Richard Schilling

Long ago, they were drifting dunes of sand. Today, stabilizing grasses and underground water beneath the Sandhills provide good pasture for cattle. Schilling traveled the Sandhills to ask the people he met "What keeps you bonded to this remote land where winters can be severe and summers blistering hot?" The answers were common: Family, the beauty of the hills, and the peace and quietness of the land. This pictorial journey contains stories of Sandhill ranchers and residents. Some of these stories are humorous and others poignant, but they all demonstrate the culture of hardworking, independent people who are quick to offer help to neighbors and even strangers when needed. Hard work, optimism, respect for livestock, and love of family are deeply woven values in Nebraska's fabric. The tales within these pages will envelop the reader in the warmth and beauty of the Sandhills.

The Sandhills... An Ecological Treasure Long ago, they were drifting dunes of sand. Today, stabilizing grasses and underground water beneath the Sandhills provide good pasture for cattle. Schilling traveled the Sandhills to ask the people he met "What keeps you bonded to this remote land where winters can be severe and summers blistering hot?" The answers were common: Family, the beauty of the hills, and the peace and quietness of the land. This pictorial journey contains stories of Sandhill ranchers and residents. Some of these stories are humorous and others poignant, but they all demonstrate the culture of hardworking, independent people who are quick to offer help to neighbors and even strangers when needed. Hard work, optimism, respect for livestock, and love of family are deeply woven values in Nebraska's fabric. The tales within these pages will envelop the reader in the warmth and beauty of the Sandhills.

"As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running."—My Ántonia, Willa Cather It is often called "Catherland"—Webster County, Nebraska, where the quintessential American novelist Willa Cather spent her childhood and found inspiration for her stories of European immigrants on the prairie. Richard Schilling, with his watercolor paintings and ink sketches, conducts us to that land, to scenes that might have influenced Cather, but as they appear today. Schilling's images take us to Red Cloud, Cather's childhood home; to the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, a botanical jewel of mixed-grass prairie restored to its pre-1900 condition; and on to "the divide," the high prairie land between the Little Blue River to the north and the Republican River to the south. Each evocative original watercolor is paired with an excerpt from Cather's work and with the author's own musings on the history, geography, and ecology of the landscape.