Metamorphosis

Posted on September 24, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Photography, Writing

There is a wonderful transformation that takes place this time of year, changing what is common into what is precious, from emerald and black to crimson and gold. It was the rumor of gold that first brought the white man into the Black Hills in the 1870s, late in the era of the gold rush. But whatever precious metals they found while digging in the ground and panning in the streams, these riches outstrip them all, though they fade in a mere handful of days. It is the metamorphosis of autumn.The miracle of autumn is one which I am firmly convinced is entirely for our joy and God’s glory. God didn’t have to create the bounties of autumn color – The trees could simply turn brown and lose their leaves. But God in His sovereign goodness gave us the tapestry of the seasons, including the fleeting glories of autumn.
The Hole-in-the-Wall trail is festive in gold and green and crimson, the entire trail lined with hardwood trees in a mighty array of autumn colors. The higher hillsides are pine and so never change, but in the ravines the aspens and burr oaks and other hardwood trees and shrubs flourish, and are now painted their various hues of gold and crimson and yellow.
When the evening sun shines from over the mountains, the aspens are lit up like torches, glowing and burning. Rocky hillsides are illuminated with the flaming color of the trees. Driving along our already beautiful highways, my breath is swept away, when around a corner is suddenly revealed a golden hillside, or glowing ravine, or a roadside lined with brilliant color.I took a drive down Rockerville Road, and explored a couple of side roads. The sights were glorious, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud in delight! Springtime is wonderful, summer is rambunctious, but to catch the leaves in the prime of their autumn color is pure bliss. Roadside wildflowers are a riot of reds and golds, with a touch of purple here and there. Those, too, will soon fade, and all that will be left is the memory of the color, and the simple elegance of the dried stems and flower heads.Now, I understand that the color we revel in here isn’t the spectacular display of color we used to enjoy in Illinois, or the color that is legendary further east. But the subtlety of the transformation of the Hills is part of the allure. The mystery of autumn is heightened by its very temporariness. We aren’t two days into autumn and the colors are already fading from their peak three days ago. What a gift, to be able to enjoy such beauty, even for so short a time. For soon, and even now, the color will fade, the gold will glimmer away, and the life of summer will become the chill rest of winter.
Medieval alchemists were fascinated by the mythological concept of the transformation of common metals into gold. But what a delight, the alchemy of the seasons, the metamorphosis of the world around us, God’s created order that simply shouts His glory, and the Gospel story itself! What more wonderful metamorphosis, than the transformation of wretched sinners into redeemed Believers in Christ! Not only the tiny parable in the gold of autumn, taking that which is common and making it precious, but the larger parable of death and renewal, of decay and new life, pictured in the metamorphosis of the seasons.

Laura Elizabeth

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Winter Lingers

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Photography, Scenic, Writing

When I woke up yesterday morning, there was snow on the ground and continuing to fall from a heavy-clouded sky, a wet snow, melting and puddling in the red dirt of the driveway, but lightly coating everything else. I ran outside in my summertime footwear, refusing to go back to socks and boots. “Cold feet, cold feet, cold feet!” I scraped an inch or two of slushy snow off the truck, then ran back to the house for my camera. “Cold feet, cold feet, cold feet!” What a change from our 80-degree weather on Friday and Saturday!
The driveway up to Highway 40 was a fairyland. Trees were silvered with snow, grasses were bent and covered. The springtime landscape was muted and softened and pale. Low-lying cloud cover obscured hills and hilltops, altering the scenes I am used to on my drive in to work. I’ll have to admit, on Monday I wasn’t looking forward to the snow that was expected – But something about a quiet snowfall always changes my mind. The magic never fails to enchant me.
Snow and rain fell pretty much all day yesterday, as temperatures hovered in the 30s and 40s. When it finally warms up, how green everything will be! On the way home, I drove in and out of places where the snow was clinging tenaciously. Higher hilltops had snow on them, and the tops of trees were frosted over.
Living in the mountains, even relatively low-elevation mountains such as the Black Hills, the weather patterns are unpredictable and extremely changeable from one town to the next. As I drove home from church on Sunday, I drove into rain a mile or so outside Custer, as a pickup truck covered in 2 inches of snow whizzed past me the other direction. The snow and slush increased a few more miles down the road, then tapered off as I approached Mt. Rushmore. And at home, it was sunny and springlike.
I love the varied weather and the hesitating entry of each successive season. At this point, I am fully ready for springtime, the sun and the warmth that chases away the chill. But for now, winter lingers. Might as well enjoy it.

Snow and Springtime

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Photography, Scenic, Writing

Winter blew back in overnight a day and a half ago, and on the third day of spring we had four or so inches of snow, a wonderful, heavy, wet snow that cloaked every branch of every tree, every fence post, every roof and rock and hill, every little green and growing thing still clinging close to the ground. Hard to believe that four days ago we had temperatures in the 60s and 70s and were hiking to Hole-in-the-Wall without coats or mittens or snow boots!

Across the snow-covered pastures, on the sheltering hillsides, the Ponderosa pine trees were silver-blue in their wintry cloaks. Deer, startled up, fled silently through the silent trees. Wind had painted ripples into the blanketing white. But the recent spring-like temperatures had already warmed the ground, and our red-dirt driveway was muddy and mostly melted by noon, in spite of the chill day.

The little Kashka cat was moody and desperate, as soon as the snow began to melt. She didn’t seem to mind the dry snow, but she regarded the wet snow with unmasked disdain. She isn’t a particularly vocal cat – In fact, she seems somewhat limited in her vocal expression, sometimes opening her mouth but only producing a breathy squeak. But yesterday, she was whining and moaning and complaining and grumbling as she traipsed through the snow, and shook off her little paws in a futile effort to keep them dry. Her good-for-nothing, lazy brother was, of course, nowhere to be found. I’m sure he was holed up somewhere, dry and comfortable and warm.

I love how the snow completely transforms a landscape, insulates it, hushes it, and the whole world seems to glow with a gleaming, blinding brightness, even beneath a heavy-clouded sky. Simple things take on a new dimension. The same hillsides and meadows and roads shimmer with an ephemeral enchantment, an enchantment that can break within a matter of hours.

Sarah and I took to the snow at 10:00 last night, to ramble in what was likely the last snowfall this season to be lit by a full moon. Never waste a moonlit snow! The sky was crystal clear, and there was the faintest nimbus around the orb of the moon. The brightest stars flickered in the inky blue sky. Orion and Cassiopeia, and a strange bright star we’ve identified before but whose name I can’t remember. Scrambling up deadfall-strewn hillsides to chase the moonlight, slipping and sliding into ravines, dropping flat to make a snow angel, eating snow off the needles of sapling pine trees, stopping every now and again to listen for coyotes, losing track of the time – I could have stayed out all night in that enchanted moonlit snow.

In this shifting of seasons, in the sunshine and the snow, in the change and transformation from month to month, the summer birds begin to arrive with nesting on their minds, and the first insects start to hum and sing. The first of the green things shoot up from the warming earth, and rumors of pasque flowers are whispered. Snow may hide the signs for a day or two, but the seasons will fly on. Springtime is here!

Winter Comes

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

DSCN0156.1lowreaz As lovely as the snow is by day, I find the glimmering whiteness even more enchanting by the light of the moon, when the silver light filters through the bare branches of trees, casting strange and silent shadows on the flawless snow. Instead of blinding brilliance, the ground glints with a cold, unearthly sort of a light. The moonbeams seem to stream from the sky in a transparent flood, and the very air seems richer, almost as if it could be cupped in the hands and tasted.

IMG_4531.1lowrez The cold seems less significant in the moonlight. I don’t know why. But with the cloudless sky winking with stars and the snow winking with diamond-light, the moon streaming silver and the wind hushed about the trees, unmoving and silent, the cold seems reluctant to chill or burn or bother. When I lift up my face to the moonlight, with the snow glowing and reflecting and shimmering, I almost feel that my face could be washed by the light.

Today, though, winter is retreating, temporarily. The earth waits expectantly. Or, perhaps, sleeps in contentment. Either way, the earth is still.

IMG_4502.1lowrez The spell of the first snow, as fragile as a snowflake dissolved by a single, warm breath, has faded in the warmth of the springlike November air, unseasonably mild and sweet. Ice remains on the creeks and lakes, in places where the sun doesn’t reach, holding fast to the sheltered banks, but slowing giving way to the water. Only patches of snow cling to the northern slopes of hills and beneath the branches of trees, like memories of shadows.

For now, winter is still elusive. But she will come.

Laura Elizabeth

The first whisper of fall

Posted on August 23, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

After a week playing with cows, it is time to settle back into a routine…A routine that will be pretty short lived, since some reasonably big changes are coming down the pike. More on that coming soon!

It feels good to sleep in my own bed again, to not be choking on dust daily, and to have my forehead not itching from my hat brim. The little things. The simple, little things.

Smoke from fires further west has turned the air here smoky. Haze hangs heavy over the Hills. In the picture of the road, on a normal day Harney Peak would be visible as a second layer of hills behind the first layer of horizon. As I was watering trees yesterday, the haze seemed to grow thicker while the afternoon wore on, and the farther peaks became completely obscured in the smoke. The wind picked up overnight, bringing more smoke, and cooler weather.

This is my favorite time of year–In Illinois, it came later, towards the end of September, and it will probably hold off a little longer here, but today the first whisper of fall had arrived. In the fall, the air feels sweeter, stronger, richer, the sunlight seems purer, glassier, and there is something mysterious in the slant of the shadows beneath the trees, and how the sun warms your back, your face, your arms. The wind seems to be more than a stirring of the air, but a herald, a message bearer. Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. The summer is fading away. Winter is yet to come.