One More Farm Day

Sunday, the plan was to take Jeff and Valerie’s boat to one of the nearby lakes for some cruising. A steady rain in the morning changed our plans. Instead we took a 2-3 hr. drive through the countryside. Still saw lots of water, though. They’ve had a lot of spring rain, resulting in floods so there’s a lot of standing water and numerous closed roads.

A main attraction on our tour was the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge. An awful lot of waterfowl migrate through South Dakota. Highlight at Sand Lake was a 108 ft. tall lookout tower. I climbed it -- 132 steps. Here's a picture looking up.

And here's a picture looking down. That's Susie between the tower and Jeff's pick-up.

This land is very flat in this part of the state, so water doesn’t drain; it just stands and slowly seeps away, but not quickly enough to offset successive rains.

Also, this is primarily corn-growing land, but there are many fewer farms (houses and barns) per acre than you see in IL and IA. The population density in SD is 10 people per square mile, compared to 15 in NM, which we think is pretty sparsely populated. Iowa has 15 people per square mile.

Valerie (whose job as a juvenile justice system officer requires a lot of travel around this part of the state) had seen a sign out in the country for the Granary Rural Cultural Center so we checked that out. Sign said open every day, but all that was open was the sculpture garden and the 'Dakota Walk' that winds through it. A couple of buildings housing an art gallery and a gift shop weren't. Only Valerie and I were up for Rural Culture. We kind of got the idea of the Center from what we could see, but the above website defines it:

The Granary is strongly dedicated to nurture the creative abilities and artistic expression of youth. We aim to generate an active constituency to celebrate the work of local artists, make fine art a part of community life, and advocate strong Fine Arts programs in high school education.

Here's a piece of sculpture. What do you think it means?

The jumbled up columns, it was explained, represent people not working together, different agendas, etc. The lined-up upright columns represent people working together to make something useful and pleasing to the eye.

A case in point, cited in a plaque at the Center, was the battle in the 70s and 80s over the Oahe Irrigation Project. A grassroots group of unlikely allies fought off a big government project that would have caused a major disruption of the state's water and land systems (one part of the plan was to channelize the James River near Aberdeen to provide better drainage). You can read about it the above Oahe website.

One other piece of sculpture celebrated RFD.

I think this earnest fellow was a little upset because the Sears catalog was late.

Jeff also braked for barns, at my request. Some choice examples.

Topped off the day with more walleye. Good food all the time. Had a great time with Jeff and Valerie. We're leaving tomorrow, Monday, for points north and west. Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob