Prairie Oil Fire 10: Woman

We can’t quite determine what the green gas is coming from Sara’s belly. It’s likely a reflection of the flame off the lens, but Henry speculated it was a fart. Sara protested. Everyone else giggled.

Prairie Oil Fire Photographer

While waiting for her oil to gush (see below), Sara spent time photographing the oil machinery of some neighbors. Actually, in this photo she was photographing me photographing her (see above).

Prairie Oil Well

In addition to grain fields, cattle herds, and kids on ATVs (see below), a striking site on today’s prairie is oil machinery. Oil was discovered in North Dakota in…well…ok, a while ago. And now quite a few farmers have a tidy fortune sitting in the bank. What do […]

After firing guns, riding ATVs was probably the kids’ favorite activity on the Lazy JP Ranch. You’d think they should be  branding cattle or grooming horses, but no — tearing up the prairie grass with big-wheeled vehicles is the new range sport. Now, of course, none of them should have been riding these things alone […]

. . . where the deer and the antelope play — until Dad shoots them and we eat them. Here in Williston, ND the youngsters are being inducted into North Dakota ways:

And the adults have the satisfaction of firing a big gun (a bolt-action 243, to be exact):

And this is what was in that bolt-action […]

Not nearly as exciting and awesome as the buffalo herd, Mt. Rushmore was still worth seeing and showing to the kids. Safa and Henry, both knowing at least second-grade level presidential trivia, enjoyed seeing Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln carved in granite. Philip, however, was indignant that we were not allowed to scale the presidential […]

Mammoth Beauty

One of the hundreds of mammoth bones in situ at the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota. I think this complete skull is the one the paleontologists there dubbed “Beauty.”
Interestingly, nearly all of the mammoth — remains found in what was a sink-hole (a death trap) were young […]

My very first YouTube upload, straight from Custer, South Dakota:

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