Learning to Read a Vanishing Landscape

Archeological training teaches students to look for human-altered landscapes. This includes out of the ordinary coloration, unusual shapes or formations that don’t match surroundings, or obvious construction such as cliff dwellings. Southwest Colorado’s sagebrush plain schools the eye to distinguish differing hues of greenery indicating soil disturbances or recognize mounds with donut-like collapsed centers. In western Kansas, students of vanished cultures work harder to identify signs of earlier occupation. That said, historic and prehistoric signs tell stories for those who care to read them.

A trip over Hwy 9 between Highways 281 and 183 is a good place to look for historic construction slowing melting back to the earth. This two lane parallels the old Missouri Pacific Railroad that wound through Gaylord, Cedar, Claudell, Kirwin, Glade, Speed, Logan, Densmore, and Edmond. Each little town had a depot where farmers picked up deliveries or shipped grain, cattle, milk, and other produce. In most places, those distinctive rooflines have gone the way of horse and buggy. However, locals in Cedar and Kirwin preserved their whistle stops in bright yellow that provide interesting photo opportunities.

From the beginning of this route, observers note an undulating rise out of place from the surrounding prairie. If they recall their history accurately, they realize Jay Gould’s Mo Pac crossed here, stopping at each hamlet. Humans and beasts scraped surrounding soil to build the foundation supporting those clacking wheels. Folks with metal detectors and permission to go on private property occasionally find their detritus at sites where these workers rested and ate. Until the line folded, train cars carried grass- fattened cattle and sun-ripened grain to market.

With such thoughts in mind, curious wanderers might turn off the main highway to investigate Kirwin Refuge. Just before their detour, those visitors passed well-constructed ductwork carved into a high hill’s base. Such conduits carried run off from the rail bed crowning the rise. After they turn, a straightway descending from the crown and vanishing into the west compels attention. It seems it has no purpose. Now a mowed bed bordered by wild plums, this was a section of the old track.

Over time, farmers have plowed portions of earthen foundations until they blend into surrounding fields. Inattentive passersby won’t notice the on/ off again appearance of the old Mo Pac. Then a couple of miles past Speed, a bridge abutment rising from the middle of nowhere draws attention. This structure is so out of place. Without knowing this was a once a busy avenue of commerce, curious sightseers leave wondering.

I hope that mysterious man- made formations will interrupt the rises and flats between Highways 281 and 183 well into the future. Historians and photographers, amateur and professional, can spend happy hours traversing what began as a game and Indian trail, evolved to a stage road to Colorado goldfields, then became a leg of the Mo Pac route. For now, it’s a quiet byway broken by unnatural colors and unusual formations out of place on a native prairie. Here’s to the stories those disturbances tell.

Country Kid Fun

Unseasonably warm weather recently reminded me that country kids know how to have fun. I’d begun thinking about this topic after a visiting eight-year old from the Denver area entertained me with   adventures he enjoyed at a trampoline and arcade business near his home. After he detailed hours of good times performing tricks and challenging friends, I wondered what my grandkids would remember about their country childhoods. Thank goodness, I spied two teens playing a crazy game of either hide-n- seek or paint ball war in between long rows of snow-frosted hay bales along Highway 24. That nudge reminded me boredom wouldn’t affect anyone growing up in our family.

When those first seeds of concern sprouted, I should’ve thought about the farm kid essays I read during decades as a rural English teacher. On many occasions, I burst out laughing either in the middle of class while students read independently and I graded, or I interrupted quiet family evenings with guffaws that made my husband question my sanity. How could wielding a red pen be that much fun?

Nothing beats hay bales for fort building, assault advantages or hiding places in hedge apple wars, or simple jumping exercises. Who needs trampolines when you can leap from one round bale to the next to strengthen your legs and your balance? Add someone chasing you, and the thrill increases. For the less physically inclined youngsters, these objects offer quiet hiding places and comfy posts for cloud watching.

Not only do humans enjoy fragrant bundles of straw, hay, or alfalfa, critters like them too. Rural youngsters often spot red tails or northern harriers perched atop the straw while gnawing at a fresh meal. A favorite story detailed a kid plowing a field and seeing a bobcat snoozing lazily atop giant shredded wheat shapes bordering his work zone. Talk to most folks who grow up on farms or ranches, and even their eyes smile when they tell about about finding a farm cat with a litter of kitten tucked snugly into the hay.

Bales aren’t the only kind of fun country kids enjoy. Hot days lend themselves to unplanned dips in a farm pond or stock tank. Unlike the municipal pool, swimsuits aren’t required and kids can leap in fully clothed if they want. Swimmers might splash and giggle with the family dog or maybe feel stocked fish nibbling at their toes. Mossy bottoms make this a true adventure when soaked humans attempt to exit upright from the water.

Rural escapades don’t end when the sun goes down. Evenings offer opportunities to star gaze or count satellites arcing overhead in dark night skies unlittered by bright fluorescent and neon signs. On warm summer nights, entertainment includes counting and maybe catching flitting fireflies. Who doesn’t love watching a beetle with a blinking tail crawl up an arm or leg? That tickle added to the on/off glow is pure magic.

Hang around country kids for a while, and you realize a word is missing from their vocabulary. It’s the overused modern term—I’m bored. When you live in a landscape that constantly challenges you and allows your imagination to run wild, adventures await 24/7.