The Lone Prairie Blog

The Hobbit, or There And Back Again,  is not a story of my life though I am fairly short.

There used to be a lot more flax fields. Walking along the roads was like reliving Moses, passing between two oceans of periwinkle blue, rippling in the wind. If a whale had leapt from the waving flax, twisted into the air, and disappeared back into the earth, I would not have been surprised. Purple mountain majesties are easy to appreciate. It’s the amber (and blue) waves of grain rippling in the wind on the Great Plains that people miss out on. Few people will plan vacation

A few are still trying to sell it to you, but I think it’s on the downslide. I still see it—I saw a post about it last week, in...

Norman Saunders painted the smoking cowboy, but I spent years talking to him.

How to get rich quick in a world where everyone is trying to sell you the secret to get rich.

Image © Julie R. Neidlinger. All rights reserved. What causes people to be isolated? Why don't they find other people if they are lonely? There are two reasons isolated people do not attempt to connect with others even if they could, and it has to do with human communication and conversation: The conversations we use to establish initial connections are painful. Some people have communication tendencies that shut conversations off. What causes people to be isolated? To save s