Buffalo Poo

For our 29th wedding anniversary,  I requested from my dear Ted a pickup load of well aged, well rotted manure for the garden.  A few weeks ago we went to the source. We have a rancher friend who trains horses and has some buffalo.  So, I am the happy recipient of a load of well-aged, 2 year old, no smell, buffalo and horse manure.  I have been happily applying this as a top dressing in my garden. I got a kick out of Jim Grobles comment on my blog that buffalo manure to him was as exotic a “zoo poo”. His comments gave me the idea for this post. Here in the Black Hills of South Dakota we are familiar with Bison or what we call buffalo.    Wind Cave National Park, where the deer and the buffalo roam, is only about 10 quiet miles away from where we live.  The sky is clear as you see.  South Dakota is rated as the state with the cleanest air.  Yup, not much to muck it up. The buffalo seem so calm, but check out this link  about the dangerous nature of the buffalo.


This one is dropping his “winter coat”. The hair on his forehead in the winter can be up to 16” long.  They can stand with their faces heading into a snow storm.

In 1800 there were 40 million bison roaming free, by 1883  there was no wild bison roaming free. Thanks to a few conservationist some were preserved. These buffalo are descendants of those few hundred bison that were saved.  The park has herds of healthy buffalo.

Now for a picture of what was blooming yesterday in my Dakota Garden.

It still is very early spring here. The lilacs, which are the herald of the planting season are still waiting to open. The yew in the background always comes out of winter with  bit of “freezer burn” but later greens up.