Outside it is cold, windy and rainy.
Good thing I'm sitting in the rather nice and comfortable Redfield Library. There's a fire burning in a stone fireplace at my feet and some really pleasant old ladies who just love country music and watching birds. I think I just had my longest conversation ever about country music that did not involve Taylor Swift.
The Redfield Library, though very tiny, looks amazing. The small brick building is filled with wooden pillars and columns grand father clocks and graceful curves. And VHS tapes. Lots of VHS tapes. It's like a 90's Blockbuster in here.
ATV training on Saturday went really well. Met Kory, the other Tech for the job. He's a pretty nice guy, Junior at SDSU and fully ingrained in the Wildlife vs Fishes battle at that school. It's odd, at Michigan there seemed to be contention between the animal and plant biologists, but out here nobody cares about plants it seems. The two camps are fishes vs game animals. Sadly, the fisheries people have the greater numbers, which was why moving the ATVs was such a pain. All them boats in my way. But yeah, the training went smoothly, save fore one minor incident.
We had permission to hold the training course on SDSU property, near some of the animal pens, as that was the only place that had enough space to do the maneuvers required. We were by some big horn sheep, keeping far enough of from them not to disturb them, when a white truck came roaring down the road. It skidded to a stop not far from us, dusting billowing around it, and a rather large bearded man jumped out and stormed over to us. He was yelling something, but over the noise of the ATVs I couldn't hear what.
The ATV instructor walked overt to the man and I joined in after shutting down the ATV. The man, apparently a professor at SDSU, was yelling, threatening to call the cops on us for disturbing his sheep. He claimed that using the ATVs near them could kill his sheep, each worth more that $60,000, and that he would sue us for any harm we did them.
Throughout his tirade, both the instructor and I tried to tell him that he had permission to be here, and that this was an SDSU approved activity. It wasn't until I gave him the name of the professor that was overseeing project I am working on that he calmed down at all. He turned back to his car and made a quick phone call. While he was doing that, we were packing up the ATV course. It was not worth the effort trying to argue with that man, and it would be sad if a sheep died. Eventually he came back, much quieter now, and apologized for his earlier behavior. It seems that Dr. W carries a bit of weight at SDSU.
The man was still worried about his sheep, and asked if we could relocate, even though we could be there. He told us about the chicken pens, just to the north and said that they were empty now. And so we decided to head out and bother that area.
Well, almost. The chicken area was separated by a large muddy field. We drove the ATVs over it, but some of them could not make it and got stuck. Mine almost did, but luckily, I had enough grip in 4-Wheel-Drive to make it through. Even better, we got an extra lesson in our course--How to deal with a stuck ATV.
I saw seven different tumbleweeds on my way back from Brookings. One of them was bigger than a cow.
South Dakota is a grid. Everything goes North-South or East-West. At first, I was rather annoyed by it, it made it impossible to move in a diagonal line in this state. But it also makes it impossible to get lost. All of the streets are numbered, and they go up sequentially. And all North-South roads are Avenues, while East-West are Streets. You can get an address and find it from anywhere in the state as long as you know the cross streets. It's kind of cool. Though it is really depressing looking at a street sign and seeing you have 130 miles still to go before you can make a turn.
Went fishing yesterday. Did not catch anything this time. A bunch of kids were baiting the fish, and then throwing rocks at them, smashing quite a few of them. We stayed there for about ten minutes before leaving for someplace better. That turned out to be ALCO the single greatest store I have seen in this state. They sell everything for crazy cheap prices. And I mean everything when I say everything. Electronics, food, clothing, if it exists ALCO sells it. I know, I know. To most of you, that's not all that exciting. You can go down the street to buy that, or go online to get it. But out here, when I have to drive half an hour just to get internet, finding that place was like finding out Amazon had a physical store.
-Me
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