Dear Friends – I have neglected my duties as a blogger, as I have been traveling around to book stores and conferences doing readings from my new book. It is a memoir about the last ten years of our lives and the life of Wild Idea Buffalo Company. It is peopled with folks that many of you know from your connection to Wild Idea. Here are the first few pages from chapter one. Very Best – Dan WILD IDEA Buffalo & Family In a Difficult Land CHAPTER ONE Some nights, when I step out onto my ranch house porch, I am met by the immense, roiling waves of color from the northern lights. But in other seasons I find coiled rattlesnakes or perhaps a wind so cold that skin can freeze in minutes. By any economic ciphering, choosing the Great Plains for my home has caused me to slip behind my contemporaries who chose New England, or California, or the hills of Georgia. Still, like loving a drunk, I had little choice. For over forty years the prairies have been my home and I’ve shared them willingly with all of the species that also called them home. It took many years for me to understand that this place is not only a chaotic jumble of species clawing at each other to assert themselves, but a complex web of life clawing to keep its balance. I love the wind that stokes me as I sit on my front porch, even when it is too cold to endure. It is the wheezing breath of a single, huge, living thing, and I am a part of it. For the years between 1972 and 1990 I worked as a biologist, first for the State of South Dakota and then for the Peregrine Fund, based at Cornell University’s famous Ornithology Laboratory. I had no formal training in biology so my duties were really the work of a technician, always seasonal, always in the mountains and plains of the Intermountain West. The focus was on helping to reestablish the endangered peregrine falcon to the cliffs along the Rocky Mountain Front, but my mind always wandered to the entire ecosystem that the birds depended upon – the rolling, untold miles of grass that we call the Great Plains. The falcons were raised from captive parents, first at Ithaca, New York, then Fort Collins, Colorado, and finally at Boise, ID. My colleagues in the labs hatched the chicks and I picked them up at about one month of age. My job was to get the chicks to one of several dozen release sites, then to do my best to see that they learned to fly and hunt for themselves. It was wonderful work, freewheeling and physically challenging. I traveled by pickup, horseback, helicopter, and on foot to a different site every day. Almost everyone who helped in the effort to reestablish peregrine falcons was young, but it was more than youthful exuberance that kept us going. We were driven by the conviction that we were doing something of real value. Early soldiers in the environmental struggle that is still searching for definition, we sensed that our lives were under siege by immense forces beyond our control. DDT, used aggressively for decades by agri-business, is a powerful insecticide that increased crop yields around the world. But it was clear to most of us that the benefits were grossly outweighed by the harm. The toxic chemical quickly spread into the entire food chain and did damage to all sorts of species, from soil microbes to human beings. In 1972, DDT was …
Kirkus Review
KIRKUS REVIEW WILD IDEA Buffalo and Family in a Difficult Land by Dan O’Brien South Dakota novelist and memoirist O’Brien (The Indian Agent, 2004, etc.) delivers a bracing portrait of the pleasures—and considerable pains—of ranch life on the lone prairie. “The best definition of success on the Great Plains is the ability to move from one disappointment to the next without losing your enthusiasm,” writes the author, who, long ago, had the odd idea that he might just try his hand at raising buffalo—“a unique species that thrived only in the center of the North American continent”—in somewhat the same way as one might raise cattle or sheep. Underscore somewhat: O’Brien and his partner realized early on that becoming just any old livestock producers would yield just any old livestock, and “neither Jill nor I wanted anything to do with forcing buffalo through the cattle production model.” Instead, working with like-minded friends, O’Brien resolved to produce organic, free-range bison before those words were current. Passages of his memoir are not for the squeamish, especially those involving the evisceration, joint loosening and beheading of captive animals. Overall, however, this is a deeply humane book that looks at ranching as a sustainable enterprise, a way of life more than an economic engine. The author’s critique of the cycle of debt, techno-lust and more debt that the economic engine calls for will be both familiar and welcome to fans of Wendell Berry and Gretel Ehrlich. The best parts of the book, though, are O’Brien’s portraits of the people of the Plains, such as a friend and partner who, self-taught and immensely hungry for both knowledge and experience, still melts down at the prospect of driving in a big city in which he has no business. There may be plenty of disappointments out on the Plains, but this book is not one of them. Dan will be at the South Dakota Book Festival in Sioux Falls this friday and saturday, September 26th & 27th. For a complete event schedule go to http://www.sdbookfestival.com
Another Great Book Review for "Stolen Horses"
Minneapolis Star Tribune November 14, 2010 STOLEN HORSES By Dan O’Brien (University of Nebraska Press, 328 pages, $20, trade paperback) Author Dan O’Brien is well known for his 2001 memoir, “Buffalo for the Broken Heart,” about a life-changing conversion of his Black Hills cattle ranch to raising buffalo. His other books include two historical novels set in the West. Now, he is out with a contemporary novel, “Stolen Horses,” set in a small fictional Nebraska town. This book establishes him as an important literary voice of the West, and deserves a place on the bookshelf next to the works of Annie Proulx, Thomas McGuane and Wallace Stegner. “Stolen Horses” is a tale of simmering conflict between the old and new West. The town of McDermot, Neb., has become a magnet for people escaping the big city, and some of the newcomers bring fresh greed and opportunism to a community with a nearly forgotten history of horse thievery and murder. When a small-town journalist tries to expose the new wrongs, the conflict erupts with deadly consequences. DAVID SHAFFER, Business reporter/editor
Now available at Wild Idea Buffalo Co. – Dan O'Briens latest novel "Stolen Horses"
Jacket description: McDermont, Nebraska is a pleasant, scenic western cattle town situated in the Pawnee River valley-just the place for people seeking refuge from their hectic city lives. It is also just the place for those who have made their homes on this haunting prairie since the late 19th century. Ideal for both the native inhabitants and for those looking to escape the city life. As the native residents wrestle with the arrival of outsiders, a local journalist uncovers a medical scandal epitomizing the problems facing the divided community. After the death of two men, it falls to the ancient but powerful district attorney to mediate a resolution between the clashing interests of the new and old West.And the Thurston family, descended from the town’s first citizen, sets out in their own way to fight the forces threatening to destroy it. This is a story of new and old interests colliding, of small western plains towns confronting the forces of “progress.” Buy the book now!