Thursday, December 4, 2008

On the Open Range in North Dakota


The people of North Dakota live in one of the least populated parts of the United States with some of the worst weather, but you certainly can't say they don't have a great sense of humor. Along the highways of North Dakota you will find numerous huge fiberglass sculptures of cows, prairie chickens, buffalo and other creatures - put there just for the fun of it. Also individual ranchers and farmers often make humerous monuments in their fields using bales of hay, old farm implements, or whatever they have at hand.

I had to stop when I saw this "open range" along one secondary highway in a remote part of the state. The open range refers to the time when there were no fences and cattle roamed freely upon the range. Instead of being divided by fences, the herds were branded and the new calves sorted out with their mothers at round-up time. The open range is all but gone now in the American West, but the folks in North Dakota still know how to have a good laugh.

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