In a bit more than a week the family and I will be back in North Dakota at the Potholes & Prairie Birding Festival based in Carrington, ND. Every day out there we'll see the sky sliced by chevrons of American white pelicans.You can find the festival HQ in Carrington by looking for the giant statue of a Native American outside The Chieftain Motor Lodge. He's waiting to give you a high five.
At the P&PBF we birders also throw our hands in the air (like we just don't care) when we celebrate seeing a life bird, like a Baird's sparrow or a Sprague's pipit.
Phoebe and Liam love coming with us on our prairie rambles. Nothing but grass and big sky. And smiles and hugs.
And a bit of music played at Ann & Ernie's place, near Pipestem Creek.
If you look carefully you can find some prairie smoke in bloom.
You can wander through and old homestead and image the lives that were lived there.
And you can watch the sun go down over the western horizon, seemingly just over yonder and a thousand miles away all at once.
The coteau region of North Dakota has called us to it for a decade now. It's a wide open place, where your mind sneaks out of your head and stretches itself in the prairie sunshine. The worries of the world seem so far away, and why not? It's the middle of nowhere, but farther along.Hope to see you there.