They Collided

A few weekends ago, I met my mom and dad out by the farm where my dad grew up.  The mission was to take pictures of the sunflowers as they go on for miles and miles this year.  It never gets old seeing my parents in their element.  Never.  

And my favorite pictures are always the ones when people have no clue you are taking them.  The ones where it's just someone doing what they do.

It's been raining pretty much since that weekend and rain during harvest is like a cat in my house, never a good idea and really not a good thing when it actually happens.  

Which makes me even more thankful that on a Saturday night in August, I met my parents and we spent a couple hours looking at the fields against the setting sun.

This morning, it's drizzling again after a steady rain all during the night.  This morning, the prognosis is a bit sad.  Yesterday was a day of finally looking like maybe it was turning to more normal - they combined barley, I mowed the farm yard, my sister and I smooshed in the grain cart tractor cab with Momma Debi, I ate part of my brother's lunch while we waited in a semi (it's amazing to me how we revert back to being ridiculous non-adult siblings in about two minutes), and sister-in-law late night visiting with texts coming in they finished the barley capped it off.  Normal.  It was a normal and full fall day.

Before they left for the field and before I spent the afternoon getting dirt in my eyes, Sister Pister and I packed Dad's lunchbox for the day.  I drizzled olive oil on baby tomatoes before sprinkling with pepper and salt and she made homemade bars and then we wrote a note.  Like the old days.  A have a great day Dad note.  Hopefully he still has that note today.  

Back on that mid-August Saturday evening, as the sun was just about to dip all the way, I heard from Dad, "Right here.  You need to stand right here."  And he was right.

The above picture was from that exact moment in that exact spot he was standing and it is now hanging on my wall as a reminder to me - to take the time when the time is there. 

This sounds corny but sometimes I am corny.  I believe we all have gifts.  It's not vain to notice your gifts or to use them, rather it's why you they were given to you.  My family has the gift of growing in fields and I have the gift of capturing with my camera.  It was more than special to me they collided together while Dad and I stood on the back of the pickup, him commenting on the crop itself and me commenting about the angle of the light shattering through.  

Sunday

Today was a good Sunday. 

I ran four miles early and it felt right for the first time in a long while.  I sat in the sun, let it make me sweat even more, and read from my book club book.  I smelled fresh from the dryer laundry.  I made a loop to visit out in the country with some of my favorite people.  I watched my niece mow the yard.  I wrestle hugged my two nephews because they are way too cool for real hugging, but they will wrestle hug me and laugh the best giggles.  I sat with my sister-in-law on their porch and visited while the little wild one went up and down the slide.  I saw yellow leaves, a sign my favorite is just around the corner.  I found a ladder that will work perfect for a quilt rack I've been envisioning in my brother's shop and then power washed it off in my dad's shop and now it is drying in my garage.  I ate so many I lost count pieces of fresh from the oven Momma Debi bread with spun honey, bread I convinced her to make just for me.  I captured one of the best big old trees against the prettiest sky and ditch grass blowing in the breeze.  I watched my sister get on her two year old, not yet broke, horse for the very first time; I love witnessing brave.  I saw a night light with a princess reflection on the ceiling, followed by shrieks of delight from Emma Jean.  I laughed with Danae and Blake because that's just what you do with Danae and Blake. 

And on the way home, I pulled the car over for this. 

Well actually, I had to drive for a ways to find a spot on the highway I could turn around and then drive more to find a spot I could actually pull off of to get this taken care of as it demanded attention.  Made it just in time. 

Just in time before the sun slipped behind the coulee.  Of all the things to regret, a sunset is never one.  

A good Sunday.  Bring on Monday.    

Another One

My weekend included meeting part of my family in Fargo for a planned rendezvous, only to be stranded there one extra day and night because of a shutting down the interstates kind of non-planned blizzard.  Turns out though, just like the last winter weekend road trip proved, being stranded isn't always a bad thing. 

 

Forced relaxing was reveled in, other than a certain someone named Billy doing everyone's laundry in the hotel so it wouldn't have to be done when all returned to home turf.  Naps and reading were snuck in here and there.  Laughing until tears stories were told for a couple hours over cheap bread sandwiches and soup whipped together by hotel staff as not a restaurant in sight was open.  But, dinner doesn't have to be fancy to have the feeling of having dinner together, it's the camaraderie which makes the event.  And finally, snuggling in with my mom and sister while we sipped hot tea and watched the Grammy Awards; my dad and Billy each in a chair with their feet kicked up partaking in the shenanigans.

 

Weekends.  I love them.  All shapes, sizes, and sorts of them. 

The part of the festivities which was planned was watching Sister Pister show the teenage horse she has been training for the past ONE month.  Duncan, the teenage horse, came to her care not liking humans.  He bit at her and stomped at her and in general acted like any typical teenager.  Sister Pister had a couple of moments of maybe giving up but then didn't quit.  Wouldn't quit.  Because she's like that.  And then we all watched her show Duncan at NDSU on Saturday night, ending up taking third overall, as a freshman.  Sometimes I'm so proud of her it hurts.  In a very good way. 

Brunch was planned too.  Because I love drinking coffee with my family.  Really I love drinking coffee anytime, but when I can look down the table and see my mom and dad at the other end while my sister and her crew is between and Billy is across, I really love. 

Now I'm back home and there are strawberries roasting in my oven as I write.  I'm not sure what I was thinking but I had some fruit and nut trail mix from Costco on the way home yesterday and I've become obsessed with the dried strawberry chewy bits which were in that darn bag.  So strawberries are hopefully turning into those delicious bits right this second.  I'll let you know how it all worked. 

And I'll leave with this final note.  I have an addiction to trail mix.  Which means I basically want it all the time.  Which also means I do not buy it because then I will take in the entire bag.  Which also means when it's blizzarding and I'm at Costco knowing the roads will be treacherous at best, I buy it in my nervous twitch state.  Which also means it's a special treat. 

That trail mix and I have a complicated relationship. 

Beautiful

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”   Lewis Carroll

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”   Henry David Thoreau

 

 

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.”  E.B. White 

 

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”  Wendell Berry 

 

 

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”  Mahatma Gandhi 

 

 

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”  Rachel Carson