Many years ago, we were visiting Susan’s aunt and uncle in the Black Hills. At the time we were living in southwestern North Dakota. The people where we lived were wonderful and I enjoyed serving them as pastor. The weather extremes were bearable and in some ways made me feel strong to be able to endure the cold and function on the hot dry days. I was not unhappy with our home or our work. But we had come to the hills, as we often did, because there were services that were not available in our home town. I was standing on the deck of the house by myself, looking out at the hills and breathing the air. I thought to myself, I could really enjoy living in a place like this. The pine trees, the protection of the hills, the frequent glimpses of wildlife - all of these things were inviting to me.

I recalled that moment last night as we sat on our deck eating supper. The combination of snow and rain and my work schedule had prevented me from mowing my lawn in a timely fashion, and I has spend all morning mowing and getting caught up with outdoor chores. According to my phone, the accuracy of which is suspect, I had walked 5.6 miles without leaving my yard. Bagging the grass clippings makes for a lot of extra steps. The grass was long, which meant a lot of clippings and the capacity of the bag isn’t the best. So I had to stop frequently and empty the bag. Each time, I walked to the compost pile. With many pine needles and other items, the grass is a welcome addition to our compost. It compost fast and it adds heat to the pile which speeds up the making of soil deeper down. The grass also shrinks quickly, so the big piles in the compost will quickly become smaller. I don’t know if I really walked all that much, but I do know that i was tired and it felt good to sit on the deck and munch on a hamburger cooked on the grill and drink a cool beverage. I looked out over the freshly mown grass, noted the deer in the neighbor’s yard and felt the coolness of the shade of the pine trees. It truly is a good place to live and I am fortunate to have been able to live here.

I had real biases about place when I was growing up. I visited the Black Hills as a child and made fun of them. Being from Montana, I found it silly that the locals referred to the hills as mountains. We had “real” mountains that rose above the tree line, that had glaciers tucked into hollows, and that presented a formidable challenge to serious technically trained climbers. The footpath to the top of the highest point in the hills is accessible to most people who are in reasonable shape and it is only 3.5 miles long. It takes only a little bit more energy to go to the top of Black Elk Peak than it did to mow my lawn yesterday.

My biases, like all biases, were wrong.

It is no surprise that the hills where we live were considered to be sacred by multiple plains tribes before the discovery of gold and settlement by immigrants. Indigenous plains people were followers of the buffalo and so spent much of their time on the plains. They came to the hills for ceremonies and some camped in the foothills for shelter during the winter. Certain points in the hills, Bear Butte, Devil’s Tower, Black Hill Peak among them, became meeting points for nomadic people. The gatherings in the hills became treasured experiences and there were many stories of events that occurred in the hills.

In those days there were no lakes in the hills. All of the lakes we enjoy today are human-made reservoirs. In addition to storing water for domestic use and irrigation, the dams are part of a system to mitigate the effects of flooding. They don’t eliminate flooding, and in fact, when a dam failed in 1972, the effects were devastating. The reservoirs are all full and the streams are flowing over their banks, as was the natural process over the centuries. Homes that have never before experienced water are having problems with water incursion. Roads have been closed. A sinkhole has opened up in one the city streets. Spring is being challenging for some of the folk who live in our area.

We sat on our deck attached to our home near the top of a hill in comfort. And there is a kind of relaxation that is even more sweet because it comes after a time of intense physical activity. It was good to linger out of doors in the evening as the sun began to soften the colors around us.

The joys of place, like other joys of this life, are ours for only a little while. Sometime in the next twenty years my yard will become too big for me to do all of the work. I think that I notice the difference in my body after the years i have lived here. My lawn mower is doing well on its 25th summer. An oil change, an occasional new spark plug and sharpening the blades seem to be the only maintenance required. It still starts easily and does the job. I, however, have noticed that I’m not quite as nimble, not quite as quick, and need to take rest breaks more often. Mowing my lawn is good for me and i’m glad I don’t need a riding mower, but I can tell that the day will come when it will be time to turn this work over to another person. None of us goes on forever. Our pleasures are fleeting. The land, which was sacred long before we arrived, will be sacred long after we are gone.

And perhaps, if we are lucky, our stories will be added to the stories of those who have gone before. For now, it feels good, from time to time, to sit and enjoy this place where we live.

Copyright (c) 2019 by Ted E. Huffman. I wrote this. If you would like to share it, please direct your friends to my web site. If you'd like permission to copy, please send me an email. Thanks!