This winter has been pretty bland in the way of weather. Just a lot of cold air rolling into South Dakota. There has not been a whole lotta' snow! Thank goodness. We have had a few colder days though, like the other day when it was eighty degrees colder outside than it was inside my home. The front screen door frosted over with ice and had lovely shapes all over it. I opened the door up in order to take a picture of the frost, but it melted away so quickly, because of the huge temperature difference between inside and outside. I hardly even had one second to take a shot of the frost on the door with my camera. So what, right? I guess I should not sigh as the winter is not even a month along and things could change as fast as that door melted. Thanks to the lack of snow this winter I also have not been locked indoors as much as past winters and I've been able to get out and go on some drives. One thing about South Dakota is a person could drive and drive and never see another person. I don't think humans live here sometimes. It can be nice but also eerie sometimes to be alone on a lonesome plateau. I found the roads have been pretty well groomed of snow. I have seen the snowplows roaring down the old oil roads very often. Not sure how they make it around everywhere to plow, but they do. A lot of the no-maintenance roads are just blown over by wind, or there hasn't been enough snowfall so they are clear. I found a pile of bones and some broken dishes and and a few old tin cans on a particular drive. I just pulled over and in the ditch was piled a bunch of old trendy trash. It was interesting to look at the mess of it. Old glass bottles and tin food cans, some busted up in a strange manner to somehow glop out the food that had been inside. There in the pit of dump was an old circuit board and some broken dishes. A few of the bones had teeth still attached they looked like various cow parts. Very strange pile of treasures and super interesting to look at. I stared at it for some time wondering why it was there and how so much trash had collected in the middle-oh'-nowhere. I probably looked strange but it can transfix a person with wonder finding such a pile of trash. I don't know why but old glass bottles have an allure to me at least! Who drank from and what out of them? I wondered if there had, at one time, been a house close by. I don't know. I wanted to know the stories behind the trash. I am sure whoever ate and drank of the old cans and bottles is long gone. The circuit board is of course recent. I wondered if it was destroyed to cover up some incriminating information. But leaving the circuit there seemed strange as perhaps someone smart enough could get the information off of it and read it again. But mostly there was the jars of what looked like pop or beer and old tin cans. A tetnus nightmare. Once those drinks were cold and new and fresh and someone found them to be a welcome drink. But not now. Where did the hands that held those bottles go? Like many things on the prairie the stories are lost in the wind. Dust and pollen cover up the forgotten secrets. Once, long ago someone held that trash and liked it. I wondered who. After a time studying it I felt I should move on from that place on the prairie. I briefly surveyed the fields around the trash. They were stunning and filled with yellow dormant grasses, that were covered in part by snow. In the distance were some small ponds/lakes that were frozen over. The snow blew lightly on the ice, seemingly asking you to trust its strength. I imagined perhaps someone once fished on the ponds to gather some food. I could hear their voices trailing across the empty field. Laughter and shouts that were no longer, if ever there, they filled my mind. I wondered about those voices I'd imagined. Were they real or phantoms? Everything looked so picturesque and quiet, like a well painted oil hanging proudly in a museum. Secrets long forgotten. I climbed back in my vehicle and drove on leaving my thoughts in the field to mingle with the those that lay forgotten in the ditch. Along the way were a lot of turkeys in large groups. Not sure why they were gathered together. Maybe to stay warm for the winter or for protection from predators like coyotes. I have not come across too much wildlife lately, but whenever I do I am thankful. I did get stuck in deeper snow at some state park once. I drove down the road into the park and then I could no longer see the road in front of me in order to turn around and come back out, it was completely covered in snow. Basically, I ended up backing my van out all the way down the road. That was a trip, no pun intended. Besides that the ol' prairie is entirely cold and frozen and it awaits the unknown... In the endless fields lay the whispers that carry in the wind of all the yesterdays that have come and gone. The secrets of the brave souls that long ago lived their lives on the Coteau. Oh, the memories. Sometimes they sound keenly piercing.
Comments