The Colorado blue spruce in the photo below are about twenty years old.  This view includes about 20% of our tree line/wind break.  These long rows of trees were on the north  and east sides of the big farm yard.

Nothing could stop the howling winter winds that still come across the utterly treeless prairie hills, but these rows of trees — spaced far enough apart so that the tractor and cultivator could be dragged through to keep them clear of weeds — spared us far deeper drifts of snow in the yard, blocking buildings,  in the aftermath of sub-zero blizzards.

As the trees were pretty decent size in the early 1950s when we were still pre-high school, they provided a great venue for hide and seek that might involve ten or twelve kids our own age and younger.  When the real little guys were part of the game, the older kids would each help one of them hide.  If we had company that stayed into the evening the trees became the ideal hiding places as the shadows got longer and longer, providing long connected sections of darkness.  (ADD: I just noticed something — check out the header on the MBOB blog. https://mailboxesandoldbarns.com/  Just the tips of these trees are in the extreme foreground on that photo. Just the tips of these show at the bottom of the photo, and identical trees planted at the same time are nearer the house. Comparison of the two pics shows the growth over about a ten year span.)

In big open hide-spaces like this, it was also necessary that whoever was “it” had to yell their count as they hid their eyes before they started hunting for the others.  We usually had to count to a hundred, so the whole thing got pretty involved. Good times.

At the most, our area never had more than fifteen inches of moisture per year, including whatever came in snowfall.  The reason these trees lived to such lovely maturity was that two-three times a year — spring, summer, and fall — Dad would load the 300 gallon water tank on the back of the emptied grain truck, make repeated trips to the well about three miles north, empty it out and let it just run down the slope between the rows.  It amazes me that it was enough to keep them going.  That somehow the roots found the moisture.  Obviously, roots are good at doing that, but I know firsthand how pitiful that topsoil was and how completely dry its normal condition was: I just have trouble understanding how the moisture was retained long enough for the roots to seek it out.

In the spring, the branches of these evergreens would be filled with the nests of robins and sparrows, for the most part.  We sure loved our meadowlarks, but they nest on the ground, so the trees had limited interest for them.  Our prairie hills with all the dips and curves were ideal for their use.

To this day, one of my favorite spring noticings is the fat-green-bud thing that evergreens do when the new year’s growth is beginning.  I used to watch for that on all these trees, and would enjoy pulling that little straw-colored hat off the swelling buds just before they really launched into their new season’s growth.

All of the farm places in our community had well developed tree belts similar to ours.  An assortment of tough trees that would survive, arranged in configuration and number according to each family’s plans and desires.  This was not only Big Sky country (and still is) but it had to have been Infinitely Big Prairie Country before there were any trees or houses to provide scale or reference. There were trees in the coulees, here and there, but none on open ground. Until the 1930s or 1940s at the earliest,  there were only the wood houses, standing firm against the elements,  always eligible to be caught in a photo and then called The Last Stand or Against the Prairie Horizon.

There was nothing out there. Nothing. From most places in our yard we could literally see to the curve of the earth.  There was nothing there.

It wasn’t flat-flat like eastern North Dakota is, where farmers claim they can watch their dog run away for three days.  It wasn’t flat, but it was empty.

One writer described it as a place where, if you left your house to go for a walk, you were lost before you took the first step.

They planted trees and prayed for rain.