Here are some photos of what we discovered one Sunday afternoon.
It was just a muddy, isolated road that we decided to follow. It had been raining, so the clay was very slick and slippery.
The ducks, however, were very happy to have more than a tiny puddle to swim in - quite a rarity for this time of the year in the prairies.
Empty fields for miles and miles on end, with only the occasional abandoned building to show that some of these areas used to have thriving communities. Now, they are only whispers on the wind.
Looking through the window of the old barn, you could see the stalls that used to house the horses, and the pens that contained other animals. So very small by modern standards.
The buildings are becoming so frail that they are not safe to go inside. In some areas you could look straight through them - to another building also in its last days.
With nothing but miles of prairie in all directions, it makes a person wonder what would have brought settlers out these extreme distances. No water. No roads. And no modern vehicles. Just horses and oxen to provide links to others.
One of the more recent villages that we discovered. I wonder what the history is here?
Then, further down the road, was a tiny little corner that was fenced off from the adjoining hay fields. An unexpected reminder of what life was really like in earlier times.
It makes me wonder at the tenacity of people who came in earlier times. How did they survive when the crops failed and they lost their children? Seeing this very isolated cemetary bothers me, in that we didn't even know it was there until we took this particular road. Yet people lived way out here in the past.
Some horses decided that we needed investigating. What were we doing in their field?
And a kitten happily catching grasshoppers at a neighbouring farm reminded us that life goes on.
Coming home, we found this pretty girl waiting to greet us as the sun slipped behind the hills. Our travels for this day were over.
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