Funny how this works: yesterday I mentioned my debut column on the South Dakota Magazine website. Then this morning I find another Black Hills denizen with Lake County connections writing on the same Web pages. Pat Boyd, once from Chicago, Oregon, and Junius, now holding down an artistic fort in Hanna Creek, writes of the grand, glorious vision of her first spring on the vast prairie:
One day that spring, the sun came out and the wind died down. I put the baby in her backpack, took her three year old sister by the hand, and headed out with Rover (actual name) for a walk in the pasture on the other side of our shelter of trees and thicket. Glorious! All that sky, prairie forever and nothing was taller than a windmill for miles. Why, the earth really was very big and round, spinning through deep space. I panicked. Rover launched a suicidal jackrabbit chase as I hit the ground and lay there flat on my face, clutching the earth, sure we would be thrown off it by centrifugal force. The baby gurgled with delight at this game as her sister, even then more sensible than I, helped us to my feet [Pat Boyd, "Encouraging Visions," South Dakota Magazine, 2011.08.25].
I know all three people in this story. I can see that pasture. And I can feel that great wide prairie (and the Hills currently surrounding me) moving beneath me. Thrilling indeed!
I also suspect that, in Pat's headline, "Visions" is a direct object, not a noun modified by, the participle "Encouraging." At least it is for me.