Windbreak: A Woman Rancher, Still on the Northern Plains

Originally published in 1987, Hasselstrom's account of ranch life on the western edge of South Dakota covers a year of hard work, in beastly cold and unbearably hot temperatures, haying in the summer, moving cattle in the fall, and calving in the spring. In between, she finds time to write and to meditate with her poetry. Her style is intimate and detailed. She describes the terror of a prairie fire; the struggles to bring calves into the world; the daily drudgery of feeding the cattle in the winter. Her drama comes with the cycles of nature; with the endless absorption in birth and death; with the lives of neighbors and friends; and with the weather, which is a character in the story of her life. This revised edition adds a new preface and a new introduction that looks back on the forty-odd years since the book was first published. The book also includes many photographs of Hasselstrom's relatives and friends, and images of the prairie, shot by photographer James W. Parker.