Over the last month, I have been getting ready for my first multi-day art show, and I’m so excited to participate in Custer’s 100th Gold Discovery Days, as a vendor at their art and craft festival! The Hermosa Vendor Fair was definitely a success, so I’m really looking forward to this next event!
I have been getting displays figured out, troubleshooting my tent, labeling my cards, matting prints…I added 4”x6” matted prints, and they are as cute as can be. I’ll also have a handful of large-scale prints as well, plus the standard 5×7 and 8×10 prints, frameable art greeting cards on gorgeous matte paper that makes them look like watercolor paintings, postcards, and a random assortment of hand-dyed silk wild rags, just because.
I have sold cards and prints on and off for several years, but it has been so rewarding to pursue that with a little more intentionality (and professionalism), and to see my photography as art and an art form! As much as I enjoy photographing things, and using them in my blog, it really is exciting to see them printed. Not for this show, but in the near future I’ll be getting canvas prints added to my inventory!
Hopefully I’ll get an online store set up soon, and will be able to sell my photography in a more streamlined fashion!
So if any of you happen to be in the Custer area this weekend, stop by the craft festival and say hi!
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Sometimes I just have to pause for a minute and think about everything that is going on, and going on well. Just taking a few steps outside and seeing all the green – incredible green! – is reminder enough of how blessed this summer is. It has been wonderful. It couldn’t be more different than last year, where the grass was basically done growing by the end of June, and we ate dust all summer long. The grasshopper infestation was unreal and our stackyards stood empty of hay. The only reason the garden survived at all is because of the amount of time I spent watering it.
What a different year it has been!
The garden is gorgeous, really just thanks to the heavenly weather. My perennials are thriving, as well as some annuals I started from seed this year, and I’m already scheming to dig up another part of the yard to start planting volunteers and babies, and to rehome plants when I divide them up. A well-kept garden is almost a thing of the past, and I think that is such a loss. Beebalm and catmint and verbena and coneflowers, cosmos and zinnias and poppies…I love the color they add! Taking pride in one’s home and in beautifying the home and yard is a valuable pursuit!
The vegetable garden, though…Oh my. Every few days I’m able to harvest wonderful quantities of greens and herbs – kale, chard, arugula, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, dill, basil…We’ve been eating the most delicious steak salads! But for some reason I didn’t ever write about my greenhouse, when we first built it a couple of months ago. Maybe because I was afraid it would just be a disaster, possibly due to the fact that it blew down within three hours of initially setting it up. It really was quite heartbreaking.
But after my handy husband did a lot of head scratching and dirt work, he designed and executed a frame made out of old railroad ties from a corral my grandpa built, sank the railroad ties in the ground about four feet, and the greenhouse cover (from the one that blew down) perfectly fit over this frame. A lot of 2x4s and screws later and plenty of redneck flair, this greenhouse isn’t going anywhere. It has withstood some pretty heavy winds, a significant hailstorm or three, and the vegetables in it are absolutely thriving. Weekly fertilizing of the entire greenhouse, weekly strip-pruning of the tomatoes, and it is doing better than I ever anticipated. My tomatoes are taller than I am, and I’ve been having to tie the branches to the roof of the greenhouse as they’ve outgrown the cages. The branches are loaded with green fruit and yesterday we ate the first tomatoes of what should be an abundant harvest!
Gardening is so fun when it works the way it is supposed to!
The pullets started laying a few days ago, and it makes me chuckle how much I enjoy finding white eggs from my Leghorns! I am sad and not sad to say that Bernard the rooster got voted off the island a week or so ago, leaving my hens (and myself) much happier and more peaceful, with Big Boy doing all his roosterly duties in a much more respectable and respectful manner. However, Bernard may be joined shortly by Peewee, the jerk of a Leghorn rooster that was supposed to be a pullet. He is tiny, fast, and just mean. Bernard was a jerk, but he never chased me down. Peewee is a whole different story, and he’s only four months old. Yikes.
So we are finally eating meals again entirely produced on this ranch, from the beef to the eggs to the veggies and greens, and how satisfying that is! At any given time I have about a gallon of kombucha brewing, and a half pint to a pint of milk kefir. Bread baking happens on a weekly basis, give or take, whether it is a quick loaf of machine-baked whole wheat, or a carefully tended four-loaf batch of sourdough.
The hay crop is almost entirely rolled up, our fat steer is getting fatter on his daily grain ration, and in short this is just a good summer. They aren’t all like this, and it didn’t take me long being married to a rancher to figure that out…They aren’t all like this, so when we do have a great year, I will savor it. And savor it. And savor it some more. Sometimes I think a little more savoring of the good things would help get all of us through the tough times.
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It has all been a madcap whirl and a wild rush! There’s a lull, right after calving and branding, a lull that lasts about a week and a half or two weeks, and then the summer kicks into high gear. In some ways, we’re less busy than ever. Oh, that’s not correct. We’re busier than ever. But it is an easier busy? Really, it just doesn’t stop.
It is the whirl and rush of the normal rhythm of a longer day, longer at both ends, with a list that seems to grow to fill the length of the day.
It’s a morning run, accompanied by three black-and-whites, the sun on my shoulders, sweat trickling, mud flying, puddles splashing, pups hurtling around and easily going twice my distance.
It is the whirling rhythm of keeping a house and a home, the pleasant and never-ending tasks of being a wife and a homemaker, laundry and bread baking and the endless satisfying work of tending a thriving garden and greenhouse and a flock of chickens.
It is the satisfaction of once again eating meals fully produced on our ranch, as the garden has begun to produce plentifully!
It’s the roadside meetings for an egg delivery at random times of the day – I love having more than enough and being able to share what we have with family and friends!
It’s the uncanny feeling of drifting through a sea of grass, when can’t see the tires much less the ground in front of you on the ATV. What a change from last year.
It is the laughter while watching the dogs learn to navigate grass this tall. Roughly two normal bounds and then a vertical jump to see over the grass, then two normal bounds and a vertical jump.
It is the smile ear to ear of seeing pups become cow dogs, of watching their instincts emerge and blossom, of learning to work with a little partner.
It is the odd projects and tasks that come up throughout the week, the spontaneous mornings moving cows, or the fun work of vaccinating yearlings.
It is covering country horseback in the cool of a summer morning.
It is the joy of seeing a beloved bed of flowers grow and bloom in a shifting, changing pool of color, humming with bees.
It is the color brought into the home, of fresh-cut, homegrown flowers.
It is the perfume of the alfalfa, and the heavy fragrance of fresh-cut hay.
It is the amazing sigh of relief, seeing bales – and bales and bales – in hayfields that produced next to nothing last year.
It is the irony of being stalled in putting up hay because of too much rain (too much?), but you won’t hear us complain about the moisture! It is the comedy of talking about finishing haying in the next few days, and seeing the forecast for nothing but rain, rain, and more rain.
It is the elation of counting inches in the rain gauge, yet the surge of worry that turns into a prayer at the sound of the first hailstone hitting the roof. God has graciously spared us from destructive hail but has given us beautiful storm after beautiful storm, already bringing more rain than we had all of last year put together.
It is the ever-changing bouquet in nature’s garden, marking time with the blooming of the flowers. The wild roses are already starting to fade. The spiderwort has been blooming for weeks. Yarrow is here for the duration. But it is sunflower and purple coneflower season now.
The sweet cumulative hours, sometimes quick, sometimes slow, spent over coffee, with husband, in-laws, or my mom – such an important tradition.
It is all a whirl and a rush!
We try to slow down, we do. We try to enjoy a walk in the evening when the light is golden, and savor this time, the warmth, the sun, the rain, the clouds, the everything that makes this summer a wonderful summer. Because in a few months, we’ll already be looking back wistfully at these madcap summer days.
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“Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt?? ~Job 38:25
So much power is in the sky. The clouds were awesome and wild over this old barn, its aged and greying wood, boarded up windows, tumbling cinderblocks, crumbling foundation, and chipping paint speaking to the myriad of storms this piece of history has weathered. Yet still it stands.
We humans are so small, such a small part of this world we live in. Watching a storm roll in is a pretty stark reminder of just how small we really are, and how fearful and powerful our God is.
Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable. For he draws up the drops of water; they distill his mist in rain, which the skies pour down and drop on mankind abundantly. Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion? Behold, he scatters his lightning about him and covers the roots of the sea. ~Job 36:26-30
Wonder at the storms, marvel at them. Then turn and worship the God who created it all.
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In the middle of the ranch on a lonely and beautiful hilltop, miles away from anything, is a lilac shrub. Woody trunks and sparse patches evidence its age. It blooms wonderfully in the spring, though a little wearily, cascades of purple blossoms and glorious fragrance. It is all that remains of a homestead from some 100 years ago or so.
Out in front of our house is another lilac bush, which is also splendidly covered in pale lavender blossoms each spring, with an equally splendid fragrance. A third shrub blooms in front of my husband’s parents’ house, six miles north on the ranch. These two lilacs are transplants from the lonely lilac on the hilltop homestead, and they have bloomed faithfully for decades.
I wonder what the homesteader and his wife were imagining as they dug a hole and settled the roots of their shrub in the ground. I’m sure it was a tiny shrub at the time, and who knows where it came from, whether there was someone in Rapid City who sold them, or whether it was a shrub they brought west with them, similar to the Oregon Trail Rose, brought with pioneers as they blazed trails westward, leaving their fingerprints in the form of beautiful yellow roses scattered across the west.
What a beautiful and tangible act of hope and optimism. How lasting that little investment in the future!
Had they any idea when they firmed the dirt around the roots how the lilac would outlast their homestead, their dreams, themselves? I don’t know anything about them, what their plans or dreams were, what they did for a living when the homestead dream didn’t pan out (since most didn’t), whether they had children or how successful they were, or where they came from in the world before they claimed their homestead land. There isn’t a stick or a stone left of their dwelling place, or any outbuildings. Not even the faintest evidence of a foundation, or a well or cellar. Just the lilac, and a patch of irises.
But I do know one thing – They pictured a future. Enough to bring a lilac with them to their homestead. Enough to take a spade to the hard and rocky hilltop and sink in some lilac roots. Enough to haul water for it to survive that first couple of years before it could take care of itself.
How do we look toward the future? Or are we so invested in the present and in our little personal pronouns that we don’t bother trying to leave something for the future? We are products of a culture that would rather spend $5 on a fancy coffee drink at a drive-through that will be gone in 15 minutes than spend $5 on a flowering plant that will bring enjoyment year after year. We tend to think in terms of the here and now, our needs, our enjoyment, our fleeting pleasure, our experiences. If we won’t reap the benefits, we don’t do the work. If it takes hard work, few people will do it. And consequently so little gets left behind for the next generation.
It makes me ponder what I’ll leave behind. And what I want to leave behind. What fingerprints will I leave? What skills will I pass down? What will I teach? Whose life will I touch? And in what ways? Sometimes the smallest ways are the most profound.
As they planted their lilac, I doubt they imagined that 100 years later three generations of a ranching family would continue to enjoy a descendent of their humble shrub. Three generations of ranch wives would bring the fragrance and beauty into their kitchens. I doubt they imagined that their hope and optimism, made tangible in their lilac, would continue to grace two simple ranch yards a few miles from their homestead. But what joy and beauty they brought.
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There is always something going on! Just when things seem to be slowing down, another project comes up or another deadline approaches! The last few days, I’ve spent some time in the evenings and early mornings getting greeting cards and post cards ready to go for the Hermosa Vendor Fair next weekend! I had them printed weeks or even a month or so ago, and I have to say it is always fun to see my photographs printed out.
In addition to the greeting cards and post cards, I’ll have plenty of matted prints, and I’ll be doing photo booth mini sessions! So if you’re in the area a week from tomorrow, stop by my booth and say hi!
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