There is always something going on! Just when things seem to be slowing down, another project comes up or another deadline approaches! The last few days, I’ve spent some time in the evenings and early mornings getting greeting cards and post cards ready to go for the Hermosa Vendor Fair next weekend! I had them printed weeks or even a month or so ago, and I have to say it is always fun to see my photographs printed out.
In addition to the greeting cards and post cards, I’ll have plenty of matted prints, and I’ll be doing photo booth mini sessions! So if you’re in the area a week from tomorrow, stop by my booth and say hi!
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Arguably, this is one of my favorite botanical finds in the late spring and early summer. Usually, in my experience anyway, spiderwort is pretty scarce, popping up somewhat selectively and sparsely, but this spring it is abundant! I can’t believe how many beautiful colors I have found. The varieties we have here in the Hills hybridize easily, and the color variety is astounding.
I love watching the change in the wildflowers over the course of the spring, summer, and fall. They mark the time, and brighten the landscape, and suddenly each jaunt down the road or up into the timber turns into a treasure hunt of sorts. Cultivating an understanding and knowledge of them makes friends of the flowers. And what pleasant little friends they are.
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You probably know the song. It happens to be one of my favorite songs, and in another life I enjoyed singing the role of Maria in two different community theatre productions of Sound of Music. There’s a fun fact for the day!
But does it really get much prettier than this?
The roses have burst into bloom over the last week, and I don’t know that I’ve ever photographed them looking more fetching than during this stormy-day walk.
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I think of the prayers. Months of prayers. More than that. Much more than that.
Prayers that went something like this: “God, you know what we need. You know what we need more than we do. You know what we need beyond the physical needs we can see. You always provide – Somehow, You always do. Thank you for Your provision. We also know that how You choose to provide is Your prerogative, and it isn’t always the way we would choose. Align our hearts with Yours. And please send rain. You know we need it. And help us to trust in Your provision.”
I think of the sick pit in the stomach last year at this time, seeing hayfields and pastures dry up, yet the comfort of knowing that God really is faithful. I remember the attempts at optimism, but the realization that last year just wasn’t going to be the year we hoped it would be. But God would provide. Somehow He would get us through. And He did, though it wasn’t always comfortable.
And then I remember the sense of anxiety as we came through the winter with very little snow, very little to dampen the dry ground. And then March passed. And April. And then we got some snow. And lost a lot of calves. And then May came, and weeks went by with very little moisture, but the pastures were trying to green up, and what managed to green up looked wonderful to eyes tired of the brown. But we could start to see that the grass was struggling, needing moisture that just hadn’t come yet.
And how many times I took my walk in the morning or the afternoon and prayed. Hard. As I walked through the pastures and up into the timber, the prayers just came.
And God opened the skies. How many prayers He must have heard! I know a lot of prayers were sent Heavenward.
We have enjoyed so many slow, steady rains over the last month! I enjoy keeping an eye on the weather radar, and a number of times small storm cells have originated directly over our ranch. How different from last spring and summer, watching storm after promising storm develop to our west and dissipate over us! Just this last weekend, we picked up another almost inch of rain.
Little gets better than these sweet springtime storms. Dark days and heavy skies and wonderful rolling thunder. Walls of rain sweeping across the fields. The sound of big drops on the shop roof, or the barn roof, or the roof of the chicken coop, or the cover of the greenhouse. Ribbons of rain streaming from stormy blue skies against the horizon. Sunshine scattering through shredding clouds, dancing on the prairie. Rainbows spanning the Heavens. It has been transformative.
We still haven’t run much water so our dams remain low, but the grass and the hayfields look wonderful and we hope to begin haying next week. The grass is tall and keeps getting taller, up to the top wire of the fences, tall enough to lose the dogs in it, tall enough to brush over our boots when we’re on horseback. Wildflowers have sprung with vigor – Yarrow and beardtongue and spiderwort and roses, just to name a few of the colorful bouquet. My perennial garden has taken off unbelievably. There are puddles everywhere, and every evening the pups are a matted mess of mud and sandy dirt, and every day I sweep up a sandbox from where they sleep in the mudroom. It is glorious!
Prayers upon prayers have been answered and we are so thankful. Prayer matters. God hears. So keep praying. Keep trusting. Keep looking ahead with faith. And then wait patiently. God is listening.
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Looking over pictures from the last couple of weeks, the beauty of answered prayers is just impressed on my mind.
And how many answered prayers! Recent and distant, present and past, big and small.
I think of how dry and drought-stricken we were a year ago. How many promising storms we watched build and dissipate without leaving us a drop of rain. I remember how short and stubbly the pastures were, how the grass headed out in June when it was barely six inches tall. I remember the dust we kicked up on the trail, the cracks in the earth. I remember the feelings of uncertainty and seeing the lines of care deepen on the faces that I love.
But God is a God who sees, hears, and provides. He listens. I look at these photographs and see green – so much of it! I see answered prayers.
He has provided rain. Good grass and hayfields that promise a yield. Healthy livestock. Good neighbors.
Then my mind wanders a little father back, to the life I was living two short years ago. The loneliness and unexplainable longings, the dreams and hopes and desires that had gotten snuffed out with the cares of life. My love of writing. My love of photography. My love of the outdoors and hard work. The desire to fit in somewhere. To belong somewhere. To belong to someone.
Then I look at these photographs that I took in the span of a single week and I see answered prayer after answered prayer.
God has provided a community. Belonging. Family. Friends. So much beauty to enjoy. Good work to do. A loving husband to walk alongside.
God is so good. All the time.
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This time of the year is a highlight for many, and for good reason. After a long and often lonely winter, after the discouragements that can come after months of cold and dark and solitude, after dealing with the extremes of life and death during calving, branding season is a bright spot, a relief, a respite. Even a rough calving season can be followed by the best of branding seasons, and this has been a good one.
Some parts of the state and the country have modernized how they accomplish ranching tasks throughout the year, in ways that minimize the need for outside help. Even after my short time as a part of this community, I can understand the thought behind that, or how it might be necessary in some situations. Sometimes for whatever reason a whole community steps back from trading help and goes to a more independent model, so you don’t really have a choice but to follow suit. I get it. But what a loss!
Thankfully the majority of ranches in this community along Spring Creek, Battle Creek, and the Foothills, still participate in trading help, preserving a way of life that goes beyond the profession, preserving a way of life that necessitates the forming and maintaining of neighborly relationships, relationships that only serve to strengthen a community. Branding season is perhaps when this shines the most, and everyone not only reaps the benefits of having good neighbors, but of being a good neighbor.
Branding season is when you really see the importance of people stepping up and stepping in, sometimes last minute because life happens. Of communities working together and coming together in a way that has been lost from the culture at large but is still alive and well in the agricultural community.
It is a time when skills are taught, learned, honed, or re-learned. And no one ever qualifies out of all four of those categories. There is always something you can teach someone else, learn from someone else, do better at, or re-learn. Information is exchanged and even the most seasoned can glean from the hard-earned wisdom of others.
I’m thankful for those old ways. Old ways of learning skills and trading knowledge, of sharing work and life and fellowship. Thankful for neighbors and friends – old to my husband and his family, new to me. Thankful for this way of life.
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