A trip to town becomes a lesson in zoology. Antelope seem to appear magically from the hillsides. Like an optical illusion. You cannot quite see it until you know the trick of it. Once known, you can see nothing else.
Prairie dogs pop up along the road.
Ground squrrels play dodge-em with the cars. Deer stalk haughtily along the roadsides, cooly observing the traffic. Hawks stand sentinal over the area beyond their fenceposts, seemingly defying us to enter their realm. The barrenness was the real illusion. The wind and the cold can be bitter, cruel, and hard to bear.