A Buffalo Farmer with a master's degree in English

choi

Jim Sterba, A Sweat and Debt Saga. Dan O'Brien is on a quest to restore South Dakota's buffalo-grasslands ecosystem. Turning a profit is even harder that the labor. Wall Street Journal, Sept 17, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/b ... n-obrien-1410907849
(book review on Wild Idea; Buffalo & family in a difficult land. University of Nebraska Press, 2014)

Note:
(a) "He [Dan O'Brien] earned a masters degree in English and took up cattle ranching near the Badlands of South Dakota."
(i) badlands
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands
(Some of the best-known badland formations can be found in the United States and Canada)
(ii) Badlands National Park
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands_National_Park

(b) Mr O'Brien's book "is a sweet little sagebrush soap opera of extended family joys and travails."
(i) Google "sagebrush soap opera" and one find this review is the only item returned. So this phrase is coined by the reviewer, whatever it means.
(ii) sagebrush
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagebrush
(in the genus Artemisia; native to the North American west)

(c) "Camo, an unbroken paint horse, puts Dan in intensive care with broken ribs, shoulder and a collapsed lung"
(i) unbroken (adj): "not subdued :  UNTAMED; especially :  not trained for service or use <unbroken colts>
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unbroken
(ii) American Paint Horse
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Paint_Horse
(a pinto spotting pattern of white and dark coat colors)

* Spanish English dictionary
pinto (noun masculine; from Latin pictus, past participle of pingere “to paint”)
"(Latin America) spotted, pinto, mottled, blotchy"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pinto

choi

(d) "One problem: Mr O'Brien readily admits he knows diddly-squat about business."
(i) diddly-squat (n; probably alteration of doodly-squat; First Known Use 1963):
"the least amount :  anything at all <didn't know diddly–squat about sports — Samuel Toperoff>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diddly-squat
(ii) doodley–squat (n; doodley (perhaps alteration of do one's do to defecate) + squat; First Known Use 1934): "DIDDLY-SQUAT"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doodly-squat

(e) "’Wild Idea’ is narrowly focused on family, ranch and business. I would have preferred a brief updated look at the big picture of buffalo and grassland restoration since Frank and Deborah Popper, two East Coast academics, suggested creating a 'Buffalo Commons' on the depopulating High Plains a quarter century ago. * * * (buffalo and bison are interchangeable terms in the US.)"

High Plains (United States)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Plains_(United_States)
(generally encompassing the western part of the Great Plains; section 1 Names)
(f) "'Wild Idea' [the book] is in part an infomercial for Mr O'Brien's company [of the same name], which sells flash frozen meat. The website offers ground buffalo burger at $12 a pound; a 10 oz NY strip steak for $21. The sales pitch is that he's selling all grass-fed meat. His buffalo are not traumatized by roundups and truck rides to a slaughter house. They are slaughtered in the field in a specially-built mobile harvest trailer which is driven into the herd. With a state inspector riding along to insure humane treatment and meat safety, the animals—usually six at a time—are shot, eviscerated, skinned and refrigerated to meet US Department of Agriculture standards: bullet to cooler in two hours."

Wild Idea Buffalo Co
wildideabuffalo.com
(g) A friend of Dan O'Brien said to San: "Come on, Dan'l, you're not waterboarding people. You're trying to get them to eat good food and take care of the prairie."

Dan'l is a form of Daniel, pronounced "dan-el."
www.babynamespedia.com/meaning/Dan_0__2_39_1_l