DAYS 70 & 71 - Gordon, NE - 1345 miles from home

I'm writing this from the gorgeous backyard of our hosts for the last two nights - Sandi and Wayne Muirhead, trustees of the Gordon United Methodist Church. Collared doves and blue jays greet the drizzly morning. The heat has broken; it feels like Fall.

We are still in the warm embrace of the Methodists, still in the extended care of Pastor Peter Mtuamwari. Sandi and Wayne have essentially adopted us, feeding us dinners and breakfasts, encouraging us to use all the hot water we can (showers! laundry!), and today they will be accompanying us to the 41st annual Willow Tree Festival here in Gordon (more about that in tomorrow's post). Sandi used to teach high school Spanish; she and Wayne reminisce fondly of their exchange students from Colombia and Chile.... This morning I joke that we've become their new foreign exchange students, and all agree that we're about as 'strange' as they get!

We've been hiking through the Sandhills of Nebraska, and it's been extraordinary. Wayne grew up in a ranching family here; he tells us about driving his dad's truck as young as five years old - about branding and castrating bulls and learning early on about "mountain oysters" ("We'd throw them on the coals and sometimes eat them right there") - about his mother who cooked hot breakfasts, dinners and suppers for him and his brothers, his dad and all the ranch hands. During the season that meant cooking and cleaning for 10, 15 people - packing meals into boxes to take out to the fields for everyone to eat - washing and wringing all the clothes and washing all the bedding once a week - hanging everything out to dry - even in winter - and making all the beds in the bunkhouse on Sunday before supper. And then on Monday morning, she'd start the cycle all over again. "She didn't have any daughters," Sandi explains. "She did it all!" We muse that times have indeed changed. "I grew up with a washer and dryer," says Sandi - who grew up in eastern Nebraska, in manufacturing country. And, just to be clear, in Wayne and Sandi's house I notice that Wayne clears the table each night, rinsing all the dishes.

The Sandhills are blowing my mind. Early homesteaders thought that the mighty drifts of sand were all desert - but these dunes sit atop the rich Ogallala aquifer, and nourish some extremely tasty grasslands. In the 1870s ranchers discovered the value of this land for grazing. Rangeland management has further stabilized the dunes. Not so long ago, as Wayne tells us, there was only grass in the valleys between hills. The hills themselves were dry sand - what ranchers here call "blowout." As a boy, one of Wayne's jobs was to lead the cows down into the valleys to graze. But now grass covers almost all of this vast region; cattle have helped pack down the sand, allowing the hills to grow green. And while there are now some"pivots" (the irrigation rigs that I've mostly heard folks around here disparage, since they drain the underground springs), and some farming of corn and alfalfa occurs, the Sandhills remain largely untilled. Miles and miles and miles. "God's own cow country," as the sign for Cherry County puts it.

And so, it's been miles of rolling grass and brush - my pacing disturbed only by the most aggressive flora I've yet to encounter (sandburs! like alien creatures attaching themselves to me with ferocity, tiny barbed thorns that hurt more to dislodge than to leave in)... and by the equally extraterrestrial lubber grasshoppers. (Trigger warning: images of entomological intimacy in the photos below.)

Back in Gordon, on the other hand, I've found myself more curious than ever about how small ranch and farming towns are surviving. The 13 churches here are all struggling - as traditional churches are struggling everywhere - and there is talk of perhaps some of them merging congregations permanently. Young people, including the Muirheads' three kids, are moving away. Yet, despite the presence of the ubiquitous Dollar General, Gordon has two grocery stores - neither of which is a franchise. A flower and wine shop. A bakery. A clothing store. A theater. A celebrated drive-thru burger joint. - And an annual festival. Here, as in other communities we've visited (Hay Springs, Rushville, Chadron), the Pine Ridge Reservation is a protective economic factor: native populations come to towns for their groceries and supplies.

I spent Thursday evening in the generous company of Gordon women: a new season of the venerable Women's Music and Dramatics Club was convening. We met in the Cowboy Memorial Museum, and the meeting itself was a memorial of sorts - honoring the way that womenfolk have been entertaining each other and sustaining community for more than a hundred years. Over the years the circle has grown smaller, however. Before the formal program began, conversation was about folks recovering from strokes, about the antics of grandchildren living far and wide, about the closure of the Safeway in Chadron.

Towns around here are growing smaller each year.

And as I finish composing this blog, I hear a whirring about a foot away: a hummingbird hovering, curious, just long enough for me to reach for my phone's camera - but not long enough for me to snap the picture. He's off.

Hope darts in when you need it.

Wayne and Sandi Muirhead, Gordon, NE.

Candi presenting the program (on children's storybooks and the power of reading) at the Gordon Women's Music and Dramatics Club. (Jen and Cheryl are in the background.)

Cherry County encompasses the Nebraska Sandhills.

Walking through 'God's own cow country.'

A windy morning in the Sandhills.

Lubber grasshoppers making more lubber grasshoppers.

Gwen, Candi's mom, at the Music and Dramatics Club. Gwen's other daughter, Julie, owns the flower and wine shop in town.

Chris and Mel - members of the Music and Dramatics Club.

Marco and Minx Muirhead.

The elusive Midnight Muirhead (Bob had to use the laser toy to get Midnight's attention for this photo.)

Wayne telling some tales.

Bob enjoying aforementioned tales.

In our Sandhills adventure, stopping into the Sandhills Ranch Supply in Merriman - childhood home of Pastor Martin Leeper. Jodi Evans greets me, shares some local info. "I wouldn't live anywhere else," she says.

Henry at the Merriman Westlake gas station fills our propane tank. He's just rescued a small snapping turtle who was almost drowning in motor oil. He also appears skeptical of Liberty Walks' mission of connection and peace. "I just got back from Europe on my own business trip. I was spreading a mission of connection in the party scene of Mallorca."