The Ozarks

The Ozarks. An American landscape: rolling hills, big red barns, picket fences and double wides. It's a beautiful country. I have lots of kin folk deeply rooted in the Ozark, and while I gripe about it I treasure the time spent out there. My eyes have never met a landscape more pristine and unaltered than the hollers and hills north of Springfield.

When hunting down my Grandmas old farm, we drove over Little Sac Creek and Dry Sac Creek by a highway (MO K) that looked as out of place in the hills as my MK bag & oversized bright purple shades. We drove around in a maroon King Ranch diesel that was as deafening as a garbage truck backfiring. But as we trucked on into the rolling hills, leaving the highway and turning onto Farm Roads, the truck and its occupants (save me) felt at home driving through towns that had a handful of inhabitants, like Hog Eye. There were no post offices, fire stations, or stop signs. A 4 bedroom 2 bath home for sale, with 10+ acres, a well, and a classic bing red barn was listed at $25, 000. In my mind its not that the land isn't valuable, its just the American life out in these parts is a little different. This is the closest location I can find to representing my Grandmothers old 200+ acre homestead on google maps. When I searched for the address, google maps could not find the location.

With the movie Winter's Bone opening soon (which undoubtedly will not come to these parts of American life), I am curious to see what and how the director portrays life in the Ozarks, especially surrounding the troubled characters of the book & movie. I am not by any means a historian or expert of any sort about life in the Ozarks, but from all my family from the area and my visits there it will be interesting to see a comparison.

The only thing I do know is that on an aesthetic level, there is no countryside as peaceful as the sunny wooded hillsides in the Ozarks.