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"For those who remember the days of bottle-feeding bum lambs and warming up cold calves, these stories will bring your exploits to mind. The 'city folk' who never had those opportunities will soon understand as Blue explains the whys of what she does. The lighthearted tales educate as they entertain. Her lyrical writing style illuminates the fact that she is also a songwriter, adding the flair that poets will appreciate." – Peggy Sanders, Roundup Magazine Dec. 2024 issue
Little Pasture on the Prairie celebrates ten years of Eliza Blue’s weekly newspaper column about life on a western South Dakota ranch, offering readers a selection of her essays spanning the last decade, from 2014 to the present. Journalist Christopher Vondracek provides a foreword contextualizing Eliza’s writing within the larger scope of the South Dakota literary landscape, and South Dakota poet laureate and rancher Bruce Roseland’s blurb on the back cover invites readers to grab a cup of coffee and sit down with this book as one would with an old, dear friend.
A transplant from Minnesota, Eliza Blue came to South Dakota searching for a life of fulfillment and inspiration, ultimately finding herself and so much more on her “little pasture on the prairie.” In Eliza's words, “These stories of my adventures—and misadventures—and the joy of waking up every day to the majesty of life on the northern plains, are my heart, my soul, the last of my youth, the beginning of my older age, and my offering at the altar of what it means to be human and to lead a life of service. I hope reading these columns brings you some measure of the peace and connection I received in writing them.”
Follow this link to hear Eliza Blue's interview on SDPB's In the Moment.
Preface to the book:
How to read this book: First, percolate a fresh pot of coffee, then set out a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies and sit down at your kitchen table. You’re about to have a good chat with the neighbor lady down the road, who is about to become your new best friend.
She will tell you a weave of stories about what it’s like to be a wanderer in search of what’s real, who, through fate and good fortune, finds the place where she was meant to arrive. All the feelings and lives, the humans and creatures found in this place are precious, and each one has their season.
These stories are tales of twenty-first century homesteading in the not-always-easygoing land of western South Dakota, where Eliza Blue found her heart, and where the many parts of herself could coexist. It is a land where the day-to-day chores of animal husbandry and shepherding young children go on not so much as endless hard-won progress but as endless possibilities, where the wonderful mess of a full life, full of animals and new life, is immersed in the rhythms of seasonal beginnings and endings. Her life is spent close to the land, connected to the sacred, the grace, and the joy of the little miracles of each day.
All of us should have this experience, yet few of us actually get to. As one of the lucky few who knows life on the plains and hills of South Dakota, I encourage you to turn the pages of this book and enjoy getting to know your new best friend, Eliza Blue. You, too, can learn the lessons and share the magic that ten years of homesteading earned her.
—Bruce Roseland, Poet Laureate of South Dakota