Like most farmers and ranchers in the country, our land is not contiguous. That means we have 250 acres here, 96 acres there, 160 in another place, and then there’s the Dinosaur Ranch which consists of just over six quarter-sections and a lot of rocks. Its name, declared by our eldest who was five when we acquired the place, derives from the millions of fossils – leftovers from a shallow inland sea that covered most of the central section of today’s American High Plains – littering the ground and protruding from the limestone cliffs. Other more colorful rocks washed off the then-larger Rocky Mountains. Fist-sized and smaller basalt, rhyolite, and other white, red, orange, and black stones litter the hillsides. Veins of calcite provide glittering sun-catchers. Occasionally, we find a shark’s tooth.

When visitors want to tour our ranch, we invariably take them to Dinosaur if the roads are passable. There is something magical about the place. Colonel George Armstrong Custer led a group of cavalry up the north bank of the Smoky Hill River in pursuit of a band of Pawnee who had recently caused trouble at the Downer Grove stage station a few miles to the east. The old WaKeeney-Dighton Stage road crossing is visible near the foundation of the stage station and Gibson Post Office. The cottonwoods along the river are in two perfectly straight rows. State archives contain reminiscences of the postmaster’s stepdaughter who was still, after many decades, bitter about carrying buckets of water to those “stupid” trees. Initials and a date of 1887 are carved inside the rocky overhang near where the stage trail crosses the wash. Prentice “Print” Olive, on whose life Larry McMurtry based his novel Lonesome Dove, built his final ranch home just west of Dinosaur. Castle Rock, a Butterfield Overland Despatch Trail landmark, is visible just north.

Dinosaur Ranch memories include hours of family time, horse rides, cattle work, picnics, fence-building, yucca-pelleting, and exploring, a delightful weekend horseback with Annette and Bianca, and a walking tour with friends Don and Tammy Steeples. Don is the retired head of Geosciences at the University of Kansas and has forgotten more about geology than I could ever know. He explained about our loess soils, why the bigger chunks of basalt are on the ridgetops, how little the limestone formations have changed in the past 10,000 years, and told us the name of the platter-sized clam fossils. Inoceramids. You can’t take a step without treading on one.

The ranch has provided settings for three of my novels. While building the “zipline” fence that features in Convergent Trails, Red Steagall’s poem “McCorkle and the Wire,” came on the pickup radio and provided inspiration for the finale. The gorge where Barley and his horse tumbled in Luck of the Scot is the same place Addie made her thrilling escape in Mrs. Garrity.

There is an old writing adage, “Write what you know.” What a blessing for me to have a grassy limestone playground for a backdrop!