A Summer in South Dakota Pastures

Just last night Andy and I got back from a week spent in South Dakota on his grandparents’ ranch. It is literally in the middle of nowhere. One hour to the nearest town=gas, groceries, shopping for the necessities of any kind. I just went through the 700 photos I took on the ranch and chose a few that truly sum up our time there and the feeling you get there, there’s a sense of peace when there’s no Internet, no neighbors, no distractions of any kind. It was pretty hot there, of course not even as hot as home is in Southern California right now, so we stayed indoors most the day unless we went in to town which is why many of these are taken at sunset. Truly the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, starting with the first one during our flight on a little prop plane from Wyoming to Pierre, South Dakota.

The Lyons’ have had many horses throughout their time here but right now they just have two, Shadow and Sell. I loved seeing them silhouetted against the sunset on our second night there.

Well here’s one that wasn’t even taken on the ranch and not even during sunset! Surprise! This is little Levi! Remember him? He’s now almost a year old and just one happy little guy who just loved being in Andy’s arms. It was just the cutest thing!

We took a walk around [some of] the 1,700 acres of the ranch to photograph some of the century old farming equipment. I just loved the wind through the grasses.

About 200 head of cattle have found their home on the ranch this summer. Farmers rent out the pastures to house their cows during the summer and they are soooo funny! They just stare at you and you can slowly walk up to them and they will come right up, just so curious. But make a slight quick move and the whole herd just run away. Scaredy cows.

The horses are just too old now for us to ride them like last time, but Andy still got to spend some time with them while I had a little horsey photo shoot.

On the other side of the road, there’s a Catholic church that actually sits on part of their land. It’s just adorable!

This was the last sunset on the last night, the most vivid and saturated of the whole trip!

Well to sum up the trip, here’s a short little video montage! You can get a glimpse of the long sprawling country roads and a quick look into the itty bitty towns.

Well, thanks for reading this post! Hope you can make it out there one day to the pastures of South Dakota too!