Tag Archives: Photography

The Stirring

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, Photography, Writing

Originally printed in the March/April 2024 issue of Down Country Roads Magazine

Something new is stirring. It is the in-between, that elusive time when seasons collide and blend and bend and break. Not yet spring, but no longer truly winter. A few more storms may be all it takes for winter to wear herself out and peacefully subside, a few more days and nights of wild wind and heavy snow, waking to a transformed landscape.

We aren’t yet done with frosty mornings that nip the nose and fingers and rosy up the cheeks. We aren’t yet done with heavy coats and encumbered action. We haven’t seen the last of the delicate flowers that frost the windowpanes. We haven’t seen the last of the iced-over backs of the heavy cows, or broken the last ice on the dams. There may yet be a little more of that.

But we have tasted the springtime in the warming air; we have heard the sound of water running from rooftops, and have smelled the earthy perfume of a thaw. We have sunk into the softening earth, and felt it yield to our footsteps. We have felt those telltale warm breezes, and seen the first of the springlike clouds, even ones dropping hopeful rain, virga, somewhere higher than the earth. We have felt the sunlight later, and seen the sunrise earlier, and we know—we know—that springtime will come. Winter is long in the Hills. But she never lasts forever.

The silver frost gives way to a hint of green like dew. Trees are ready, waiting, buds setting, hopefully not over-eager, and some of us begin our annual hunt for the elusive pasqueflower, that earliest harbinger of springtime. Once found, springtime is inevitable.

There is pandemonium in the yard, as new calves make their appearance daily to new mothers, bewildered heifers inexperienced in this unexpected role, confronted with a confusing and helpless little creature that seems to belong to them somehow. It is a comedy of errors, a chaos of learning and unravelling mistakes. But the older cows, wily and woofy, equipped for motherhood, birth their calves in solitude out in the brakes beneath Potato Butte, hiding their new calves away for safekeeping, like Easter eggs to be found, curled so small they appear like kittens. At a few days or a week old, nursery groups of a dozen calves or so, under the careful attention of two or four cows, slumber in the warm sun, drunk with sleep and sunlight and their mother’s creamy milk, blinking in confusion but not yet knowing fear.

And mud! Every little melt off creates more mud than would seem possible, somehow finding its way into the house and the kitchen and everywhere until, at some point, it is tempting to give up and just let it stay.

Spring is waking.

The horses are hale and hearty, sleek with a few months of ease, hair like velvet, winter thick, and they are eager to go to work in spite of themselves, willing to take the saddle and bridle. A little vim and vigor, a little fire, and they are ready to partner for the work ahead, long days combing the breaks, gathering in the crop of new calves and their indignant mothers.

The first sprigs of green in the winter brown landscape emerge as always, and are met with the excitement of man and beast. The livestock taste those first shoots of new grass and their appetite for hay vanishes. The first flower, that first pasqueflower, is hunted for jealously on the piney slopes and grassy hillsides, and is greeted as an old friend. A melt-off sounds like music to ears accustomed to winter silence. From tree to tree, new voices of birds echo sweetly out of sight, and finally the meadowlark, yellow-breasted, trills in the hayfield, the best song of them all. The strange, ethereal cries of the sandhill cranes ring above as they make their way north once again, as they do every spring. Their otherworldly flight always dazzles me and I strain my eyes to see them, so high as to be almost invisible.

Soon. Soon it will be spring, truly. With color for our winter-weary eyes. Warmth for our chilled hands. Sunlight for our pale faces.

Winter’s sleep is being shaken off. Everything is stirring.

Ranch Wife Musings | Well Wintered

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, gratitude, Photography, Writing

Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on March 6, 2024

The longest part of the year is officially over. And it flew by. Just yesterday it was October and the trees were losing their leaves, and then it was November and Thanksgiving and we were shipping calves. Now we are standing on the brink of springtime, watching the first calendar day of spring approaching from not even a calendar page away, and the first 50 calves are already skipping blissfully through their short first days of life. We are ready for springtime.

There’s a saying I heard from my father-in-law, that has stuck with me: “Well summered is half wintered.” In other words, livestock that have had been through the summer with plenty of good grass and good water have a healthy fat layer and ample energy stores and are well equipped to face the coming winter. Half the struggle of winter is already taken care of. If, however, cows struggle during the summer, with stricken pasture and bad water, they will continue to struggle and the hardest season will be even harder. They will be bags of bones halfway through January.

2022 was a rough summer, with too little rain and too many grasshoppers, resulting in incredibly poor winter pastures. We were not well summered. Cows looked rough and rougher still as the winter wore on, and the extraordinary cost of feeding hay to get the cows through the winter added up. Cattle prices in the fall just added insult to injury. This time last year, calving season was getting off to a not-so-great start, with a number of odd and unpredictable losses, with a cluster of birth malpresentations and birth defects compounding that. March came in like a lion, indeed, bringing much needed moisture but in the form of calf-killing storms. So, we looked ahead to the spring and the summer with a sense of foreboding. Another summer like 2022 would have been devastating. Springtime was anticipated with dread.

“Well summered.”

I have pondered that saying a lot, actually.

Because it really doesn’t have a lot to do with the hard seasons themselves, but has everything to do with what leads up to those hard seasons. It is so tempting to coast during the easy times, so that we are less than equipped when things get tough.

We do that in marriage, by failing to put in the work to build up our marriage when things are easy and then being taken completely by surprise when our marriage struggles hard when life gets hard.

We do that physically, taking our health for granted while we are healthy, neglecting it rather than working to preserve it, and then being surprised or devastated when our bodies give out.

We do that spiritually, starving our souls, failing to feed ourselves through God’s Word and fellowship and solid teaching when life is easy, and then being shocked when our faith falls apart when life falls apart.

And there are a million other examples. What we do in the good times matters, and it changes how we handle the bad times.

But there is also another facet of this illustration: Sometimes the anticipated rough seasons aren’t as rough as anticipated, or perhaps the preparation was sufficient to offset the challenges. Maybe both. That’s when things are just extra, especially good, and the future is anticipated eagerly.

What a difference a year can make. Going into this winter, we were incredibly well summered. In spite of some wild weather events, the pastures were green and lush leaving plenty of forage for winter, dams caught quite a bit of good water, we actually had a hay crop and full stackyards, and the cows were sleek and fat as winter approached. And they are still sleek and fat. They could have handled much worse of a winter than we experienced. But God was an extra measure of kind, and the winter we had was the sort of winter that would make South Dakota too expensive a place to live, if that was our normal fare. But it was still winter. We still had cold snaps that put stress on the livestock and their keepers, stretches of days that made us extra, especially thankful for being well summered, but also extra, especially thankful for the winter we were given.

And here we are, standing on the brink of springtime. Winter isn’t over yet, and we can get snow until June, but what is generally the hardest part of winter is behind us. There is a bit of green starting to show under the cured grasses of last year, and a few brave little things are poking up out of the soil in the garden. The calves are thriving in the gentle weather, their healthy and maternal mothers unusually capable for first-time mamas, and a new season is just ahead, just around the corner.

Springtime coming looks sweet.

We were not just well summered. We are well wintered. Well wintered, and ready for spring.

These Winter Days

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, Photography

Winter has been very good to us. Or more accurately, God has been very good to us in the winter He has given us. We were talking over lunch today about how different this winter is from last, how good – just good – things have been this year compared with last year, without the struggles and sense of futility of this time a year ago.

When cold snaps last for weeks, with water freezing over multiple times in a day, when snow comes and then doesn’t melt, it is hard on everything, human and animal alike. Calves struggle, cows struggle, we struggle. But when cold snaps hardly last long enough to fully unpack one’s collection of serious winter gear, when the snow comes and goes in the span of a few days, when storms are the punctuation rather than the paragraphs, everyone is happier. Chilly mornings warm to balmy afternoons, heavy jackets and gloves becoming unnecessary and getting cast aside. Critters of all sizes sack out in the sunlight, the black ones especially enjoying the ritual.

Calving has begun in earnest, without the weather-related losses we had a year ago. There is still time for calf-killing storms, but everything is better equipped to handle what weather we may get, having not been suffering in the cold for weeks on end. Cows are heavy with calf, fat with grass and hay, their summer stores still sleek on them, unlike last winter. And Posey, maternal thing that she is, is crazy for a calf, wanting to mother all the little calves that have come along so far. Just wait, little cow. You’ll have one soon enough!

The short-lived bursts of winter we have had have almost been a relief, in a strange way. Little bursts of cold and snow and seasonalness that spice things up, change the pace, bringing that fiery vigor that a good snowstorm brings, and followed closely by stretches of 40 and 50 degree days. Wonderful. Glorious, even.

And when things are well fed and fattened for winter, a little snow is hardly enough to matter. I love watching the critters, all of them, in the bit of snow we have had. Not cold enough to be miserable, not enough snow to be dangerous, and everything feels good. Nothing like a little bit of snow to get the cows and horses “feeling their oats.” The horses race around in a fiery, wintery fit, kicking up snow, sending it frothing and surging up from around their hooves. Cows, hairy backs covered with a glaze of ice, are plenty warm enough, their natural furnaces keeping up, fueled by plenty of good pasture and hay.

And the dogs – Oh, the dogs! Their antics keep us laughing. Enough said.

What a winter we have had!

Photo Roundup | 2023

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, gardening, Photography

It used to be a custom of mine to do a “favorite photos” post at the beginning of a new year, and I’d like to bring that back….This last year was one for the books, and as I look back over my photos from 2023, the first thing that strikes me is how beautiful life is. The second thing that strikes me is how much joy God has brought to my life…my photography tends to flow from that joy, as I try to capture moments of happiness and wonder. The third thing that strikes me is how the color palette changes over the course of a year, with each season having its own colors and textures and flavors, from the gentle, muted tones of the winter, to the emerging greens of springtime combined with the rustic tones of leather and denim during branding, to the rambunctious chaos during our green summertime as the landscape into into a wild array of colors and wildflowers bloom, then settling into the rich, warm tones of autumn, as each little bit of sunlight is reflected in the ripening fruit and golden leaves and the flame-colored jars of canned jams and jellies and whatever else.

How beautiful life is. 2023 was a beautiful year.

In Deep Winter

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, Writing

Originally printed in the January/February 2024 edition of Down Country Roads Magazine

Winter. It really sets in after the Christmas season has drifted past, after the festivities have waned away. Usually, January is when the temperatures permanently settle into their winterish lows, and we forget the autumn and forget the spring and all that’s left is winter.

The short days seem shorter still. The skies, heavy with snow or icy blue, outline the skeletons of trees in the shelterbelts, and the sentinel ponderosas standing resolute on the ridgelines of the forest.

Snow crunches underfoot, and there is no give in the ground. Dams freeze, stock tanks freeze. All is rock hard. Dead sprigs are all that remain of summer gardens, with the plants sleeping snugly out of sight, unconcerned for what’s above.

And everything is cold.

The cows are cold, standing with their backs to the wind. The horses are cold, following suit, while the chickens sulk with abandon, staring at their food and refusing to leave the coop. Even the dogs, usually so eager to escape in the morning, hesitate when the world outside is cloaked in white. We don layer upon layer to armor up against the winter, dreaming of when we can walk about without coveralls and long underwear and sweatshirts over sweatshirts impeding every action. Out we tumble in the morning, with only our eyes visible, maybe our noses, stumbling down to the barn and the chicken coop and the tractor and the corrals, fumbling with mittened, cold-bitten fingers while our toes freeze in our boots.

And it is about halfway through January’s bleakness that I start remembering why springtime is such a welcome relief, and why people dislike the winter.

And so winter goes. The festivity of Christmastime gone, the excitement of the New Year behind us, the winter drags by, sleepy, depressed, and frostbitten.

But there is another side of winter, if we can see past the thermometer and the frozen fingers.

Under the biting cold is an energy. In between snowstorms. In between days of gale-force winds. A slumbering energy, ready to burst out in joyful excitement. There is an invigorating beauty, if one knows where to look. If one chooses to look.

It’s in the horses running fresh and free in a falling snow. It’s in the dogs dashing through drift after deep, new drift, gleeful against the cold. It’s in the whirling snowflakes of a snowglobe snowfall, and the silence of a winter night under a starry sky.

How do we miss those things?

It’s the acrobatics of chickadees at the birdfeeder.

It’s the first set of footprints in a fresh snow. Or the tiniest of tiny tracks between clumps of grass, evidence of the littlest of lives at work.

The hilarious energy of the pups when they’ve been inside too long, minutes before they are kicked out again.

It’s the fire in the fingers as they warm around a mug of coffee. It’s the frosty windowpanes, those amazingly intricate flowers that only grow in winter. It’s in the crystal-clear sound of a morning glazed over. It’s in the blue-sky, springlike days that punctuate our South Dakota winters. It’s in the clouds of warm breath from every nostril, and frost-covered backs of our black angus cows, when the wind isn’t blowing and their natural furnaces have made them comfortable. 

It’s the glittering brilliance of fresh snow under a cold, waking sunrise, or under a full moon.

It’s the blue hues in the white landscape, the purples and pinks that are in every drift, every shadow, the subtle glaze of color that is anything but stark white. It is the strange and exquisite shapes chiseled into the snow, and the beautiful music of a melt-off.

Deep in winter, it is that kind of energy, that kind of excitement. Deep in winter, those glimpses of beauty so profound, against which spring in all its glory pales.

After all, winter doesn’t last forever.

The Making of Cow Dogs

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, Pets/Domestic/Farm Animals, Photography

It has already been more than a year since Pearl disrupted our quiet house with six puppies. Their birthday was December 3. We are happy four of them went to good homes, and we kept two for ourselves, thoroughly enjoying the chaos and companionship good dogs can provide! Not to mention their incredible instincts, and how handy they are working cows.

This is the first time I have ever had a border collie dog, and now I can’t imagine not having a border collie! Josie is really the best little friend. She is company on my quiet home days, company when I go to town, company on my morning walks and gladly curls up next to me while I milk Posey. She is such a good partner when we’re moving cows, except for her propensity to quit me and go to where the big action is, and it is hilarious to watch her work the entire herd, back and forth and back and forth, with seemingly endless energy. She has learned to help load cows into the alleyway and into the chute, and on her own figured out that the catwalk right before the alleyway is a great place to post herself when cows are getting loaded. She’ll go forever, but then is more than happy to curl up on the sofa at the end of the day and cuddle.

So here are some cute photos of Bess and Josie to brighten your day!

I’m awfully glad God created dogs.