Tag Archives: Photography

Advent 2023 | Celebrations and Stones

Posted on by under Writing

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, launching us officially into the countdown to Christmas. Although culturally we tend to rush through the next few weeks, packing the calendar so full we live in whirling blur, although culturally we have turned Christmas into simply an excuse for rampant consumerism, there is so much more to this season, and so much need for this time. I hope you enjoy this article that I published at the beginning of Advent last year. I wanted to share it again, since it really speaks what is on my heart.

This time of the year is possibly my favorite. Admittedly, I love this whole season, from Thanksgiving to the New Year and experience what some might term a childish excitement as the festivities begin to take place. So many of my fondest memories take place in the period of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so many of my favorite family times have been interwoven with the traditions and customs that became part of the fabric of my family. Even though the world around us goes crazy with all the frivolous and self-centered consumerism that has become the unfortunate hallmark of the American Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season, there is so much to embrace and to firmly fix in our lives. We set aside a day to remember God’s goodness and thank Him for His blessings, and then we intentionally fix our eyes on the hope, love, joy, and peace that the Advent season remembers.

In a culture that increasingly tries to erase all evidence of the Christian faith from public expressions during these historically overtly Christian holidays, I think it is more important than ever that families rally themselves around traditions that draw their eyes Heavenward.

I think of the traditions my family had growing up…We had our big family Thanksgiving, usually shared with someone from our church, and in the next few days afterwards, we would usher in the Advent season by putting up our tree. Out would come all the old decorations, the lights, and the treasured Advent books we would read year after year as a family. I think of the Christmas programs at church, the traditional songs and hymns, the somber and joyful candlelight services we would attend at my grandparents church, The Little White Church in Hill City. I think of our Christmas morning Bible reading, reading through Luke’s account of the birth of Christ.

Unfortunately, America in general but even many branches of the Protestant church have either given up on Christian tradition altogether, or given up on fully appreciating and applying the traditions of the past. In the culture at large, I think it is pretty obvious why…The “old ways” have been systematically devalued and the church and expressions of faith have been essentially removed from the culture. For two religious holidays, what’s left for a culture that hates God? Nothing, really.

In the church, though, this forsaking of tradition is more complicated. It is sad to me that a lot of people find the Christmas season just another part of the year, the traditions are just kind of boring and old hat, and there’s sort of a collective eye-roll at the traditional Christmas hymns. One facet, I think, is a rather poorly-reasoned idea that too much tradition and it might become meaningless and rote.

What a loss of such a gift! How silly, to avoid a good thing because it might become less than what it should be. And can’t we having meaninglessness and roteness just as easily without our “traditional practices?” Maybe we should work on our heart attitudes instead.

Traditions of the faith join us with other Christians across the globe, through the centuries and millennia even, since we don’t just find our spiritual origin in the Christ of Christmas, but in God’s covenants with the Nation of Israel, thousands of years ago. I look at how God’s people committed His works to their memory for future generations, two big ways come to mind: Feasts and monuments. Celebration and stones.

When the Israelites were instructed on the keeping of the Passover Feast after God’s delivered them from Egypt, this was why:

And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. (Exodus 12:26-27)

And when years later the Israelites were under the command of Joshua, God brought them over the River Jordan, rolling back the flood-swollen river waters so that the whole nation could cross in safety. Joshua, instructed by God, directed the Israelites to take twelve stones out of the riverbed of the Jordan as they crossed over and to construct a memorial, so future generations might not forget the Lord’s power and His goodness.

And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’  then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’  For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over,  so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” (Joshua 4:20-24)

Christmas and the Advent season should be a time of celebration for the Christian. A time when we can proclaim the joy we have in Christ to a world walking in darkness. And a half-hearted participation hardly communicates joy. So set up your family monuments to the goodness of God and celebrate with friends and family. Celebrate Advent. Find a live Nativity to attend. Cultivate traditions in your family. Set up your cherished Creche and ponder its significance. Sing the old songs and really taste the words. Don’t just “make memories” for the sake of the memories, but counteract the temptation to be passive at this time of year and make memories to the glory of God!

We need our celebrations and we need our stones. Celebrations to bring us into a heart-posture of thanks and praise to God, and stones to be a visual reminder of Who it is we celebrate.

Soaking it all in

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, gardening, gratitude, Ordinary Joys, Photography, the homestead, Writing

I woke up last night to the lullaby of rain on the roof. Gentle rain. Peaceful rain. No hail, no devastating winds. Just music on the roof. We woke to 2 inches in the rain gauge and another inch has fallen since. It it one of those turning-inward kinds of days, where outside chores are accomplished as quickly as possible, and the oven and stove and dehydrator all warm the house and fill it with the tastes and smells of the season.

But fall really is less of a season and more of a sense, or an over-abundance of the senses. It is the time of gathering in, of putting up, of savoring and preserving.

The color palate shifts, in one last glorious display before the long winter sleep, as the last of the flowers send up their leaves and open their buds, and the trees, which in summer are a wonderful backdrop of green, burst into the most vivid of colors in a center-stage kind of a way. Living right inside the treeline of what becomes the Black Hills National Forest a little further west, a ponderosa pine forest, the hardwoods hide until the fall, at which point they come out of hiding in flamboyant style.

The last of the harvest is trickling in – the last of the fruit tasted sun-warm off the vine, the last of the shaking of the branches, the last eaten while perched in the branches to reach just one more. But even when the last of the harvest has trickled in, the work still isn’t done, and it continues in a pleasant flurry. The whirr of the dehydrator, the bubbling of the waterbath canner, the tastes and aromas of the summer, preserved for the winter. Every countertop surface is a chaos of things preserved and things to be preserved – The jams and jellies from the abundance of wild fruit, summertime salsas from the garden, enough to last us through next summer, bags and bags of dehydrated apples and zucchini, and jars of glassed eggs to get us through the winter slump. It is a delectable time of the year!

Flowers I thought wouldn’t bloom after the August hailstorm wiped out the gardens have flourished in the interim. One last bouquet was hastily cut last night, on the eve of what could still turn into our first winter storm if the temps drop tonight. Herbs were gathered in quickly – mint and thyme and lavender and dill – and are bundled neatly to dry.

But the savor of the season is mixed with the sweetness of routine – Baskets of eggs fresh from the coop, loaves of fresh bread, still warm.

Daily walks in the freshness of autumn, with a passel of dogs.

The company of a good pup.

Kittens in the barn, shades of cinnamon and the one little white one.

The view between a horse’s ears.

A certain pair of eyes in a sun-browned face.

Quiet evenings.

Beautiful sunrises.

Winter will be here before we know it. It is storing up the joy of times like this that keep the winter blues at bay. So I’m just listening to the whisper of the rain on the roof, and soaking it all in.

Ranch Wife Musings | Grandpa’s Apples

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

First printed in the Custer County Chronicle, October 11, 2023

Every other year, right about this time, when the leaves have started to turn and the shadows have lengthened, two gnarled and twisted apple trees blush rosy-red with clusters of fruit hanging heavy on the boughs, like clusters of grapes. They are my grandpa’s trees, planted some forty years ago, and are the best apples I have ever tasted. There were others, but only these two made it through the decades. I always get a little sentimental on a bumper-crop year. Grandpa has been gone for 15 years, and there’s something poignant and important in continuing a task he started.

And what task is there more intrinsically autumnal than that of the apple harvest? The warmth of the sun, the honeyed aroma of the fruit, the smooth, cool satin of the apple skin, the soft thud as apples hit the grass or the peals of laughter as falling apples are dodged, or biting into the crisp white of sun-warmed apple fresh-picked from the tree! While everything else is preparing for a winter sleep, some of us hurry to gather in the summer sunlight, to enjoy when the sun is at its lowest and coldest. After the apple picking comes the real work, the washing and cutting and coring and slicing and freezing or canning or baking. But it is a pleasant sort of work. A good sort of work. A wholesome work. A slow work. A kind of work that is out of step with society.

It’s a madcap world we live in. It is always about the next thing, something new, something different, something to boast about, something to give that little dopamine rush that comes with a handful of “likes” on Facebook. The next toy, the next expensive vacation, the nice car, high-end restaurants, the Instagram house and the Pinterest-worthy décor. Nothing is wrong with any of those things, in and of themselves, but somehow we have turned those things, culturally speaking, into “the American dream.” The instant-gratification of Walmart and Amazon have cheapened our tastes, and punched holes in our pocketbooks.

The very act of planting a tree is counter to the modern way of thinking. I have this sneaking suspicion that most people wouldn’t bat an eye at $50 spent on a meal at a restaurant, a meal that is consumed in an hour, but would cringe to spend $50 on a fruit tree that can be enjoyed for years and decades and generations. But we don’t plan that far ahead anymore. We want instant gratification, or at least a reasonable guarantee of personal gratification somewhere in the not too far distant future. Everything is impermanent, and a lot of money and time is spent pursuing our whims. New hair, new tattoos, new clothes, new job, new house, new experiences. Those things can bring a fleeting enjoyment, I suppose, but does the enjoyment last? And who experiences the enjoyment besides ourselves?

As I pick apples from my grandpa’s apple trees, as I wash and core and slice them, it strikes me just how far this enjoyment spreads. These apples will find their way into pies for the Rainbow Bible Ranch pie auction in November, and onto our dinner tables for the holidays. Did Grandpa picture that, as he dug a hole and settled the roots into the rocky soil? Did he picture his grown granddaughter harvesting fruit, and gifting bags of dried apples to friends and family, as he watched his little trees struggle to survive over the intervening years? Four decades and two generations later, we are breathing in the fall freshness and shaking down the fruit, and will enjoy the bounty for the next year or more, thanks to the simple and selfless act of my grandpa planting a tree. How poignant it is that the fruit we enjoy now was begun decades ago. I wonder if he pictured the joy that he would bring with his little orchard!

Such a simple act, and how profound.

We live in a society that tells us to forget about the next decades, forget about building a lasting legacy, live in the moment and follow your heart, nevermind the consequences or the collateral damage. I can’t change how society thinks, but I can intentionally walk out of step with it. I can cultivate a future-oriented mindset, a mindset that thinks about the next generation. I can think about the joy and gladness of others, and whether the decisions I make and the actions I take are done for my benefit alone, or whether there is a broader vision behind my life.

Because I want to leave something beautiful for those that follow.

Like Grandpa’s apples.

Ranch Wife Musings | When Summer’s Gone

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, gardening, gratitude, the homestead

The first day of fall came and went a few days ago, with a flurry of exciting activity, selling yearlings and enjoying the sweet coolness of the beginning of a new season. A lot of people brace for the end of the summer. I suppose I kind of understand it. I guess I do too, a little. Not every summer, but summers like this one. The warmth, the rainstorms that have kept us green, the ease of accomplishing basic tasks, the colors and sights and sounds and tastes of summertime. The fruitfulness.

I have enjoyed (almost) the last of the flowers of my hail-wrecked garden – To my delight, a number of my plants bloomed again, and I was able to cut yet another bouquet for the kitchen. There is something about fresh-cut flowers that touches my little soul and delights the eyes, and when I’ve grown them myself, cared for them and cultivated them, it is an even keener enjoyment.

The garden is slowly slowing down, as the fruit harvest is in full swing. This is where the fun really is…Because now the summer can wind itself away, and winter can wind itself up, and we’ll still be tasting the fruit of summertime. The early summer fruits like chokecherries prep us for the pouring-in of everything in the fall.

Salsa, and basil, dried apples and the abundance of apples that will be frozen for pies are just some of the evidence of the wonderful bounty of this year! Days have been filled with picking and washing and processing gallons upon gallons of fruit, hawthorn berries and plums and apples, into things we will enjoy for months and potentially years – butters and jams and juices and fruit for pies. A gallon jar of apple scrap vinegar is brewing on the counter, and I have finally started waterglassing eggs from the summer abundance, which will hopefully allow me to continue to fill customer orders with fresh eggs over the slump of the winter, and Brad and I can eat and use the glassed eggs.

Winter doesn’t seem as long, when you can continue to enjoy the summer, even after it is gone.

A Beautiful Sight

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, gardening, gratitude, Ordinary Joys, Photography, the homestead

What a summer it has been.

Strangely wonderful, strangely defeating by turns.

Exciting new opportunities have presented themselves, writing for a local newspaper and magazine, shooting more portrait sessions, a wedding. Canning like crazy with the wealth of chokecherries, zucchini, and tomatoes. Baking bread, brewing kombucha, fermenting milk kefir. Productivity and fruitfulness.

A freak hailstorm wiped out my garden a few weeks ago (thankfully my greenhouse survived). I lost four of my precious cats to poison before we figured out where it was coming from. I grafted four TSC chicks onto a broody hen and she took to them readily, only to have my nasty rooster (who is no more) kill three of them a week or two later. Those frustrating defeats.

And then days like today, when this is the bountiful harvest reaped, reset things a little. Eggs from my chickens, tomatoes and jalapeños from my greenhouse, and succulent wild plums from the road ditch.

Isn’t this a beautiful sight?

Custer’s 100th Gold Discover Days

Posted on by under country life, Photography

What a weekend!

Over and done with just like that, Custer’s 100th Gold Discovery Days was a great intro into multi-day vendor events, and I loved meeting and visiting with people, locals and out-of-stater-ers, and sharing my love of photography and the Black Hills! In spite of rain and hail the first day, and soaring temperatures the next two days, the event came off well and I’m definitely glad I took the plunge. It was a low-key enough event that I was able to work out the kinks of my booth setup easily, resulting in a last-minute rearranging of my booth on Saturday morning. I purchased the tent off Amazon, and definitely am happy with how it held up, especially considering the stormy weather we had on Friday!

Lots of fun ideas are being sparked from this event, including the possibility of teaching photography classes, some new product ideas, and incentive to get an online store set up for selling prints. My little mind is a whirlwind of ideas right now!

It was also great to have company for the weekend, since my friend Hope, with Hope and Health tallow skincare, had a booth right across from mine, and my husband spent Sunday in my booth with me! And once again, the sweetness of the rural community was brought home, as I got to visit with many old friends and neighbors.

I’m getting booked for the remainder of the year, and I’m already looking forward to sharing a booth with Hope and Health at the Buffalo Roundup Arts Festival in Custer State Park in September and getting to do the Winter Popup Market at the Monument Civic Center in November. It is fun to see something I’ve slowly worked at for years starting to bear some fruit! God is good.