On the Prairie

The “wild” horses of the American Great Plains are not truly wild. In reality they are feral horses – domestic horses that were released or escaped from captivity and are surviving on their own. It is true that the distant ancestors of the horse probably evolved on this continent, but they were closer to the size of a big cat and unrecognizable as horses.

In about a week we will start gathering the buffalo off the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands (their winter pasture) and bring them back across the Cheyenne River to their summer pasture. It will also be the first time that I have been among them since my accident, almost two months ago.

Many people say they love nature, but as Dan often says, “people like nature when it doesn’t smell, poop, or bite”. For consumers who love nature and vote for nature with their mouths, and who look for companies like Wild Idea Buffalo Co. that offer a great meat by-product, through sustainable conservation, we have your back on all the elements of nature.

It has been a full-blown winter here on the prairie. Since our first snowstorm in early December the snow has continued and the cold temperatures have remained persistent. 

Last fall I got a call from Travis Livieri, a Black-Footed Ferret expert and the founder of The Prairie Wildlife Research Foundation. He was going to be in the Conata Basin area of the Badlands National Park doing research on Black-Footed Ferrets and wanted to know if I wanted to tag along for a night of spotlighting.   

Dan & I returned home just before midnight this last Thursday from a Patagonia book tour in California. We were greeted with a cold, still night and a black sky filled with stars. We awoke the next morning to a snow-covered prairie, the first snowfall of the year.