I was sitting in a quiet farmstead south of Tappen yesterday while my rider went in the house to call on one of her clients. The squeaking and groaning of an old wooden windmill caught my attention, an enjoyable background noise while I sat waiting. Someone said once the only time around here that you notice the wind is when it isn’t blowing. Moving air is invisible in and of itself, but it’s not hard to see its effect on whatever it touches.
Last week Wednesday I drove into a strong north wind on my way to the town of Garrison. While crossing the causeway dividing Lake Sacajawea and Lake Audubon, I couldn’t help but notice the wild wind-whipped waves with their white-capped tips and the deep troughs between them as they broke on the south shore.
On Monday and Tuesday of this week I cut hay in large fields and watched gentle breezes wave the grasses just like the surface of water. Scandinavian immigrants thought this vast, rolling, treeless plain they settled on reminded them of the sea, and literature reflects that. A book named Sea of Grass, the song phrase "Amber waves of grain," plus many other examples bear testimony to the sense these settlers had of the plains.
As I drove home from Tappen my reverie of thoughtful literary contemplation burst like a bubble when I came on a damn turkey buzzard feasting on a dead crow on the highway. The car was almost on him before he decided to get out of the way by unfolding his six foot wingspan and flap away. A large bird, he would have put a nice dent into my state-owned car.
