Tag Archives: South Dakota

Growth and Dreams and Change and Sameness

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

I knew I was getting close to (or had passed) my eight year anniversary writing this little blog, and I’ve been wanting to write a little something to that effect, and in gratitude for the people who read my blog. Some of you have been following along for years, and that means a lot to me. So to satisfy my curiosity I went back in my archives and, what do you know, eight years ago today I published my first post!

As I look back at some of my early blog content, a lot of things bounce around inside my head. One, what in the world was I doing with that camera? There are a few good pictures, mostly by accident. But more importantly I’m reminded of the excitement and difficulty of moving to South Dakota, of moving into an 800 square foot cabin with my parents and two of my three sisters, of sharing a bedroom with siblings as an adult, of starting over as an adult, beginning a new life in a new place and of learning to trust God with all the outcomes.

I look back and see so much change. I see struggles and losses and failures and dreams that were made and broken. I see so much growth – personal, emotional, relational, and spiritual. Yet I see at the same time I see so much sameness, heart longings that made no sense at the time, common threads woven through my entire life that speak to God’s love and His authorship of even our hopes and dreams.

I see seeds of desires that God has satisfied, one way or another, in His own time. I look at the beauty I was trying to capture with my camera, the things that tugged at my heart strings, and it amazes me to think that I am so wonderfully immersed in those things my heart was just starting to love. I look back at my early attempts at gardening, my love of the beauty of the Hills and the beauty of the agricultural lifestyle, and I see seeds for where God finally planted me. And then I look back further. When I was 10 or so, I had a memory book that had questions and space for written answers. One of the questions was “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I answered, “I want to live in South Dakota and have horses.” Little did my 10-year-old self know that it would take 15 years to get to South Dakota, but that I would in fact get here! And little did I know in 2015 when I was working for the rancher who runs cows on my family’s place, and falling in love with the work and the outdoors and the dirt and the sweat and the smell of horses and cows, that eight years later I would be the wife of a rancher and a neighbor to the rancher I had worked for. Funny how life works. Correction, funny how God works. Sometimes those heart longings that make no sense are God’s way of foreshadowing the work He’s doing.

I look back on my early blogging and see an at times very lonely 20-something single gal, with desires that could only be satisfied by God in His own timing, doing her best to thrive where she was, growing in her trust of God, knowing that God is a loving God Who knows our needs and even cares about our heart desires, clinging to some of those hopes and dreams that honestly seemed hopeless, dreams of marriage and a little home in the Hills and a garden and maybe a couple of chickens.

I see the winding road, yet not so winding, that it took to get here. I see the little side roads I took, that filled life with spice and adventure and highlighted what was truly important to my heart, and made the “Yes” I gave to my rancher the most obvious decision of my life.

It’s like a garden. The first year you plant perennials, some do well, some don’t. Some die off over winter, others come back pretty hardily. There is growth in those first few years, and then they just take off and there is no stopping them. That’s the impression I have of my life, looking back on the 8 years since starting this blog, and the 8 years, 1 month, and 21 days since moving here. I see seeds planted that were slow to take off. Some did well but were pruned out eventually. Other just died off, and that’s fine. Others were slow to get started and have just exploded.

Life has overflowed. I came here with my books and my family and a college degree, and that was about it. I had no friends here, no community, a jumbled mess of recently-rediscovered dreams and disappointed hopes, and I hoped I would find somewhere I belonged. God has given me so much. He has brought struggle and loneliness and has allowed pain, and has been faithful through it. He has given me a life I love with a husband I adore, work to do with a new family that feels like blood family in a community that warms my heart and brings so much meaning to life. He has brought into my life all the spice and savor and sweetness I had dreamed of, and then more.

So I’m just sitting here thanking God for eight years in South Dakota, and eight years of this blog, and for those of you who read this blog and let me know when it touches your hearts. I’m thankful for growth. I’m thankful for change and sameness. I’m thankful for dreams and answers to prayer. I’m just thankful.

Ranch Wife Musings | Mud

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

It is everywhere! Mud, absolutely everywhere, on everything, tracked into the house and well beyond the mud room, caked on boots, worked into the denim of jeans and crumbling from the legs of the pants. I’m scrubbing it from the floor, washing away those telltale paw prints from one of the pups who busted through the mud room gate or got overzealous when we headed inside.

I’m sweeping up piles and piles of it, combing it from puppy fur, and washing it from my face, from that one cow who turned suddenly and splashed me – twice – in the corrals, flinging it on me head to toe. And that’s special mud, corral mud. It flings up from the tires of the four wheeler, snow and mud spraying up and all over everyone. Coveralls are stiff with it. Floorboards are caked with it. It’s everywhere. Eventually you just have to accept it.

And it’s glorious.

Mud is a promise.

A promise that springtime is coming, the thaw really is happening. Winter is coming to an end.

A promise of moisture. Life-giving. Sustaining.

It’s hope.

Hope for a good year.

Hope for grass, for healthy livestock.

It is an answer to prayer.

Oh, how we have prayed for relief to this parched land. How we’ve prayed for water to fill the dams. For respite from the drought. Without water, there is no mud. And there is mud. Plenty of it. So there is water.

It’s a reminder.

God’s answers to prayers don’t always come all nice and tidy and recognizable. In fact, usually they don’t. Sometimes they’re mud-caked and messy. Sometimes answers to prayer come paired with reminders of our own fickleness, wanting something but grudgingly trying to tell God that the manner of gifting was wrong. “Sure, that’s what I prayed for, but what I meant was….”

So I’m thankful for the mud. For warmth and thaw. For wet and running water trickling down all the trails, pooling in the most inconvenient places. I’m thankful for springtime. For life. For mud-covered blessings.

Working Hard

Posted on by under country life

Bess and Josie have learned that fun is to be had if an ATV is involved, and feeding the cows is their time to catch up on their morning nap. First, we all have a good howl (no, really) while Brad honks the horn for the cows to come in, and then it’s time for a nap.

It’s hard work being a cow puppy in training.

Home

Posted on by under country life, Writing

Even after a few short days, a homebody is already pining for home. It has been delightful to settle back in after a rather quick six-day trip to Illinois, realizing just how much I had to miss in the short time I was gone. So many relatively unnoticed things become vitally beautiful and important when they are suddenly absent.

Like waking up next to my best friend. Like the daily morning rhythm of coffee, breakfast, and chores. Like reading my Bible in my chair by the window. Like trudging down to the barn to release the chaos of the puppies, and trudging down again at night to put them to bed.

I missed the wonderful pandemonium of pups yipping and cats purring and chickens squawking and horses nickering. I missed the sight of the pups clamoring around Brad’s legs as he walked to the barn, or wading through them myself on my way to the chicken coop, or up to the house, or anywhere the puppies happened to be. I missed my chores throughout the day, the various times of checking in with my critters. Coffee with the in-laws after a quick hour or morning of working cows. Our walks in the evening. Cooking supper in my own home.

I missed the mud and the smell of horses, the spicy breath of the puppies, the sharp little teeth and dark, sparkling eyes. Polly on my shoulder and Betsy on my head. Gathering eggs and doing nightly chicken chores. I missed feeding my sourdough starter. Isn’t that silly? And sweeping my kitchen. Doing our dishes and hanging our laundry up to dry. Homemade bread and jam, and homegrown beef. My wonderful family.

Evening cuddles on the couch watching a movie and devouring a bowl of popcorn. Having my pillows stolen and the endless teasing.

Home is a place of belonging. Of safety. Of shelter and protection. Of growth and growing, of work and working. Of life and love and laughter, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold.

Home. What a wonderful place to be.

“Hello, Old Scout!”

Posted on by under Writing

Lots of memories were raked up and mulled over, over the last week and a half. Memories mostly of Grandma, but sweet memories of Grandpa surfaced as well, things I hadn’t thought of in years.

Pastor Walker was reminiscing at Grandma’s funeral, and with one phrase he brought back a flood of memories of my Grandpa, including how much I loved him. This one phrase was the first thing he said, every visit: “Hello, old scout!” he’d practically shout at me, or at my siblings, or at whomever it was who came into his line of sight. No matter that he said it to everyone, it always felt special, intentional. “Hello, old scout!” and he’d pull me into a crushing hug, or slap my shoulder. It was a signature phrase of his, and went right along with his squinty-eyed smile, eternal plaid shirts, tuneless whistling, limping gait with one shoe thick-soled because of a broken leg during the war, muscled arms and work-hardened hands.

Grandpa was a farm boy son of German immigrants, who grew up to be a combat veteran in World War II; a man who didn’t treasure his army decorations but let his kids play with them and lose them; a man who loved animals and loved the country, who built his house in the middle of his property on the hardest spot to access and in defiance of a friend’s advice, and was colorblind so bought a bright orange Jeep, thinking it would blend into the South Dakota landscape. He was a small town veterinarian in eastern South Dakota, with stories to rival the best of James Herriot. If only he had written a book. He sang in the church choir, was a rancher in the Hills in his retirement, had horseback accidents well into his 70s but walked home and was none the worse, and ultimately went out with his boots on – he died in his mid 80s of a heart attack checking cattle in his bright orange Jeep on a logging road that probably has a grade pushing 50% (and I’m actually not kidding) just after a massive thunderstorm. What a way to go, doing what he loved.He was a man who never retired. As a rancher in his “retired” years, he built fence, planted trees, built a log cabin, worked cattle, rode horse, continually worked at improving the land, and in short never quit doing work. Good, physical work. The above picture was taken by my uncle when Grandpa was well into his 80s. That’s what he looked like as a retired man. He was a man who loved to work. What a wonderful example, and I hope to imitate him in that.

In the time that I worked for Jack, the rancher who rents pasture from us, I’d meet people who’d hear my last name and ask, “Say, are you Doc Adrian’s granddaughter?” I loved that, absolutely loved that. Not that I could take any credit, but I was proud to be Doc Adrian’s granddaughter.

And what a legacy he left. Not only has he left a spiritual legacy, as a strong man of God, which is the best and most important legacy to leave, but if it hadn’t been for his financial wisdom in dealing with the success God blessed him with, we never would have come out to South Dakota. As it was, we had a place to move to, and that made all the difference. The beautiful family property is a huge part of what has given me a love of wandering, and some of my best memories have taken place around “the home place,” and new memories are created every time we explore.  I think he would be delighted to know that his granddaughters are living in the log cabin he built out of trees cut off the family ranch, and I think he’d love to know that I’m on the same fire department he was on.

I miss him. I didn’t realize how much until I was reminded of Grandpa’s greeting. Because somehow those three words and the way he said them summed him up. All his love and enthusiasm and enjoyment of life. “Hello, old scout!”

 

The Fourth Year

Posted on by under Writing

I missed the day by three weeks, but I couldn’t let this month go by without writing something. Four years and three weeks ago, this little cabin in the Hills became my home. Home. What a beautiful word!

It looked crazy to pretty much everyone who knew us, but the family decision to relocate to South Dakota is a decision I will never regret. God in His love and goodness satisfied a dream that had lived inside me since I was a child, but for years was forgotten. He didn’t need to do that, but He did. God in His goodness radically changed the direction I was headed, starting me in a new direction that hasn’t ceased to amaze me and bring me joy.
Winter beautyThese four years have been some of the most challenging of my life, and some of the richest. God has been stripping me of some heart idols, growing me spiritually, humbling me, teaching me about purpose and meaning and joy and adventure and delight and community and faith and courage. If you had told 20-year-old me what I’d be doing at 28, I would have laughed in your face. I wouldn’t have recognized me. And I probably would have been angry that the little wicked heart idols I was working on at 20 never went anywhere, and that 28 year old me doesn’t even miss them. Thank God for His patience and for the process of sanctification.

This place has gotten into my blood. The rocks and canyons and red dirt trails, the pines and spruces, the resiny air, the wildflowers and shenanigans, the mud and sweat and laughter.Sarah took this picture of me a few days ago while we were doing our Needles Highway hike. This is how the Hills make me feel. I wish I could throw my arms around all the goodness and joy and delight the last four years have brought. What a place. What a wonderful, amazing four years it has been.