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My Backyard part 1: Southeast South Dakota

A photographic glimpse into the Midwest farmland Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jesse James, Lewis & Clark and myself once called home for a time – Southeastern South Dakota.

There’s something to be said about looking in one’s own backyard for photographic inspiration. That’s why, in this two-part series, I’ve decided to share where I’ve come from, and where I am now – Canton, South Dakota and Charleston, South Carolina respectively.

While I graduated high school from Canton, South Dakota, I actually lived and worked all over the tri-state area of Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. Nebraska wasn’t far reaching either, and I did visit there frequently. I moved to a small centennial farm located in Inwood, Iowa, when I was about eleven. It was my first taste of country living. Previously I lived in Chicago, Illinois, a metropolis by comparison even in the suburbs.

Stacy L. Pearsall
This is a landscape image I took of my former residence, Creek’s Edge Horse Farm, located in Inwood, Iowa. Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens – Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 160, F/2.8, 1/8000 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. -0.7
A soft spring fog hovers over last year’s garden in Canton, South Dakota. Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 400, F/2.8, 1/50 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. -0.7
A soft spring fog hovers over last year’s garden
in Canton, South Dakota.
Camera: Nikon D3s
with Nikkor 24-70mm lens
Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 400, F/2.8, 1/50 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. -0.7

The open vistas of the tri-state boast vast prairies teaming with wild pheasant and groundhogs, rows of tall green corn and short bushy soybeans, hay fields with giant round bails dotting the landscape and miles of gravel roads that link a patchwork of farmsteads throughout the states.
There are four seasons – all of which have their charms. My favorite was always summer. I suppose my grueling winter school and chore schedule was off-putting, coupled with the bitter cold blowing snow, but the fresh white blankets of powder lining the rolling hills made the winters there somewhat bearable if not picturesque.

In the warmer seasons, I was up before 5:00 o’clock every morning, including weekends, to start farm work. I fed our horses, dogs, cattle, goats, ducks, chickens, geese, cats and other four-legged friends. After that, I tended and harvested the garden; cut, dried and bailed hay; picked and jarred fruits from our orchards; trained the two-year-old horses for saddle; and worked on many essential pieces of farm and automotive equipment, including my 1949 Ford F4.

House of Love Jewelry
My step-dad Vic Mercer fiddles with the engine of our Ford F4 pick-up truck in Canton, South Dakota. Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens – Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 400, F/2.8, 1/500 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. -2.0

I suppose I didn’t appreciate all the beauty of the Midwest until I’d grown and moved away. I can’t tell you how many barns I’d scraped and painted without noticing the color contrast between its red planks and the stunning blue-sky overhead, or even admiring the sculptural beauty of the weather mains and lightening rods that capped their roofs.

Everyday I gazed upon tractors three, four and five times as old as me without appreciating their craftsmanship and artistry. Heavy sprocket shaped wheels of green and red collecting dust and pigeon droppings in the barn next to the cast iron rooster doorstops, rusted engine parts, dried leather harnesses and used horseshoes. I was blind to the beauty around me because it was always around me. It was my backyard.

In the tri-state region, you’re sure to find two things: farmsteads and Dutch descendants living on them. Under the Homestead Act, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the rural provinces of the Netherlands settled in Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota between the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. With them, they brought their cultural and farming traditions, which are still visibly present today. Every year there are a number of festivals that celebrate their art, music, and customs. Though I’m not of Dutch descent, I still enjoy their revelries!

The view of my step-grandparent’s house from inside their barn in Canton, South Dakota.Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lensExposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 1250, F/2.8, 1/1600 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. +2.0
The view of my step-grandparent’s house from inside their barn in Canton, South Dakota.Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lensExposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 1250, F/2.8,
1/1600 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. +2.0
Stacy L. Pearsall
Yearling horses stand near a fence begging for a treat in Newton Hills, South Dakota. Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens – Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 1250, F/2.8, 1/1600 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. +2.0
House of Love Jewelry
Baby twins sit under a shade tree during the Tulip Festival near Fort Dodge, Iowa. Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens – Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 200, F/2.8, 1/3200 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. -1.0
A dead tree stands in the water of a flooded lake near Larchwood, Iowa. Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority, ISO 400, F/2.8, 1/8000 shutter speed, Exposure Comp. -1.0
A dead tree stands in the water of a flooded lake near Larchwood, Iowa.
Camera: Nikon D3s with Nikkor 24-70mm lens
Exposure Settings: Aperture Priority,
ISO 400, F/2.8, 1/8000 shutter speed,
Exposure Comp. -1.0

Even more than the piping hot pies and dancing ladies in wood clogs, I enjoyed the solace of the country. The gushing waters of the Sioux Falls, the jagged cliffs of the palisades and the placid lakes of Okoboji always helped me find my center.

Now when I return home to South Dakota, I really “see” it. Given time, I’ve shed the blinders I once wore. The mundane has now morphed into magnificent. I pay attention to the dust devils whirling behind the plowing tractors, the howls of the wild coyotes and the calls of the wise barn owls. I now notice the rhythmic ticking of the windmills overhead, which keep time as steady as a beating heart. I’ve now found inspiration in a place that was once my own backyard.

And like the deep divots left in the soil by old tractor tires, South Dakota has left an imprint on my life.

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