“Beyond” always has a quality of mystery to me. What is beyond there–there where I can see? What am I not seeing? And what calls me to the emptiness of places.
This photo, at first glance, is a simple one. A Kansas fence, a field, open space. Only the “open space” is history and legend. My family migrated in covered wagons across those hills into Kansas. The century-old hedge posts came later along with the barbed wire.
Perhaps it’s because my family on both sides were pioneers, and perhaps because I read too many Zane Grey novels; but I can imagine smoke on the horizon and Native Americans watching from the edge of a rise.
My great-grandfather’s mother, Lucinda Moore, had five husbands all told by the time she traveled from New Salem, N.C. to Jewell County, Kansas. The date of her arrival in Jewell County with the final husband, Moore, coincided with the year of the last Indian raid in that rolling country bordering Nebraska–Nebraska only ten miles away on the horizon from where this photo was taken, south of Highway 36 and north of Barnes, Kansas.
janetsunderland.com 
I like your new photo!
Thank you! And thanks for coming by for a visit.
Thanks for the ping!
I knew for some years that my father had been born in Cambridge, KS but I’d never been there. A few years ago I was near Winfield and decided to go over to Cambridge (which is hardly a town anymore) and on the way I passed the New Salem cemetery and out of curiosity took a brief side-trip and discovered some other Hoyland headstones. Apparently there were a number of Hoylands that lived in the New Salem area.
Thanks for the memory, Janet.
You’re very welcome, Terry. What a cool discovery! One of the things I’ve discovered in my ancestor search is that along with New Salem, KS, there are many New Salems and usually indicate a Quaker or Moravian community.
The New Salem I was referring to is the same as is now called Winston Salem, NC. I just didn’t add enought. Lucinda’s family name was Reich and since the Moravians were mostly Germans and the Quakers mostly English (i.e. William Penn), and Quakers and Moravians pretty much alike, philosophically, Lucinda began life as a Moravian and married a Quaker – either her first or second husband, I’d have to go to my notes to find that one!
room for life
well there is that….wind, too.
Maybe the Outlaws are visiting the Inlaws?
Then again, looks like all’s well on the Western Front.
The outlaws were always visiting! Great comment. Reminds me of the story my farm grandfather used to tell about the Jessie James gang staying overnight one night in their sod house when his father was away from home. His mom fed them and they left the next morning.