I hadn’t been to the family farm since Christmas, so when I went out there last week I wanted a first-hand look at what chores had been done – and what work still begged our attention.
Steve, my twin, had done a very good job of clearing brush down behind the shed along the creek that meanders through our homestead. I walked to the Sawmill Creek to see how much water was in it following what sounded like a dry winter.
Not only was there no water in the creek, the bed was so dry the dirt was like powder. I crossed to the south bank and began walking along the trees that had grown up along the edge. A biting south wind slapped my face as I walked, sending a shudder down my spine.
I spotted some trails carved into the prairie next to the trees, and out of curiosity I began following one just to see where it would take me. The ruts were deep and vertical, telling me they had been gouged out by hooves — most likely deer, since we no longer have cattle or horses on the place.
The ruts carried me close to the water’s edge – if there had been water in the creek, that is – and also cut the strong south wind to a teasing whisper. Suddenly, the day seemed transformed. Protected from the worst of the wind, the day seemed pleasant: sunny, with just a touch of breeze.
As the path curled up the slope and away from the trees and the creek bed, the forceful wind made its presence known once again. I was reminded of something my oldest sister, Mary, said as we’d braved a harsh east wind the evening before while checking out the west end of the creek and the small bridges spanning it so an irrigation pivot system could cross.
Even as the wind made us quicken our pace and shield our faces (with her granddaughter tucked inside layers of clothing like a kid in a kangaroo’s pouch), she talked about how much she missed the wind when she moved to northwest Missouri. The wind, the prairie, the sky. She talked about how the wind could define a day with its strength, shifting directions, and whimsical whirls. She went on about the subtle beauty of the prairie and how she loved feeling grounded by the soil. And she loved how the undulating prairie gave proper homage to the vastness of the skies, as if it realized what a remarkable stage the heavens could be – whether it’s sunrise or sunset, approaching storms or the grandeur of the stars at night.
For true people of the prairie, trees and mountains feel confining. It’s as if the sky becomes their compass (as it was for centuries of seafarers), and without it they feel adrift.
The deer tracks dipped down to the creek again, and as I followed them the wind spun around to blow again from the east. Down in the trees, following an east-west stretch of the creek, it was as if there was no wind at all.
By the time I emerged again from the woods, the wind was out of the south again. For me, a south wind symbolizes spring and summer in Kansas. It carries the moisture that feeds the spring storms, as well as the dry air that cures the maturing wheat in the nation’s bread basket as summer arrives.
Those characteristics capture the dichotomy that is a Kansas wind. It’s such an integral part of what defines the state, at times giving and at times taking away. Even as I shivered at times on that walk in the woods, I remembered all those simmering summer days on this land when it was the wind that offered blessed relief from the heat.