Sunday walks and spiderwebs

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Sundays always go too quickly–The fellowship, the family time, the blessed enjoyment of the outdoors. We live in such a fast-paced culture, but I’ve been discovering a peace that comes with a quieter life. Sometimes life gets busy and schedules get hectic, but coming home to a quiet life at the end of the day is unbelievably restful and calming. Regrettably, the last week sped by with hardly enough time to breathe deep of the clear, piney air or to ponder flowers in shady corners of the Hills. I tried to make up for it today.

A quiet, solitary walk to scout some good photography locations was restorative, even with temperatures in the 90s. I explored a beautiful little ravine branching off our jeep trail to Hole-in-the-Wall, and enjoyed the sight of birch trees glinting in the 5:00 sunlight. Deadfall and rocks, mossy soil and sandy creekbed–The ravine was like something straight out of a western novel. I love not being able to see what is around the corner–Where might it go? What is just out of sight, waiting to be discovered?

Another ravine, the grass bent from flooding, was scattered with ancient, sun-bleached bones. Some of them were mossy and green, all of them porous with time. Life is so short, so transient. Like the “flower of the grass”, the Bible says, life comes and life fades, just like that. Human life, animal life, plant life. But unlike the flower of the grass, we have a soul that will not die! And God is good to His children. So good.

On the way back through the corrals to get home, which are built with the bare rock as the fourth wall, I nearly walked right through this beauty’s web. I watched as she snagged herself a grasshopper, then scurried back to the center to watch and wait. Ants are examples of industry. Spiders are examples of vigilance.

We were graced with a little thundershower this afternoon, just enough to wet the deck and scare the Dog. She’s a bit of a coward. The clouds rolled up so gradually, they looked like smoke and haze, but soon took command of the whole horizon and the sky above. A little thunder, a little rain, a little wind in the whispering pines. The moisture was pleasant.

Tomorrow is the start of a new day, a new week, and a new job! Off to new adventures.

Beauty in the Badlands

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The Badlands are rich with subtle life at this time of the year. The summer heat hasn’t scorched the region brown yet, and the moisture has coaxed flowers into bloom. Soon enough, the summer will arrive and the green with burn away, but for now there is a tenacious life that clings to the region.

This past Thursday, Sarah and I took an excursion to the Badlands with two church friends, Roy and Jessica, and made an afternoon of the Badlands loop, stopping at just about every scenic turnoff, and hiking when possible. Although my family has driven through the Badlands several times, never had we gone through at such a leisurely pace! A quick drive through really doesn’t do them justice.

Razor-sharp peaks and spires give way to rolling hills with impassible cliffs. Strata of bright orange and gold layer through one region, while tablelands dominate another. Viewpoints overlook cliffs, plummeting down hundreds of feet into the valley or canyon below.

And in such a hostile wasteland, a no-man’s land, there’s life–Creeping insects, scurrying chipmunks, burrowing prairie dogs. Prairie phlox and scarlet globemallow bloom in the rocky, dusty soil. There wasn’t any flowing water anymore, but the gumbo mud was still sticky in places, and little puddles of tepid water hadn’t yet sunk into the earth.

The rain in the Hills had opened into blue skies over the Badlands, but as the day wore on, we watched thunderstorms roll in. The sky grew bluer and bluer with storm, and the occasional rumble of thunder echoed quietly through the stony peaks and valleys. For hours, the storms seemed to crop up on the horizon and roll towards us, never reaching us.

We scrambled around in the gumbo, climbing to the tops of the tablelands. As we scrambled up over the edge of one, a pair of doves startled from their ground nest. Two eggs were tucked inside. I should have gotten a picture of the location of the nest–The tableland rose a good thirty feet up, and then there was a little washed out spot and a slightly higher table, roughly the size of a dinner table. The nest was nestled in the grass on this second table. The perfect vantage point to watch for predators.

The storm broke as we were eating dinner. Probably a good thing, or we might have stayed out exploring a lot longer than we did!

Winter in May

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The snow fell thick and heavy today, and our springtime world was transformed into a winter fit for greeting cards and calendar pictures. Sarah and I both got off work because of hazardous road conditions, and consequently spent our day in various quiet tasks and occupations…because, as Anna said “There’s just not much to do,” meaning, when it is snowing a gale outside. When it is snowing slush and turning the ground into a slippery, sloppy mess, I’m thankful to have “nothing to do” that forces me to be out in it, getting soaked to the skin!

The Miner’s Cabin, in spite of somewhat outdated insulating techniques, was my haunt for much of the day, since my sewing machines are out there. They are competing with the yet-to-be-sorted family items, such as Grandma and Grandpa’s travel souvenirs and miscellaneous household items, but it is a better sewing room than I could find anywhere else at this time! A little space heater doesn’t exactly keep it warm, but it takes the edge of the chill. Oh, for the day when we can have a fire in the stove! But there is some maintenance to be done on the chimney yet, which will probably have to wait until this coming fall. It will be ready by winter! Hopefully, however, I’ll get some blankets hung up over the bedroom door and the lean-to door, to keep the heat in the living room. In spite of the mess, it really is a lovely place to sew.

Coveting the photo opportunities, Sarah and I took a short excursion in the jeep, with the dog as a tag-along. The view from Highway 40 was beautiful and haunting. Distant familiar hills were lost entirely in the snow. The black of the trees had turned grey under the blanket of snow and ice. Green grass poked up through the snow, the only indication that it is springtime, and not early January! It was an odd sight, seeing a cheery red tulip covered in white, or seeing the young crabapple leaves frozen stiff.

By this evening, we’d gotten a good seven or eight inches of snow, I’m sure, and we expect snow all night. The snow is so wet and heavy, the trees are simply covered with it and bend under the weight. Hopefully the damage will be minimal, but for now it is enchanting. Trees have a nasty habit of taking out sections of fencing, and the cattle are supposed to arrive in less than a month, if all goes as planned! Too dry, too wet, not enough grass, crushed fence, cows too hot, cows too cold…I guess there’s always something. Maybe it is the promise of daily variety, the very real sense of risk, that play a role keeping ranchers coming back to ranching. I had one tell me he almost quits every week. But he doesn’t.

Thank God for a warm, snug home. It is shamefully easy to forget daily blessings, but when the weather is inclement and snow is piling deep, I realize what a true blessing it is to have a roof over my head, a source of heat, and a bed with warm blankets at the end of the day.