Where the Buffalo Roam

Oh give me a home,
Where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

The poem “My Western Home” was originally written in the early 1870’s by Dr. Brewster M. Higley in Smith County, Kansas.  It was first published in December of 1873 in the Smith County Pioneer under the title of “Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam”.  A friend of Higley’s wrote music to it and what we now sing today is quite similar to the original but not identical.  As settlers, cowboys, and others adopted the song across the country, it became known as the unofficial anthem of the American West.  It officially became the state song of Kansas in 1947 and what we now know as “Home on the Range” is often played along with other patriotic music.

Since moving out west, “Home on the Range” has become our personal anthem and somewhat of an inside joke.  Whenever I get to complaining about the cloudy skies we live with during these long Montana winters, my husband pipes up and says, “The skies are not cloudy all day” meaning it peeks out for a few minutes now and then.  Just the other day I was complaining that the skies seem cloudier than usual this winter.  My daughter M reminded me that I say this every year.  Ugh, it’s true, I complain about it too much.  Spring isn’t far away and as I yearn for the clear blue skies of summer, I know that I will miss old man winter when he’s gone.

Here are some pictures of how it’s looked around here this week.

Soon enough this tree will be green and the sky blue.
Okay, I don’t need any advice on compositon. There are some BIG mountains behind those trees, you just can’t see them…..a definite inversion going on here.

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Till next time,
Marlene

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