Lloyd’s had enough but, unfortunately, Rip’s not ready to let up. Lloyd says Walker had it coming and Rip confirms no one on the ranch wants Walker dead more than he does. However, John wants Walker to stay put so that’s what’s going to happen. Rip reminds him to always put the ranch first. I liked Islands, the Universe, Home and expected to like The Solace of Open Spaces just as much. Unfortunately that was not the case. It might be a matter of poor timing, but I found Ehrlich's words in this slim collection of essays frustrating in a way I didn't feel with the other one. Maybe revisiting the open planes of Wyoming just isn't what I needed right now. It left me feeling cold. I am cold.

Beth heads out, declaring she’s off to ruin a life. (Such a classic Beth exit line.) Kevin Costner and Piper Perabo in ‘Yellowstone’ season 4 episode 5 (Photo Credit: Paramount Network)In characterizing the ranchers in this way, Ehrlich combats the stereotypes that are associated with ranchers and reveals them to be just as complex and dynamic as any other people. Ehrlich explains how the people who live in close concert with the powerful natural forces of these spaces are inevitably shaped by them. Working side by side with ranchers, both men and women, she comes to understand that, although they are made tough by their lifestyle and the natural world that surrounds them, they also harbor soft hearts beneath their intimidating exteriors. She writes, The name Wyoming comes from an Indian word meaning "at the great plains," but the plains are really valleys, great arid valleys, sixteen hundred square miles, with the horizon bending up on all sides, into mountain ranges. This gives the vastness a sheltering look. The Solace of Open Spaces, by Gretel Ehrlich, is a beautiful little book that I happened upon in the sale bin at a used book store. In the late 1970s, Ehrlich traveled to Wyoming on assignment for her work, and stayed because it draw her in in her grief upon losing her loved one to cancer. She lived there for many years, living and working on ranches, and this book is a collection of essays describing her time there and the feeling of living there. Her writing is lyrical and almost what I would call "prose poetry" at times. She conveys effectively the wide open feeling of Wyoming, and I was easily able to imagine the scenes and sensations she described. It is a lovely book and I highly recommend it. Here is a quote, selected randomly:

All winter we skate the small ponds – places that in summer are water holes for cattle and sheep – and here a reflection of mind appears, sharp, vigilant, precise. Thoughts, bright as frostfall, skate through our brains. In winter consciousness looks like an etching. Those asking, “What do you do?” then later responding “Don’t you get bored?” made me smile. There are those of us who never get bored left alone out in nature. Her work is frequently anthologised, including The Nature Reader. She has also received many grants. In 1991, she collaborated with British choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing and recording a poem cycle for a ballet that opened in the Southbank Centre in London. [4] [5] [6] Selected bibliography [ edit ] Night falls and everyone’s fixated on watching Shad Mayfield, Colby’s cousin, compete on TV while relaxing in the bunkhouse. Ryan and Colby debate their roping skills, with each exaggerating their talents. These transcendent, lyrical essays on the West announced Gretel Ehrlich as a major American writer—“Wyoming has found its Whitman” (Annie Dillard).Elsewhere, Monica ( Kelsey Asbille) and Kayce ( Luke Grimes) seem more at peace now that she’s moved closer to the reservation. Monica admits she feels better in her soul and Kayce responds with a light kiss. John and Kayce discuss how this particular protest doesn’t seem random. They believe this was a setup. John tells Sheriff Haskell he wants to press charges, but Haskell doesn’t think that’s a good idea because of the news coverage it will generate.

After five years, Ehrlich leaves Wyoming to travel and pursue new projects. However, she keeps returning, and when she marries, she and her husband set up home in Shell, Wyoming. They run their own ranch, and Ehrlich helps out on her neighbors’ ranches whenever necessary.Lovers, farmers and artists have one thing in common, at least – a fear of “dry spells”, dormant periods in which we do no blooming, internal droughts only the waters of imagination and psychic release can civilize. All such matters are delicate of course. But a good irrigator knows this: too little water brings on the weeds while too much degrades the soil the way too much easy money can trivialize a person’s initiative. Il Wyoming è la terra della salvia, scrive Greta Ehrilch, e io non lo immaginavo, ma anche del vento, della neve, del freddo che ti si insinua nelle ossa e ti anestetizza la mente, e qui è rispondente al mio immaginario. Living well here has always been the art of making do in emotional as well as material ways. Traditionally, at least, ranch life has gone against materialism and has stood for the small achievements of the human conjoined with the animal, and the simpler pleasures...The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce. p61)The West has never appealed much to me. I've traveled to parts of the western US and it was fine to visit but it has never drawn me the way it draws so many people. As far as I'm concerned living in Missouri was simultaneously too far west and too far south for my tastes. Reading this collection reminded me of that more vividly than it did with Islands, the Universe, Home.

What was life-giving to Native Americans was often nightmarish to sodbusters who had arrived encumbered with families and ethnic pasts to be transplanted in nearly uninhabitable land. The great distances, the shortage of water and trees, and the loneliness created unexpected hardships for them. In her book O Pioneers!, Willa Cather gives a settler's version of the bleak landscape: In the Empire of Ice: Encounters in a Changing Landscape, National Geographic Society, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4262-0574-3 Along with a great deal of information and insight on the lives of ranchers, herders, cowboys and their beliefs and work ethic, Ehrlich also shares many tales of her relationships with these people. Many are humorous and show how people of a certain region have their own way of doing everything just slightly differently than everybody else from the language to the way they regard one another. In Wyoming, everyone knows everyone and there is a strict Western code to be followed. Ranchers are courteous and kind, hardworking, tough and yet gentle. The demanding and difficult weather and terrain make a unique type of society where people are often isolated for many months of the year. One woman in the book hadn't left the ranch in 11 years. That type of isolation causes a lot of strange behavior, from the violent to the apparently crazy. No matter what a person's attitude, however, he or she is accepted. Ranchers are midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once. What we’ve interpreted as toughness—weathered skin, calloused hands, a squint in the eye and a growl in the voice—only masks the tenderness inside.”In the preface, she tells us that she “suffered a tragedy and made a drastic geographical and cultural move fairly baggageless,” but she wasn’t losing her grip. She added: In most parts of Wyoming, the human population is visibly outnumbered by the animal. Not far from my town of fifty, I rode into a narrow valley and startled a herd of two hundred elk. Eagles look like small people as they eat car-killed deer by the road. Antelope, moving in small, graceful bands, travel at sixty miles an hour, their mouths open as if drinking in the space.