Family Gathering

Family Gathering
Gale F. Trapp, 2012

“We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and the winding streams with tangled growth, as ‘wild’.

Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and only to him was the land ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals and ‘savage’ people. To us it was tame.

Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with blessings of the Great Mystery.”
-Chief Luther Standing Bear of the Oglala band of Sioux

The Newborn

The Newborn
Gale F. Trapp, 2012

It’s spring and the newborns are out. At one time, this scene would have been common throughout the Western plains, one more turn in the cycle of life.

And then came the near extinction of the buffalo, and this scene became less common; a cause for celebration as conservationists, ranchers and others worked to preserve the buffalo herds.

I love that this image could be one from the past, as well as the present, as buffalo herds grow and once again roam the prairie. Nature doing what nature does.