Location Taken: Northern Nebraska
Time Taken: November 2012
Ah, the gently rolling hills of the great plains, filled with amber waves of grain! Is there anything more pastoraly idyllic?
Vocab lesson! Pastoral refers to the lifestyle of shepherds leading their flocks from pasture to pasture. It’s also a style of art and literature that glorifies the simple life of the empty pastures and fields, the joy of being the only human around as you wander through somewhat tamed nature.
Well, I suppose it’s not truly pastoral. I don’t see any sheep, after all.
And wait, that’s not grain. It’s just grass. Dead dry grass at that, faded away by winter’s arrival.
And those hills aren’t exactly good for farming. Though, amusingly enough, sheep would probably do just fine on them. Cows certainly do, since that’s what they’re being used for. But these hills are part of the Sandhills of Nebraska, which is essentially a desert with a layer of grass on top.
Seriously, desert. During the Medieval Warm Period around a thousand years ago, these were active sand dunes looking and acting just like the Sahara. The grass took hold when the world cooled down a bit, but well, this is a land existing on the edge between desert and grassland. It doesn’t take much to tip it either way.
Who knows, maybe the climate will shift in the region someday, bringing a little less rain and letting the desert take over again. Those sorts of shifts happen all the time, even without human influence.
I doubt you’d see any cows in the area then. Or sheep, for that matter. Or shepherds.
