May 03, 2005

The day Jill was due…

The day Jill was due to arrive home from France I got a call that an old friend had just died. Tim Hjort and his family had become my friends through Jill. She and Jilian had lived beside them years ago and something had clicked the way it sometimes does. When I met the Hjort’s it clicked for me too. Tim was just my age, a progressive man who had been raised on a Montana ranch and had ranched in South Dakota for decades. He could be as cynical and cantankerous as I can be. We enjoyed each other’s company and our families enjoyed each other, so greeting Jill with the news of Tim’s impending funeral was tough duty.

March 02, 2005

Now we move into Spring…

Now we move into Spring. Both the Ides of March and the Vernal Equinox have passed. Dawn comes a little earlier each morning; the sun eases itself little by little northward in the eastern sunrise sky. The prairie winds blow and whistle and sometimes howl. But if you are going to live in the prairie, you will live with the winds.

February 06, 2005

The holiday season has come and gone…

The holiday season has come and gone and I can safely say that winter, in its full attire, has arrived.

Let me get you caught up on what’s been happening out here.

Dan and Jill and Erney are deep in the process of taking up permanent residence here at the Cheyenne River Ranch. Needless to say “hectic” right now is normal. Jill’s daughter, Jilian, a senior at New Underwood High School is, along with being an honor roll student, an excellent point guard for the NUHS girls’ basketball team. (Never mind that in the last game she got her nose broken scrapping for a loose ball.) We all support her and go to as many games, both home and away, as we can get to. Jill commutes frequently to the Broken Heart and to the office in Spearfish to keep the administrative parts of Wild Idea Buffalo running smoothly. She also stays busy in her kitchen – which, believe me, is as busy as ever. Dan is presently away from the ranch. He has taken a visiting professor position for the winter quarter at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. He’s teaching a course in Environmental Science and also conducting an upper level course in Creative Writing.

January 05, 2005

On this quiet, chilly, but snowless afternoon…

On this quiet, chilly, but snowless afternoon I started thinking about a part of this ranch’s life that I don’t often write about. Houseguests. We have frequently had houseguests here, and they have done a little bit of almost everything there is to do at the ranch. Our houseguests generally have been: family, friends, business acquaintances (including writers, musicians, photographers, environmentalists, botanists, customer/clients, occasional vacationers, and a hunter or two). Some visitors have just come by, out of interest and curiosity, to see the buffalo, the ranch, and what we do. We try, as much as we can, to show them as much of the ranch workings as they have wanted to see. And we can almost always provide a beer or a glass of wine, a cup of coffee or a bottle of water to accompany a tour.

December 28, 2000

Where the Buffalo Roam, A Controversy Over Meat

By Stephanie Simon
LA Times

While many ranchers pen bison in feedlots before slaughter, free-range advocates hope to create market for steaks with sass.

WHITEWOOD, S.D.-The buffalo bunch up on the ranch out here, big and very dark against the flat forever of the sky. They rip at the prairie grass. They call to one another in a dusky purr.

Dan O’Brien watches, content.