Cattle Brands

Branding cattle is still alive and well in western Nebraska.  Just outside the bank in Merriman, Nebraska, is a large sign that identifies all the brands used in the Nebraska Sand Hills in 1964.  Below each brand is the name of its owner. I saw many of these brands during my wanderings through Cherry County, …

Uber Sand Trap

The Nebraska Sand Hills are basically a grass-stabilized desert, with gently rolling "dunes" that cover a quarter of the state.  As barren as the land appears on the top, below it sits the Ogallala Aquifer, which is the largest body of ground water in the world. The hardy prairie grass is well suited for the …

Tiny Town, NE

Cherry County is the largest county in Nebraska .  Covering over 6,000 square miles, this county is larger than the state of Connecticut, and has a population density of less than one person per square mile.  Bounded on the north by South Dakota's emptiness, the other three sides are bounded by even more wide-open spaces. …

Sand Hills Safari

I just returned from a photo-safari of rural Nebraska; I called it my Sand Hills Safari because most of it focused on the western half of the state. Before I retired, my job took me to the western-most parts of Kansas and I called these trips a "tumble weed tour".   I was surprised to find …

Tschus

"Tschus" (pronounced "chuse") is a German word/expression that means, "see ya".  I've had it on my license plate since Rebecca came into our lives as an exchange student in 1994. It's o-dark-thirty  (4:30 AM) now and I'm leaving the house to start my 8-day photo safari of the Nebraska sand hills.   I have a …

Hey, What’s This?

Prairie Art?What the heck IS this?  I was originally attracted to this scene by the lone tree on the hill top, but the more I studied this strange apparatus, the more I liked it as a foreground element.  It looks like the tops of 12 painfully uncomfortable metal straight-back chairs. They form a nice circle, …