It didn’t take long for all the wonderful moisture we got with those last few snow storms to be just a memory. The muddy ruts all too quickly turned cement-hard, and every trail is dusty and dry. All the corrals are dirty, especially with a little wind, and we have been praying – hard – for the moisture we so desperately need. Moisture totals are low and the drought has not broken. Dams that had water a week ago are now dry. The grass is promising, but without moisture it will head out and mature, and basically stop growing, even if we get later rain. It becomes rather disheartening, seeing the green spring up so eagerly but to see storm after predicted storm disappear off the radar, or split and go around us, or dissipate in a little scattering of raindrops.
But we pray and watch the weather and pray some more, and encourage each other with the fact that God is in control. How often it is that I remind my own weary heart that God is a loving God Who knows what we need and will provide, even if it isn’t ultimately the way or the thing we think we need! So it goes with the weather.
Over the last hectic week or so, as we have wrapped up calving season and all the craziness of branding season has begun, we have hoped and prayed and anticipated, as the meteorologists began talking about some significant rainfall this week. Little storms popped up here and there, with un-measureable amounts of rain, but what seemed to be a “priming of the pump,” as some would say. We have had some hot, muggy days, some strange, foggy ones, and the atmosphere all day today seemed restless, with a heavy morning sky that cleared to a too-blue afternoon sky with summer-warm temps and looming clouds. We are supposed to brand a small bunch of calves tomorrow, and at this point don’t know if that will happen. I can’t tell you how thrilled we’d be to have to cancel due to rain!
The night was quiet when we went to bed, but about an hour ago the thunder began, and a little lightning flickered in the south. Then it intensified, and the thunder was constant. I finally got up to throw sheets over my perennial garden in case of hail, and the air was warm and sweet with the smell of distant rain.
So now I’m sitting here by the window, the only one in the house awake, listening to the sound of thunder and drops of rain on the roof, as an occasional gust of wind squeaks a gate or wakes up my wind chime. What wonderful music, listening to the storm roll in.
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I knew I was getting close to (or had passed) my eight year anniversary writing this little blog, and I’ve been wanting to write a little something to that effect, and in gratitude for the people who read my blog. Some of you have been following along for years, and that means a lot to me. So to satisfy my curiosity I went back in my archives and, what do you know, eight years ago today I published my first post!
As I look back at some of my early blog content, a lot of things bounce around inside my head. One, what in the world was I doing with that camera? There are a few good pictures, mostly by accident. But more importantly I’m reminded of the excitement and difficulty of moving to South Dakota, of moving into an 800 square foot cabin with my parents and two of my three sisters, of sharing a bedroom with siblings as an adult, of starting over as an adult, beginning a new life in a new place and of learning to trust God with all the outcomes.
I look back and see so much change. I see struggles and losses and failures and dreams that were made and broken. I see so much growth – personal, emotional, relational, and spiritual. Yet I see at the same time I see so much sameness, heart longings that made no sense at the time, common threads woven through my entire life that speak to God’s love and His authorship of even our hopes and dreams.
I see seeds of desires that God has satisfied, one way or another, in His own time. I look at the beauty I was trying to capture with my camera, the things that tugged at my heart strings, and it amazes me to think that I am so wonderfully immersed in those things my heart was just starting to love. I look back at my early attempts at gardening, my love of the beauty of the Hills and the beauty of the agricultural lifestyle, and I see seeds for where God finally planted me. And then I look back further. When I was 10 or so, I had a memory book that had questions and space for written answers. One of the questions was “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I answered, “I want to live in South Dakota and have horses.” Little did my 10-year-old self know that it would take 15 years to get to South Dakota, but that I would in fact get here! And little did I know in 2015 when I was working for the rancher who runs cows on my family’s place, and falling in love with the work and the outdoors and the dirt and the sweat and the smell of horses and cows, that eight years later I would be the wife of a rancher and a neighbor to the rancher I had worked for. Funny how life works. Correction, funny how God works. Sometimes those heart longings that make no sense are God’s way of foreshadowing the work He’s doing.
I look back on my early blogging and see an at times very lonely 20-something single gal, with desires that could only be satisfied by God in His own timing, doing her best to thrive where she was, growing in her trust of God, knowing that God is a loving God Who knows our needs and even cares about our heart desires, clinging to some of those hopes and dreams that honestly seemed hopeless, dreams of marriage and a little home in the Hills and a garden and maybe a couple of chickens.
It’s like a garden. The first year you plant perennials, some do well, some don’t. Some die off over winter, others come back pretty hardily. There is growth in those first few years, and then they just take off and there is no stopping them. That’s the impression I have of my life, looking back on the 8 years since starting this blog, and the 8 years, 1 month, and 21 days since moving here. I see seeds planted that were slow to take off. Some did well but were pruned out eventually. Other just died off, and that’s fine. Others were slow to get started and have just exploded.
Life has overflowed. I came here with my books and my family and a college degree, and that was about it. I had no friends here, no community, a jumbled mess of recently-rediscovered dreams and disappointed hopes, and I hoped I would find somewhere I belonged. God has given me so much. He has brought struggle and loneliness and has allowed pain, and has been faithful through it. He has given me a life I love with a husband I adore, work to do with a new family that feels like blood family in a community that warms my heart and brings so much meaning to life. He has brought into my life all the spice and savor and sweetness I had dreamed of, and then more.
So I’m just sitting here thanking God for eight years in South Dakota, and eight years of this blog, and for those of you who read this blog and let me know when it touches your hearts. I’m thankful for growth. I’m thankful for change and sameness. I’m thankful for dreams and answers to prayer. I’m just thankful.
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“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
Hans Christian Andersen
It is so easy, at the change in seasons, to start worrying about what’s coming rather than watching the unfurling miracle of each season as it comes. Will we get enough rain? Will the pastures grow? Will the grasshoppers invade? Will the drought break? Will the garden produce? And on and on. And then I look out at my small perennial garden and have to smile. It was 20-something degrees this morning, there was ice on the water by Trixie’s doghouse and by the hydrant in the yard, yet the perennial garden was entirely undamaged, thriving, in fact. These lupines I planted from seed last summer have come up wonderfully and I absolutely cannot wait to see what the flowers look like in a few months time! They don’t bloom their first year, so this will be a treat.
The big picture is great to look at, as long as we remember Who is in control of that big picture. But sometimes we can get so caught up in the big picture that we miss the wonderful pieces that make it up. Like flowers coming up in the springtime, surviving a harsh winter, a resiliently-thriving testament to God’s workings in things big and small.
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The greenup has begun! All the moisture from the series of snowstorms has worked its wonders on the landscape, putting water in dry dams, brightening up the trees, and giving the first wash of green to the pastures. It was a week that felt slow in comparison to the past few weeks, as calving is wrapping up and winter is winding down and the weather was wonderfully warm, at least relatively speaking. We had our first taste of spring cow work, with an afternoon of preg checking some fall calvers for a neighbor and vaccinating our own replacement heifers. I started some spring cleaning outdoors and indoors, and got my hands dirty in the garden, including getting some bare-root things in the ground. It is so fun to see the perennials starting to come up! The chickens enjoyed their free time more than usual, with green grass to pick at and the first of the bugs.
Spring is here! What a wonderful feeling.
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The pups recently had their four month birthday and are suddenly little dogs, not little puppies! That time went so fast. They’ve chunked up then stretched out, going from roly-poly babies to slender adolescents. They’ve bit by bit traded puppy energy for dog energy, uncontrolled impulses to attentive action. It’s somewhat bittersweet. Okay, very bittersweet.
The puppy stage is adorable, and it has been worth all the work and the messes, the endless sweeping, mopping, and shampooing the carpet, but honestly it has been neat to see their individual personalities emerge and develop as their puppy craziness has subsided a little. Bess has turned into a great pup for Brad, loving her job of riding with him to check cows and tag calves in the morning and has great cowy instincts.
Josie, meanwhile, has become the best little buddy, helping me with chicken chores and attempting to herd them around, riding on the fourwheeler and loving when she gets to chase cows, going on long walks and hikes, but is even content to run errands with me in town or hang out in the house when I have housework or writing to do. She has such a strong desire to learn and to be doing, so I started training with her on a little agility work when I have a few minutes here and there, and she absolutely loves it. She follows me around like a little shadow, coming to find me occasionally in the middle of the night or if she loses sight of me on our walks. Where I am, generally she is.
And when you’re talking about working dogs, that companionship is extremely important, where trust, mutual trust, is grown and cultivated. These dogs are so intelligent and intuitive, and they have such a strong desire to please. Friendship, or companionship, is an important facet of the dog-human relationship to nurture, feeding into their desire to work and their instinct to do so, and using that innate desire to please to curb their not-always-correct impulses, rather than fear.
How fast these little creatures become faithful little friends!
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It was a week of extremes. Snow and blizzard conditions, every task a struggle against the weather, followed by the bluest of blue skies and temperatures in the 40s, then the 50s, and continuing to climb. Cribbage during the storm. The crunch of snow underfoot and the wonderfully welcome sound of running water as snow melted. Stumbling through huge drifts into the cozy warmth of the calving shed, filled to way more than capacity to keep cows from calving in a snowbank. Two days later everything is outside and sacked out in the sun. Calves are happy little sleep monsters, the cats are soaking up the sun on the deck, and the chickens find a bare spot to dust bathe. Puddles and clear skies on a 5 mile walk up to my in-laws’ house followed by a leisurely coffee. A successful grafting of a calf. Everything breathes a sigh of relief as the temps warm and the water runs and living is a little more comfortable.
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