I have just come back from a week in Montana, where I looked for the location of my Grandfather's homestead south of Ethridge. Grandpa was a range cowboy who settled in Montana in about 1904, and ran some cattle on open grassland and in the 'badlands' of the Marias River country under the lazy S bar brand. He also worked with the Blackfoot on the nearby reserve to buy horses captured wild in the foothills of Montana, and 'broke' them for farm use. He drove herds of horses into North Dakota farming country and up into Saskatchewan, where he later moved and bought a farm.
It was interesting to see that the area of his homestead is now being turned into a different kind of farm - a windmill farm, where dozens of towers are being built to produce power which is being sent to California.
While I am glad to see wind power being developed, it is interesting to me that we can never seem to manage to live where the elements of our life come from. Instead we ship water hundreds of miles, and we do the same for power. We ship food from half a world away. Doesn't all this add to the expense and the inefficiency of our life?
It bears thinking about.
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