Family Fun

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Jess, our Illinois sister, and her fiance Nick were here this past week, and it was fun getting to know the two of them as a couple. Nick has been a family friend for years, and I guess it suddenly just dawned on them that each of them existed and they weren’t as obnoxious as each of them remembers the other being. Something like that. Anyway, they are getting married this year! Just when we think things are settling down, more change happens! Exciting.

Since Nick hasn’t ever had the pleasure of exploring the Black Hills, we made that a priority. We drove Iron Mountain Road, made a pit stop at the ghost town of Spokane, visited Mt. Rushmore, and did the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. The weather was cooperative, the traffic was nonexistent, and the burros were obliging. Even the buffalo graced the roadside with their presence. Lots to do that first day Jess and Nick were here! We were all glad to be home at the end of the day.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed 50 degree weather in the afternoon and three inches of leftover snow on the ground – What a wonderful combination! Perfect for a visit to our favorite haunt, the Hole-in-the-Wall, and then a walk up Battle Creek until we got to the Mountain Lion Cave. It really was perfect. No ticks, or spiders, or rattlesnakes to watch out for, so we scrambled over and under and around and through to our heart’s content. Jess got a giant clump of cockleburrs in her hair, which we thought would need to be cut out, but Nick and Sarah managed to rescue her. Nothing like a new pair of eyes along for the hike that renews my appreciation for the beauty I get to see every day. I’m looking forward to springtime, or at least more springtime weather, and watching the magical change from winter to spring.

We took a jaunt down to our property in Pringle yesterday, and the further south we got, the more wintry and windy it got. But we kept our hiking to the ravines and canyons, and managed to be out of the wind for most of the afternoon. We found the way down into Box Canyon, and the perspective was astounding. I’d never seen Box Canyon except from the top, and the size of the cottonwoods in the bottom of the canyon just about took my breath away. I’d love to know how old those trees are, and who saw them when they were just saplings, if anyone saw them. Custer himself might have seen them, when they were already magnificent trees.

Water seeping through the rocks, probably from the Spring-on-Hill source, but possibly from snowmelt, had created some impressive icicles on the underside of the canyon. Moss was abundant. An owl seemed to be living in one of the old cottonwoods, but I didn’t get a good enough look at him to know what he was.

Jess and Nick leave tomorrow morning early, in order to make it back to Illinois by tomorrow night. The next few months are going to fly by, with wedding preparations and planning and the actual wedding coming up in the spring. It was so good to get to spend time with them.

I love my family.

Findings | Treasures in the Snow

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Even in the dead of winter, some color hasn’t faded.

These little gems have captured my imagination since I first saw them back in October, I think it was. They’re tenacious, in more than one way.

Findings | Lovely lady

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

We spent the morning working on the Miner’s Cabin, and as I was taking a few things down to the crawlspace of our log cabin, I nearly ran into this spider’s web! She was building her web in the corner of the crawlspace door, near the light switch (so I almost put my hand right into her web), and the web stretched to the middle of the door (so I almost put my head right into her web). Definitely startled me.

Once I got her on a stick and called the family out to see our first black widow, Sarah grabbed her camera and snapped a few pictures of her. What an amazing creature – Black as ebony, with the startling red hourglass on her abdomen, just like in the science books.

We might just need to fumigate the crawlspace after this.

2015 | In Hindsight

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The New Year was welcomed in with the joy and fellowship of family and friends, and now 2015 is a not-so-distant memory. How to even being to summarize a year like 2015! What a year! I think of where I was a year ago, and I am amazed to see where God has brought me. Last night, I was writing in my diary and listing some of the highlights and surprises that God brought my way, and I was delighted at the list I came up with. A list like this helps me to see God’s faithfulness – This list of memories serves as a reminder of how God is truly active and involved and how He has put each of these opportunities in my way to grow me and give me joy, if I’m willing to grow and open to receiving gifts from God’s hand.

Looking back on myself at the end of 2014, I was exhausted, crabby, somewhat depressed, ready to be in South Dakota, and I was concerned. Concerned that I wouldn’t manage to pass my recital preview and I’d end up without a college diploma. Concerned about the snug living arrangements once we moved. Concerned about finding a church home. Concerned about finding a job that I liked. Concerned about making friends and developing relationships. Concerned that my writing would take a back burner to other things. Concerned about moving to a place where the opportunities for music would be different. Concerned about not having a piano…Just concerned.

What wasted energy! What needless concern! Each and every one of these fears was graciously alleviated – God is good. I passed my preview and gave a successful recital. I received my diploma with the added surprise that I graduated magna cum laude. The living arrangements here are snug but very workable. My church home is even more like family than I thought possible. I ended up with not one job but four, and enjoyed each and every one of them. I have grown closer to my sisters and we’ve also been blessed by a close circle of friends who all happen to attend our church. True, I’ve not worked as much on my fiction writing as I wanted, but this blog has been a wonderful, growing writing project, and I know my experiences this past year have served to grow me as a writer. The music opportunities have been fewer but my heated, passionate desire to pursue music has cooled. I attribute that to God’s goodness and His grace. No, I still don’t have a piano, but I have a very decent electric piano, and have finally been able to start playing and singing again, and have found that my enjoyment is better than it was before.

And many things happened that were never even on my radar. Delving back into photography, starting a botany photography portfolio, winning Best of Show in photography at the Custer County Fair, buying a DSLR camera, seeing one of my articles published in MaryJane’s Farm, working cattle in Wyoming, opening an Etsy shop to sell doll clothes, teaching Sunday School at church, and beginning work as a medical scribe in Rapid City.

Over the past year, I’ve learned more about what it means to trust God. I’ve learned more about God’s faithfulness, even when by earthly standards something seems impossible. I’ve learned that church truly can and should be a place of beautiful fellowship, loving one another in Christ, intimacy, openness, frankness, honesty about our shortcomings, brotherly and sisterly affection, all because of Christ’s love for us. I’ve learned that I have a long way to go. I’ve learned that it is possible to live in a tiny house and to still function normally. I’ve learned that my soul is truly refreshed in Creation. I’ve learned again that I love writing. I’ve learned that I love photography. I’ve learned that my heart is in this place, this wonderful place. I’ve learned that contentment is more a function of my heart than it is a function of my environment. I’ve learned that God’s gifts are visible every day, even on the bleakest days. I’ve learned again and again that God does provide, and His will is powerful and undeniable. I’ve learned again and again that I am a fallen, pathetic sinner in desperate need of God’s grace on a daily basis. I’ve learned more about grace and acceptance and love and growth by loving and being loved by my new-found church family.

And now the New Year is here, and I look forward with eagerness and anticipation to see what God does with this coming year. I hope to get to the end of 2016 and not be the same person I am today. By God’s grace, I’ll have grown, matured, and been refined. By God’s grace, I’ll love God more then than I do now. By God’s grace, I’ll love my family with greater grace than I do now. All by God’s grace.

Such a Gentlehorse

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Remington is such a gentlehorse.

He really is a charmer.

Snow Magic

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Snow changes everything. A drab, brown, winter landscape becomes a fairy world. A moonlit night becomes silver bright. A windy gale becomes a cozy blizzard. Tufts of grass and the tiny life of plants stands out with new poignancy in the chill of winter when snow is heavy on the ground. Little sounds are magnified, like the rustle of snow falling from a burdened branch and landing with a soft sigh in the snow below. Little bird feet that hardly bend the grass in summer leave bewildering prints in the snow. Cold never seems as cold when snow is falling.

There must be magic in the snow.

We had just enough snow on Friday night to count, in my books at least, as a White Christmas, and Sarah and I made a point yesterday to get out and enjoy it thoroughly. With the goal of ending up with Remington and Dove, we set out at 3:45, bundled up and armed with our cameras.

Little things kept catching my eye, in ways that are different from the summer months. Winter is the season of shifting lights and shadows, and the life of winter is in the play of light and dark, the sparkle of frost in the moonlight, or the blue shadows in the snow beneath the trees. It was fitting, then, that what ended up tugging at my mind about this little family of coneflowers wasn’t even the flower stalks and heads themselves, but what stretched behind them. The magic of snow and the enchantment of light.

With the sinking sunlight in the west, the smoke from my uncle’s burnpiles a few hilltops over rose up like a fog and drifted north. The farthest hills and Harney Peak were nearly obscured, with their easterly slopes no longer lit by the sun. Shadowed hillsides shimmered blue, while sunlit little bluestem glowed golden, sparkling warmly in the chill winter air. Even the air seems to sparkle as the temperatures drop.

Tiny footprints of rabbits and delicate hoof prints of deer leave dimples in the snow. The snow doesn’t keep secrets. Gently-worn tire tracks, leftover from summer and not even deep enough to call a trail, were filled with snow and stretched on until they disappeared over the hill or into the trees. When spring comes and the grass grows back green and tall, the tire tracks will disappear, blending back into the landscape, overtaken by springtime. But winter remembers.

Even after a hard frost and inches of snow and months of winter weather, remnants of life still remain in the plants. Green leaves at the base of a taller plant, or tiny patches of woodsorrel or thistle, or these little leaves, unbitten by the frost. It amazes me to see how well God equips His Creation, and how hardy even the most delicate-seeming things really are. What wonderful capacity for survival God lavished on these, the works of His hands.

When we clambered out of a little hollow and up into the meadow where the horses are, the sky was a clear, pure blue, the snow a clean, pure white, and Harney Peak was visible in the distance. The horses saw us and came nearer to socialize. Dove was shy as usual, but I expected the snow to have put some spunk and spice into Remington. Instead of spunk and spice, he was mellow and affectionate, almost like a big dog. Each breath puffed a cloud of fog, and his hooves kicked up sparkling snow. Little Dove stood a ways off, content to watch from a distance.

The most mundane things take on new life in the snow. These little plants, brown at first sight, turned out to be red, when I crouched down to look closer at them. They seemed like tiny berries. The twiggy plants covered a hillside, catching the last of the light of the afternoon.

Shadows lengthened. When we finally got back to the top of our ridge and looked down at our cabin and the Miner’s Cabin, the sun had been behind the hills for awhile. Home looked cozy. Turkish coffee sounded good. No matter the season, I enjoy a good hike around our place. But in the snow, everything just looks different. New things are highlighted. Normally overlooked things stand out. There’s whimsy. A different sort of beauty. A touch of magic.