Category Archives: Photography

Fall

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“You have to come see the sunrise,” the Cowboy said to me earlier this morning ..

I had already been out, after the bus came to pick up our oldest for school, in my pajamas. With a steaming cup of coffee.

Sunrise

It is the second full day of fall 2013.

The morning could not be more perfect here in South Dakota. The sun is rising, the colors across the horizon are absolutely stunning and it’s about 60 degrees. One of the best morning’s to go for a ride ..

Nightmare

.. or a run. Or even just hang out on the porch with a cup of coffee and soak it all in. We all know, days like this are numbered.

………………

For about as long as I can remember, fall has been my favorite season. When I was a kid, I loved that it meant the start of another school year, cross country season, football games, crisp cool nights, the smell of campfires, leaves crunching underfoot as we would run through miles and miles of woods behind our house and the holidays once again around the corner.

While it still means many of these same things and I still have a very genuine love for the season .. I found myself yesterday, for the first time I ever I believe, not wanting summer to end. Not wanting to feel the cool breeze of fall or see the leaves turn. I realized after really allowing myself time yesterday to think about why .. it’s because it means another year is about to end. But, not just another year – another season of life. And the seasons, the years anymore, seem to be passing us by so fast.

Cliche, I know. But how very true.

I was helping my daughter with her homework the other night and as I looked over at her, all I could do was wonder where the first 12 years have gone. I looked later that night at the Cowboy who’s been sick for weeks now, fighting some sort of lung infection and all I could do was wonder how many more years of good health and life we might be blessed with. It has been a year of incredibly joys but also great sadness, aging family members have suffered major health complications, a few within just the past few weeks. Several family members and close family friends have recently passed away.

I do my best to never take a day or a moment for granted. Sometimes that means I, and many others like me, often go 500 miles an hour and throw ourselves into everything life, family, community and each day have to offer (often to the dismay of the more laid back around us). But it is also why we can appreciate the opportunity to slow down, reflect and spend time doing nothing but, say..

Soak up a beautiful sunrise.

Hope you are able to get out and enjoy all this fall and this beautiful season of life have to offer. Off to run ..

Tuko

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I received a package in the mail this week. I can’t wait to tell you about it. Seriously. What arrived is like the best thing since sliced bread. Especially for those of you with animals. That might ever mark in the house. Or on things that aren’t the lawn or the litter box.

But it’s too nice today in South Dakota (and a lot of other places it seems) to sit inside and write or work any longer. I’ve done it most of the day, working for others and I’m ready to get outside. I did want to share though, the following because it’s had me laughing all week.

We’ve got this awesome donkey, Tuko.

Tuko

Tuko

Tuko has been figuring a way out of the field we typically have him in, all week. None of the others in the herd have tried or found a way. He has. There is an abundance of water, shelter and food in this particular field. He’s preferred to sneak out and go hide in the barn. In the shade. Away from the heat.

When he’s rested up, he comes out and either finds me or hangs out close to the house and waits until I come out. He then follows me (or anyone else that might be here) around as long as I’ll let him. Like he’s one of the dogs.

Tuko 2

The Cowboy just laughs. “Leave him out, he doesn’t go anywhere,” he says to me. “As long as he has some water, he can eat the grass.”

I keep putting him back in. Because I don’t want him heading down the road or getting lost for days in the corn fields. Like say, our cattle might have done a week or so ago. Maybe.

While it’s been frustrating and we think we know where he’s escaping, it’s also been incredibly entertaining. And the dogs this week, I do believe, feel like they’ve gained a new bud.

Dogs

Thick

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The recent heatwave has brought along with it a heaviness in the air. This morning, it was almost palpable in Eastern South Dakota ..

Morning Fog

Morning Fog

While I know days like today create a lot of problems for; people with trouble breathing, travel .. oh, I don’t know, surveyors I’m guessing .. I love days like this (on occasion). There is so much beauty and almost a mystery in days like today. These are some of my favorite to visit places like our national parks. Or, just stay home.

Waiting on the School Bus

Waiting on the School Bus

Sunflower Fields

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Love that as I go to look up information on sunflower fields in South Dakota, one of the first hits is:

Are there sunflower fields in South Dakota? – Yahoo! Answers answers.yahoo.com › … › May 2, 2012 – Tons and tons of sunflowers!! Plus, despite what a lot of people think South Dakota is a very beautiful state!

Thanks, Steve in NC. I’m certain the Department of Tourism and the people of this great state are sincerely thrilled with that rave review. A review that again, turns up nearly first in any google search on sunflowers in South Dakota. It’s lovely. … Really.

…………..

I failed to mention yesterday in my fawning over the mini-sunflower like “weeds” as the Cowboy likes to call them, lining just about every roadway and field right now .. the actual sunflower fields that cover this great state.

Presho Sunflower Field

We used to marvel at them just about every August as we would drive from our home in Wisconsin to visit family/friends in Montana. But with such a long drive ahead of us, rarely would we ever stop to see them close-up.

Now that I live here …… there is time.

Presho Sunflowers cu

On the drive home from Wall yesterday, we had to stop and fill up the truck. Luckily for us, the tank hit E right before we came upon Presho, SD. An area mid-state where the sunflowers bloom for just about as far as the eye can see..

I’ve been wondering .. where do all of the seeds go? Who or what uses them? What is the main demand for this crop? (Hence the google search I started this with) There are some fascinating areas of research being done on just what this plant may be capable of. For now however, this article from a few years back about sums it up .. currently seventy percent of all sunflowers grown in South Dakota are marketed to the birdseed industry.

Lone sunflower

Some other perhaps interesting facts about sunflowers via the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center:

  • Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are a native North American plant, believed to have originated around 3,000 B.C. in what is now the states of Arizona and New Mexico.
  • Sunflowers are primarily grown in North Dakota and South Dakota, followed by Texas, Minnesota and Kansas.
  • Sunflowers are considered oilseeds. Sunflowers are used for their cooking oil, meal and confectionary products.
  • Within the oil varieties, oil is extracted. Meal, a byproduct of this process, is used primarily as an ingredient in livestock feed rations.
  • Demand for sunflower oil has increased as food processors search for sources of transfat-free vegetable oil. In 2006, Frito-Lay, the country’s largest producer of snack foods, switched entirely to sunflower oil for its potato chips.
  • Food-grade sunflowers are made up of the highest quality seeds, including the largest and cleanest seeds. Ingredient sunflowers are seeds that are still food-grade quality, but they do not possess the characteristics to be in the food-grade category. The sunflower seeds that cannot be used for ingredients are used for birdseed. Usually these are smaller, lower quality seeds.
  • Studies have shown that sunflower oil is healthier than most other food oils on the market.

What I want to know, is how do so many seeds make it to market if they’re so sought after by birds for dinner? Wouldn’t they just raid the fields? How does that work?

After talking about it on the drive home this weekend .. the Cowboy decided when he went in to pay for gas he’d also grab himself a pack of seeds. All the talk about them if nothing else, was making him hungry.

Sunflower seeds

Bullfrogs

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“You ever seen one of them in person before?” asked the Cowboy. “They’re huge. I was driving a ranch cart kind of deal alongside the road one time when we were down in Oklahoma, we had a slew about a half mile down the road from our house and I was going to neighbors or something. And as I’m going along, I thought there was a rock or something at first in the road, then I see this thing jump like 5 feet in the air right beside the cart.. I stopped and said, “Holy shit, that’s a bullfrog.” He was just sitting there croaking or whatever they do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M02_dnl9zCA and looking at me and I thought, this guy isn’t afraid of me either so I got out of the cart and walked right up to it .. and then it jumped into the ditch. It. Was. Huge.”

He went on to add, “I saw a tarantula too when we lived there ..”

………..

We were over at the neighbors tonight to grab some sweet corn when a friends truck pulled up. The couple quickly stepped out of the truck holding a bucket that was duct taped shut. Quite a bit of duct tape, actually, had been used to seal the lid.

“There are two of them in there. Be careful or they’ll jump right out on you.” We all gathered around ..

Bullfrogs. The couple had just returned from a trip to a place where, apparently bullfrogs are prolific and they were bringing two of them back for the neighbor boys. The couple laughed, letting them know they had named the frogs already.

Bill and .. well, Bill and something else I can’t remember.

Bill

Bill

Bill’s name sticks with me because he pretty much was the center of attention .. and not just ours. The cat’s as well. And, Bill did make a run for it at one point. Heck, what frog wouldn’t.

Bullfrog Standoff

While one might think Bill would be safer in captivity with the cat around, perhaps the cat is one the one better off with Bill having a wall between them. From what I heard tonight and from what little information I skimmed over in even trying to be sure bullfrog is one word versus two, Bill could probably eat that cat for dinner.

Sunset

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The view from my in-laws house to the west each night is truly amazing.

Sunset from Randy and DarlasThere is little to get in the way of soaking up an entire sky of sunset. A much needed grounding for us this evening ..

As we gathered up the kids after a long day, a long week, family coming to town for the Cowboy’s grandmother’s funeral and an unfortunate situation we all had the opportunity to discuss before heading for home, the above scene was a reminder of how small some things are .. and that the God given big picture is almost always, incredibly beautiful.

The Old Barn

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It was a week ago today. A Wednesday. We were browsing through someone’s Facebook page after learning they were involved in an ‘incident’ we had also been a part of earlier that evening …

Among perhaps a half dozen updates this woman had made that day:

“Happy hump day!” 

Sitting around the dining room table talking about what we had stumbled upon that night, we all absolutely bust out laughing.

………….

It was a perfect summer night, that Wednesday night here in eastern South Dakota. Not too hot. The sun was coming down in the sky. We couldn’t have had a better evening to take senior photos for a truly wonderful young man.

Tucker 25

His mother had picked some spots around the family farm she felt would work well and that would be meaningful to them. We had a few more spots to hit and we were trying to decide which we would tackle next when the boy’s mother said, “I really want to show you this old barn. It’s a friend of ours place and we were over there just a few hours ago to look at it. I think getting his picture taken in the doorway of this barn would just be so cool. Is it okay if I take you up there?”

barn doorWe all piled in the truck. Mom, her soon-to-be senior, the Cowboy and I. We talked about the place all the way over there, about how it was abandoned and no one ever goes here and how its a shame according to the mom, because this is the most beautiful barn. We came across the neighbor who’s place it was on the way, he was picking up another load of hay bales from alongside the road. He reassured us, we could go wherever we wanted for pictures and to have fun.

About two miles further up the road, we turned into the drive. I spotted them immediately. There, far enough back off the road you wouldn’t ever really see them in simply passing by, sat two very clean, pricey and pretty cars in an area of mostly dirt roads. As we pulled further down the drive, I said to the mom, “I thought no one was ever here.”

“There shouldn’t be,” she answered. We continue to approach both the cars and the coveted barn. “See, that’s the barn,” she says to me.

I wasn’t sure if she was going to shut the truck off and get out but I didn’t give her a chance. I had been glancing around between the house and the other buildings for either any sign of life or the barrel of a shotgun pointed in our direction. My mind was thinking perhaps we were walking into any number of situations we do not want to be a part of. At all.

“I’m not getting out of the truck,” I told her. “I’m sorry .. I’ve just covered too many stories over the years where situations like this didn’t turn out well. Whoever is here obviously doesn’t want to be seen and they clearly aren’t showing themselves right now.”

I believe I may have been the only one overly concerned about it being something of that magnitude, but everyone stayed in the truck, mom turned it around and we dialed the owners number as we pulled back out toward the road. “Wait a minute,” the mom said and she backed up. “Grab the plate numbers and we’ll find out who they belong to and if there is cause for concern or if we’re just coming upon two people who are here and probably shouldn’t be ..”

“I think they’re in there hooking up,” said the Cowboy, in-between laughs, from the back seat.

……………

The property owner met us about 15 minutes later. We had the names of the people the plates were registered to and we were relatively sure it wasn’t a meth lab we were busting up by going back to the farm. Wearing a fairly big grin, the owner stepped into the barn, listened for a moment and then said to the voices he heard above, they needed to come down. The voices stopped. There was no answer. He went in again a few minutes later, letting them know there was an employee of that particular County Sheriff’s office on the property and if necessary we’d get them a police escort.

A few minutes later, a man and a woman walked out, wide-eyed, apologizing and trying to act somewhat oblivious they might have been tresspassing.

“We just wanted to look around,” the two of them said sheepishly. “We’re sorry. We didn’t realize we shouldn’t be here.” They should have quit talking at that point and left as no one was trying to keep them there.

“I think we should call this place the No-Tell Motel,” the Cowboy said, as the two were driving off in their separate cars. We all bust out laughing ..

………………

While there are many other details of the story that would be entertaining to share, they’re not important. Besides, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble nor am I here to judge. Point is, our senior has quite a story to tell his friends when he heads back to school in a couple of weeks about that evening. And my 12-year-old now understands, I believe, what the word hump might mean besides the fact ‘hump’ combined with the word ‘day’ means it’s Wednesday and you’re halfway through the workweek.  We are still all laughing over that post.

Including our senior. And the smile on his face for the photos at that barn, will forever be priceless.

Enjoying the rain.

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As I sit working from the kitchen table this Friday .. I hear the sound of hooves and laughter coming down the driveway.

The girls are back together for the first time in months and seem to sincerely be enjoying each other’s company.

It’s drizzing rain today, cool and cloudy. While most people are cursing this summer weather ..

Bareback

They really don’t seem to mind. Beautiful.

Allen’s Hill

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I mentioned earlier this week how I am spending the week at a dear friends cottage along the Wisconsin River .. with no phone, television or internet. It’s been a blessing, in more ways than one. Leaving the cottage each day to go somewhere I can get an internet connection has meant some beautiful morning drives ..

Eddie's Hill

Eddie’s Hill

I showed this photo the other night to my dad, who I was grabbing a beer with along with some other friends. He said to me, and pointed out to the others, “That’s Allen’s hill, that hill there on the left.”

I’ve lived in this area my entire life and never known that hill had a name. Nor had I stopped to think about it. Most streets, hills, buildings .. etc. do, whether they exist in the city or the country. Places known for those that have come before us and for any number of reasons, left their mark.

How often do we stop to question why things are named what they are? And how much cooler or meaningful will those places be to us once we understand?

 

The Team

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I’m not sure what else I can write that will say anything more than the attached photos do for themselves .. along with a description I posted with one of these on FB the other day:

“No telling the incredible scenes one may come across on South Dakotas backroads but stopped for this one yesterday. Retired farmer who still works with this team of horses from dawn to dusk each day. Also realized, in talking with him a few minutes, my husband shoes his horses. Small world .. and a beautiful one at that. When you can peeps, take the backroads.”

Loren 2 edited

Loren 1