up here. There is more than enough to do on both the professional and personal fronts. Weekend time is precious. We have three weeks left to complete the first phase of the move to the new building and to get ready for the big ribbon-cutting ceremony and dedication.

In theory, I should be making the most of every minute with Getting Things Done Now.

In practice, we got up early this morning, left the phones at home, and drove down to Lacreek National Wildlife Refuge for a day of meandering down the smallest backroads imaginable and looking at the wildlife, buildings and achingly beautiful vistas.

Eastern kingbird sneering at the photographer

We needed the scenery, the abundance of bird calls and the near-total absence of electronic and traffic noises. Lacreek NWR is at the northernmost range of the Sandhills, just south of the White River Badlands, a pocket wetlands habitat in the High Plains. It was a Civilian Conservation Corps project, as many refuges were, established in 1935. It is in every sense an oasis.

Original sign, as posted at the Lacreek NWR site.

We had never been there before, and we found that it soothed frazzled nerves better than anything else we might have done. The phones and the errands and the chores waited for us, for once.


Here is a selection of eye candy from the day. Enjoy.

Church on Pine Ridge Reservation.

Abandoned cabin.

Technicolor beehives.

Lacreek NWR marsh.

Great blue heron.

Common nighthawk.

Scenic, SD.

Sign with many, many interpretive possibilities, most not suitable for a family blog.

Sign at our friend Kenny's ranch. Yes, that is a pteranodon and that is also a mosasaur on top.

Sign, Martin, SD

Yellow-headed blackbird

Q: Why did the sharp-tailed grouse hens and chicks cross the road? A: Better you should ask, why did it take them 15 minutes to do so? First you get everyone lined up....

...then you get everyone crossing in random order, back and forth....

...then you finally get them in place.

Splendid summer vistas are all too rare these days. Enjoy.