Welcome to the Prairie, Bitch

Okay I apologize for being vulgar. For the handful of people that get that joke, I thought it would be worth it. For the rest of you, I submit this post as my defense.

I've lived in South Dakota for a year and a half now. I'd always viewed the Dakotas as nothing but acres of wilderness, a vastness all but untouched by modernity.

It's not that forbidding. But it's still wild. It's so wild!

Those that aren't farmers and ranchers still enter into the wildness by traipsing through knee-high prairie grass and bogs to bring down a Blue-Winged Teal or sit through a freezing rain for a shot at a buck. Fun is driving around looking at public land or bird-watching at Sand Lake.

Aside from these rather atypical lifestyle choices, we still get our lattes and grocery shop and go to movies like the rest of America.

But to remind you that she's still wild and you can't tame her, South Dakota will wring the moisture out of your corn field, suck you dry, then beat you down with wind and rain. The mosquitoes swarm. The heat oppresses and she makes you forget you were so cold your eyelashes froze. Then they freeze and she hardens everything around you until you despair of flowers and rhubarb.

Other times she just gives you a playful pinch.

It happened to me today in the shower. When I pulled a tick out of my hair.