Day One-Hundred-One, Breaking Wind

I woke up early in my field of sunflowers. How early I could not say. To know that I would have had to gear up my computer and I thought it could do with the rest. I had tried the night before to take a picture of the sunflowers but it did not turn out very well. You see only my tent and a dark blur behind. That's where the action was.

Be assured though that they were sunflowers, though perhaps not the kind you all know. These are smaller and hardier, industrial sunflowers, not the spindly backyard breed. I'm informed that they can be a high-dollar crop, though this year that may not be so. As they stand, their flowers all drooping the same way, there is not a one that is not covered in grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers are nutty for sunflower seeds. They are happily eating their fill. And among the ordinary grasshoppers, maybe two inches long, there are monsters twice as long and as wide. Like little green sausages with sharp little claws. I see some potential there. I ate a few bugs when I lived in Thailand. I believe you could sell them here. Packaged as "Lobbster" or "Free-Range Shrimp." That's a million-dollar idea.

It was again a beautiful day. There was a fairly brisk wind. I am now in those famous Nebraska Sand Hills. I'd never heard of them, either. They do though cover 20,000 square miles. When the pioneers came they were dunes. No one wanted anything to do with them. They were sure they would die in there.

But came the Blizzard of Eighteen-Seventy-Something when some poor farmer lost his cows. He eventually found them eating green grass and lounging beside a clear pool. Deep in the dunes. The grass has spread since. No one is quite sure why. One theory has it that a dusting of topsoil blew in from South Dakota.

They are still dunes. The grass is quite thin. There are too a good many daisies. And spiky deserty looking plants and prickle burrs everywhere. But between them there is visible sand. And some parts have no plants at all. Ranchers do their best to shore these bits up with piles of discarded tires.

Sunflowers seem to do OK here. So does corn, with enough irrigation. And longhorn cattle, who don't mind the dry. Many of them are from Texas. And there are too a number of good-sized snakes. They seem to be happy and thriving.

It is easy, walking across this landscape, to imagine the grass isn't there. I am in what is essentially a desert. It's not its fault that it rained this year. The shape of the hills is pure Sahara. The daisies but the merest mirage. The wind had kicked up just enough dust to blur the shape of the sun.

I wasn't in much of a walking humor. I'd had egg salad the day before. It made me gassy and I had a bruise on tbe ball of one of my feet. But I took a pill and kept moving. There was really no place to sit down. On a windy day sitting down is hardly more restful than walking.

Here and there a farsighted farmer has put a wind break by the road. Three or four rows of evergreens to keep his farm where it's at. I liked these; it's fairly snug in there. I'd crawl in for some crackers and cheese. Aerosol cheese and tinned weeners and stale hamburger buns. The snakes would gather around me like children, wanting me to tell them a story.

Here's a story for you: Once upon a time all the snakes died and the owls came and controlled the rodent population just as well as they ever did and weren't nearly as vile and disgusting and nobody missed the snakes at all and everyone was happy. The end.

But mostly I kept my head down and walked and listened to country music. I don't like country music. I had too NPR but they were on a jazz kick today. Later on they did play some Béla Fleck. He is my favorite musician. But by that time I had arrived in Merriman, Nebraska, twenty-two miles away.

Merriman (pop. 118) is a town in slow decline. You don't need as many men to run a ranch these days and the railroad has long gone away. The oldfolks are dying. The young ones don't stay. I give it maybe twenty more years. There is a saloon, the Sand Something-or-other, where I had a frozen pizza for dinner.

It wasn't so bad. She heated it first, the woman who runs the place. She spent many years as a teacher and principal. I would not want to see her mad. And she directed me to the city park, which is where you find me now in my tent.

I suppose I could have gone another five miles. As it was I had daylight to spare. But I needed to juice my little computer and resupply for my walk to the next town. The cafe/store will be open tomorrow. They should have what I need.

Not long ago I was celebrating. I was sure I'd reached civilisation. But this stretch of Nebraska is Montanaesque. Towns are small and far between. And prices are creeping up just a bit too, at least for the next eighty miles.

But I am warmer and safe. There's a mighty wind, but I'm protected by a row of houses. There is too a shower. It is rather fithy, but I've lived in India. Life ain't really so awful bad. Thanks for tuning in. Goodnight.


NOTE TO SELF: Next time you fall in love with a forest ranger, think about asking her name.

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