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.
After a morning of cleaning the church with Roy, Anna and I went over to make gingerbread houses with Hannah and Jacob, who also go to our church. They take their gingerbread house making very seriously – They’re pros. It turns out a number of people at Southern Hills take gingerbread house making very seriously. We might need to have a church gingerbread house making party and contest sometime.
For Christians, even the secular traditions should be a reminder to us of what we are celebrating – We are celebrating the coming of God to earth, the long-promised, long-awaited Messiah, the Blessing of Abraham, the Davidic King who will reign forever, the one who will one day destroy Satan and dry all tears. That is something to celebrate!
Every day, winter moves a day closer and Christmas is right around the corner. Traditions and family habits mingle with new ways of doing things, in our new home in the Hills. The smell of cookies baking recalls last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the festive bustle of preparation adds a spice to otherwise ordinary activities. The hymns are sung in church with perhaps a little more gusto than during the rest of the year. “Joy to the World” rings loud in the sanctuary. We have such cause to celebrate! What a beautiful time of year.
One tradition, though, almost got sidelined this Christmas because of space constraints, but the girls and I raised a cry of opposition – We live in a tiny house, but when it was suggested that we wouldn’t decorate a tree this year…Well, we didn’t hesitate to voice our opinion. So Saturday morning, Dad and I hopped in the truck and went out to cut us down a Christmas tree. It was a chilly, cloudy, breezy December morning, but the trees don’t mind. We were looking for a small tree, one that would sit on top of a table by our window, so it couldn’t be any more than three or four feet tall. We went out to a stand of trees near the highway, and started hunting.
We cut down about ten trees, I think, trying to find one that would work. If an “environmentalist” had seen us, they probably would have burst an artery. But we called it “thinning.” These little stands of trees reseed and become overgrown in a matter of years, and responsible land maintenance would include thinning them or clearing parts of them completely in the next few years. Some environmentalist efforts in the Black Hills have included leaving the forest entirely alone until it is so overgrown that even animals don’t want to live there (the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, for instance). So anyway, we chopped down a passel. There are literally millions of trees on the home place. There isn’t a shortage. There is an over-supply.
While Dad and I were looking for the perfect tree, Remington and Dove were nearby. The cold seemed to have gotten into Remington’s blood and made him frisky. He kept coming up close, then galloping off, bucking and kicking and racing circles through the open meadow. Little Dove kept to herself, but watched us. I don’t think the cold worked in her veins the same way it worked in Remington’s.
That evening, we opened boxes of ornaments, like opening boxes of memories – Each one has some sort of memory tied to it. Whether it was a gift from a special friend, or whether it was Mom and Dad’s first Christmas ornament (they got married two days after Christmas, in 1989), or whether it was handmade at a girls’ craft evening, or whether we simply remember laughing at how funny certain ornaments look, each of the ornaments has a memory tied to it. We packed as many strands of Christmas lights on our little tree, as many as we could, and hung as many of the special ornaments as would fit. We made every twig earn its keep.
Our Creche is my favorite of our Christmas decorations. When I was little, Dad started buying the pieces of the Creche for Mom, and gave them as Christmas gifts over several years. I loved it as a child, and I love it still – The pieces each look like a watercolor portrait, and the wistful, worshipful expression on Mary’s face is such a beautiful interpretation of the Virgin Mother.
Christmastime is possibly my favorite time of year. It is a time to celebrate, to remember, to rejoice, to mourn, to sing and make music to God, to fellowship – Although the cultural view leaves Christ out of Christmas, many still don’t. And, if I may say so, those of us who don’t leave Christ out of Christmas have so much more cause to be joyful, to celebrate, to make merry, than those to whom Christmas is simply a time to spend money and receive presents. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the gift-giving, the tree, the lights, the other traditions. But without Christ as the reason for the celebrating, Christmas would be a dead holiday. But it isn’t a dead holiday. At Christmas, Christians celebrate the coming of a living Messiah, who came to fulfill the promises in the Old Testament, the promise of a Person who will one day defeat and destroy Satan, the promise of a Blessing which all families of earth can enjoy, the promise of a Davidic King, a King who is reigning now and will reign forever and judge righteously, the promise of a Prince of Peace who will one day return. What a cause to celebrate!
The fall is over, practically speaking, and will be over in actuality in another two and a half weeks. October and November breezed by in the flickering light of golden leaves, the sparkle of frost in the mornings, and the first snows. What a glorious time of year, with the lingering warm days recalling the summer and the hints of the coming winter fresh in the air in the evenings. Hurried end-of-the-summer outings punctuated the otherwise steady flow of life. The last hikes before the cold set in, the savoring of the last of the fall colors, reveling in the last of the long days.
We enjoyed what produce successfully ripened in the garden, in spite of the multiple hail storms, early frost, and other inclement forces of nature. If you want a seemingly deer-proof plant, grow turnips – The leaves are prickly and the deer won’t eat them, even though they’ll meticulously rip up and devour every single beet and carrot in the garden. Turnips, leeks, tomatoes, basil, all found their way into savory, fresh soups. We’re looking forward to our garden next year already.
The majority of our very small tomato crop was pretty badly hail-damaged and the cold set in early, so many didn’t ripen. Mom turned what she could of those into small batches of fresh salsa, not to be canned. But at the end of the greenhouse season, Sarah’s boss at Dakota Greens in Custer let her and Mom pick the remaining tomatoes in the greenhouse, and they came home with roughly 130 pounds of tomatoes, mostly red but some green. Mom was thrilled to have something to can, and we spent a couple days processing the tomatoes. Salsa, plain tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and piccalilly relish, are all stacked neatly in our pantry cabinet now.
The last couple weeks of November felt like winter – The first snows, snapping cold, heavy frosts, and snow-melt fog. Thanksgiving found me with a very thankful heart, for such a memorable and life-changing past year, as well as for the simple pleasures and little blessings God sends our way. We have a freezer full of venison, a warm house, good employment, a great church home, and family we can see on a regular basis. What more could I ask?
Song Dog Journal 