All That Glitters

Unwrap the hidden beauties in an ordinary day.

 –Gerhard E. Frost, author

(Until I typed his name, it didn't register that the quote was from a guy named FROST - ha!)

 

All that glitters is not gold. But it can be valuable, just the same.

Sometimes, though, that glitter is fleeting, so it should be appreciated in the moment.

One cold, cold day last week, I walked by an east-facing window and stopped in my tracks. The rising sun was creating a temporary art installation in my bathroom. 

The window pane provided a natural frame for the intricate patterns created by frost crystals.

The scene was modified slightly by the window screen covering a portion of the window. More camera clicks followed.

Even though the temperature didn't get far out of the deep freeze that day, the artwork on my bathroom windows soon disappeared, a combination of furnace heat and the sun's ascension.

And it again made me think about appreciating the small things as they happen. 

Whether it's a sunrise ...

Or a sunset ...

 Or frost on a window.  

 

Leftovers from the Camera Roll

 

I think leftovers get a bad reputation. I, for one, like leftovers. It means that dinner is ready in no time. 

Leftovers are also good on the camera roll, especially when you are contemplating what to write for a blog post. On December 21, our area was blanketed with heavy fog. Unfortunately for drivers, the moisture turned some roadways and overpasses into a skating rink. But it was a bonanza for amateur photographers like me.

Randy and I braved the dropping temperatures to capture the beauty. However, that was the same day Jill and family arrived a day early for the Christmas holidays - again, thanks to the worsening weather. So the snapshots never made it into a blog post or even onto a "What's on your mind?" post on Facebook.

They were too pretty just to gather figurative dust on the camera roll until I'm looking for photos for my 2024 family/farm calendar.

Thankfully, our electric lines stayed up and the electric fence kept the cattle corralled. 

 

Since Jill and company got here safely, I can still appreciate the beauty of that cold afternoon.

December's wintry breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer's memory.
John Geddes A Familiar Rain

Feathered with hoar frost, skeletal trees loom closer; fog shrouded arches.

Paul Brown

***

On Monday and Tuesday, Randy and I had our first two trips to the Stafford County Golf Course in 2023. It was unseasonably warm for January.

 

He got to use his new driver - a Christmas present from me - topped off with the new cover from Brent and Susan. Go 'Cats! (Brent worked at Morehead State in his first job out of grad school. The sweatshirt is still in the wardrobe. We were Morehead Eagles "on the side" for awhile.)

As is our custom, he golfed. I read my book. (I laughed out loud several times, but I promise I didn't mess up my golfer's drives or putting with my mirth.)

It was unseasonably warm on Monday and Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday into this morning, we were supposed to get a little snow overnight. It didn't happen here, but it is definitely cold, windy and overcast.

Winter weather in Kansas is schizophrenic!

Through a Glass Dimly

When the path ahead seems foggy or unclear, 

the only course of action you can take is to step forward.

Anonymous

The first sunrise of the new decade wasn't particularly spectacular. Just a week earlier, the Christmas Eve sunrise had painted the sky, decorating it as brightly as the multi-colored lights on my living room Christmas tree.

December 24, 2019

 Now, that was a sunrise worthy of a new year, a new decade!

But, as is always the case, we don't get to order up sunrises and sunsets like ordering a Diet Dr. Pepper to go from that anonymous voice in the drive-through at McDonald's for the 40-minute drive home.

But, when I bundled up for a sunrise foray to begin the new year, I was certainly hoping for a more spectacular view. Wouldn't a spectacular sunrise translate into a fitting metaphor of a promising new year and a new start?

Every sunrise has its beauty, but this one was less like a glamorous super model and more like comfy-pajama-clad me.

However, as I slipped into the driver's seat and flicked the windshield wipers, the frost stayed in place. And I decided I'd drive the few hundred yards to the backyard silo without taking time to clear it.

While the sky had not exploded with color and personality on the first day of 2020, the intricate ice crystals provided a metaphor ... and a little extra beauty, too.

We don't know what this next year will bring. Honestly, we don't know what the next hour or day will bring. As Type A planners, we might have our to-do lists and our careful plans, but, in reality, that list is just made up of scratches on a piece of paper.

Those plans can be interrupted with things big and small.

 

Life's circumstances may blur our well-planned vision and have us searching "through a glass dimly."

I'm not big on resolutions. They just provide more reasons for me to feel as though I've failed. But maybe my focus should reflect on focusing on the moment - whether it's crystal clear or obscured in some way:

A Time to Think

All the world is an utterance of the Almighty. Its countless beauties, its exquisite adaptations, all speak to you of Him. –Phillips Brooks, clergyman and author

A Time to Act

Open your heart to the beauty that surrounds you.

A Time to Pray

Dear Lord, please help me to see the beauty of every day.

Devotional (in blue) from Guideposts.

 

So, I will appreciate the less spectacular sunrise. And I'll be thankful for the chance to see another one.

(For the record, the final sunset of 2019 wasn't particularly remarkable either. Though, to be fair, I didn't spend much time trying to capture it since it was during the K-State football game. 

Sunset, December 31, 2019

Appreciate every little beautiful moment

 in every day of your life. 

Give it a try 

and you'll see the world from another perspective. 

Thea Christine May

Sunset, December 31, 2019

Brrrr! It Was a Cold Day for a Cattle Round-Up

I needed a "defrost" mode for my glasses yesterday morning.
A defrost for my legs wouldn't have hurt either.

The cattle defrosted on their own during their semi ride to Pratt Livestock. Today, we'll sell 70 feeder calves, along with a baby calf whose mother has a cancer eye. 

All of us - humans and animals alike - were seeing our breath during the cold morning roundup before the semi arrived to transport the calves.

After several attempts, the cattle finally decided to go down the lane toward the corrals. Of course, on a cold morning with freezing drizzle sticking to my glasses, they couldn't do it the first time. It was a brisk 4-wheeler ride ... with no time to shoot photos.

In the photo above, you can see a straggling calf struggling through the mud. I looked up last year's post as we prepared to ship cattle. There's quite a contrast.

Last year, we'd had no moisture at all beginning in the fall and continuing until early spring. We were choking on the dust down the lane and in the cattle lots. This year, we are still waterlogged from the 14+ inches of rain that fell in October. There's no way a 4-wheeler could go down the lane.

And it was a whole lot chillier this year, as evidenced by the freezing drizzle that stuck to the cattle's hides.

I guarantee I was colder than they were.

Ours was the second load of the day for Darrel Harner Trucking out of Sylvia.

Once Darrel got the trailer backed up to the loading chute, it was time to send the feeders on their way. These were calves that were born in January and February of last year - 2018. After we weaned them in November, we've been feeding them silage and hay.

On Monday, we sorted off 25 heifers that will become first-time mothers in the County Line herd in 2020. The steers and the remaining heifers went to Pratt Livestock. Cattle buyers will purchase them for feedlots, where they will go until they are big enough to be harvested for meat. Let's hope the sub-zero wind chills and slick roads don't keep the cattle buyers away today!

Loading the truck is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. The trucker tells us how many head of cattle he wants in each group, somewhere between 7 and 12, depending on where they'll go in the cattle trailer. And we send them up the chute and into the truck.

It was a foggy trip to the sale barn.

When it was time our turn to unload, Darrel backed up the semi to the sale barn's chute.

 

An employee there counted the calves as they came off the truck.

Since Darrel started his day in Fredonia and the roads were a little slick, we had a little time between the cattle round-up and the semi's arrival.

I may have needed a defroster on my glasses, but the scenery was undeniably pretty.

 Stark ... but beautiful.

 The CRP grasses caught the icy frost as aptly as the cattle's hide.

 So did a dried flower at Peace Creek Cemetery.

A chain on the working chute provided another canvas for the clinging ice.

Today is even colder, with wind chills below zero. I'm glad the round-up was yesterday and we can spend the day in the relative warmth of the sale barn arena. It's never toasty warm, but it's better than a 4-wheeler ride!