How Can You Not See God?

 

I don't have to travel 2,150 miles to find beauty. It is literally in my own backyard.

After a month's worth of blog posts from our trip that took us to Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, it may seem that I can't find anything noteworthy in my own backyard. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the past 13-plus years, I've been taking photos and writing at Kim's County Line. 

The majority of those thousands of photos and millions of words have celebrated my little corner of the world on the Stafford/Reno County line in south central Kansas. This Friday, my photography will be featured at the Nora's Gathering at the Nora Larabee Memorial Library in Stafford.

The library will be open from 6 to 8 PM for viewing the photos, listening to piano music by Anita Meschberger and eating goodies from the Wheatland Cafe. Kids can make a Father's Day card. If you're local, ride your bike to the library for a chance to enter a prize drawing. (I will not be riding a bike 15 miles to town.)

The photo display will stay in place at the library all day on Monday, June 12, when Stafford hosts Bike Across Kansas. That day, come and enjoy the air-conditioning, view the photos and eat homemade pies and Johnny-Pop ice cream.

None of the photos I'm featuring in this particular blog post are in the library show. But a whole lot more are. (I had more than enough without adding these!) But they represent the philosophy I've taken as I've photographed our life here in south Central Kansas. Here's my artist statement for the show:

Seasons - Photos by Kim Fritzemeier

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

Those who don't live in Kansas may think we live in a so-called "flyover state." Kansas is just that place to travel through to get to the mountains, right? 

But it's my contention that beauty is all around us - whether it's as big as a Kansas sky at sunrise or as small as a butterfly sipping nectar from a flower.

While I've always been interested in photography, I've been more committed to capturing the beauty around me since beginning a blog called Kim's County Line in 2010. My tagline for the blog is "Camera Clicks and Commentary from a Kansas Farm Wife." It gives me the opportunity to share some of the photos I take while living and farming along with my husband, Randy, on the Stafford/Reno County Line. 

 

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.

Dorothea Lange

As I worked on matting photos and preparing for the show, I've sometimes listened to Sirius radio's The Message.

One of the songs that has captured my attention lately is "How Can You Not See?" sung by Leanna Crawford.

After I heard it a few times, I looked up all the lyrics. It says, in part:

I see the sun rise in the morning
And a million stars at night
I hear the birds: They can't stop singing hallelujah
I see His goodness when I fall down
And His grace that picks me up
Every day, I can't stop singing hallelujah.

How can you not see God
In every little thing, in every little moment?
How can you not feel loved?
How can you not? How can you not?
'Cause He's in the middle of
Every little thing and every little moment
How can you not see God?
How can you not? How can you not?

I see the sunset and I wonder
If He paints it just for me
Nobody else could make a world so beautiful
How could I question His love when it's everywhere I go
Wherever I look, I find another miracle ...

There are miracles all around us. They may not come with tongues of fire or a holy wind like we just heard about at Pentecost. Instead, they arrive in the miracle of everyday things like irises and bird nests. It's just a matter of opening our eyes to see.

Give the song a listen, if you'd like. 

I'd love to have you come and view my photos at the Nora Larabee Memorial Library. The stained glass window featuring the library's namesake is at its most beautiful in the evening as the setting sun enhances the colors.

The library board and committees, along with library staff Gerry Ann Hildebrand, Denise Dickson and Sandy Gere, are working hard to make the library one of THE places to be in Stafford! Check it out. (Pun intended!) Click HERE for a link to a blog post with lots more photos and information about our amazing library!

Picture Perfect?

I love purple. As K-State fans, my family often jokes that we have purple coursing through our veins. Of course, I love what our school calls "royal purple," that dark and intense color of royalty.  

 

But I'm pretty fond of lavender, too. (My childhood bedroom had blue and lavender carpeting, which I picked out when my sister and I moved to individual basement rooms after the birth of our brother.)

And this year, lavender was the color of ribbon I received for my top-rated photo at the Stafford County Fair. The photo I took the morning of Flag Day was the Reserve Champion in open class at last week's fair. Nothing like a strong southerly Kansas wind before 6:30 in the morning to make a flag fly!

As I've said before, I enjoy entering open class photos at my county fair. As always, the rankings reflect one judge's opinion on that particular day at that particular time. A different judge would likely have yielded a different outcome.

Me in 4th Grade

As a Pratt County 4-Her, I entered foods, clothing construction and reading and leadership posters or notebooks in the fair. I suppose photography was one of the options back then, but it wasn't one I explored. Still, old habits die hard.

When my youngest sister was in high school, she took a college math course at Barton County Community College one summer. (I think it was calculus, but math abilities skipped my genetic code.) I was a journalism student at K-State, and BCCC had a photography class offered at the same time. I figured it was a good skill for a burgeoning journalist. So we car-pooled to Great Bend. It was my first opportunity to work in a dark room.

When I was a beginning reporter at The Hutchinson News,  I'd carry a camera along if a "real" photographer wasn't available to go with me. And I loved entering that "tube" at the north end of the news room and retreating to the dark room there, even though I wasn't the one usually developing the film. 

Blue in Digital Composite

Then, both Jill and Brent chose 4-H photography. Jill moved on to other things, but Brent kept that project through his 4-H years. As often happens when you have kids in 4-H, you take on the role of a project leader. I always felt like I learned just as much as the 4-Hers (and maybe even more) as we went to workshops and did our own photo project shoots in parks, backyards and mini field trips. And I was always eager to hear what the judge at the county fair had to tell Brent and my other photographers. I usually got the opportunity to listen in when I'd help with the behind-the-scenes organizing, etc. I learned a lot.

The photos I took of my kids fill multiple plastic tubs in our basement. (Oh, if only things had been digital sooner!) Even though I did a lot of purging last year, that's still on my to-do list (way, way down the list). 

Starting the blog in January 2010 further spurred my interest in photos to illustrate a story. I look at food photos I took in the beginning of the blog, compared to now, and I think there's been significant progress. 

Blue in People category

Weeding through hundreds (OK, thousands) of photos is a daunting task. Thankfully, I kept a notebook with some of my favorites, which speeds the process some. Decision making has never been my strongest skill. Just ask my parents or my siblings or Randy. OK, the list goes on. I polled the kids via text as I was vacillating on a few entries. (Kudos to them: All four responded ... though not all four agreed. And that illustrates the whole idea that the ribbon placings are one person's opinion.)

The flag photo was in the "miscellaneous" category. In open class, only three ribbons are awarded in each class. Stafford County fair contestants can enter two per class, so you're competing against yourself and anyone else who enters that particular category. 

Blue in Agriculture, Black and White

True confessions: I entered a lot of photos, so that raises my chances, I suppose. It's not inexpensive when you buy enlargements, mat board, etc. But, as Randy says, I could have worse vices. 

This year, I collected eight blues, seven reds and four whites. Seven of my photos didn't place. Besides the regular open class photography competition, there's also a photo contest sponsored by Stafford County Economic Development. Two of those photos got first in their category and two were honorable mention, with two not placing.

 

I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't give me a thrill to have my work recognized. But entering the fair is also about being part of a community. Having entries to look at gives people a reason to come to the fair. 

Wheat appeared to be a theme throughout several of my blue-ribbon winners.

Blue in Agriculture, Color

 But wheat wasn't the only subject matter.

 

Blue in Nature

A bumblebee visiting my backyard lilacs made an appearance.

Blue in Human Interest

So did lighted "butterflies" from a Wild Lights display in December at the Sedgwick County Zoo - both in color ...

Blue in Human Interest, Black and White

... and in black and white. (Which do you like best? I could never decide.)

You never know how things will do. One of my favorite photos from this year just got a 3rd place ribbon. It was taken in December at Quivira. I liked it well enough that I made it into a canvas for my new daughter-in-law, and she has it in her office at school. (And I may get a canvas for myself, too.)

My winning photos from the Economic Development contest are below:

1st Place in People, Stafford Eco/Devo contest

Thanks to my friend, Linda, for serving as my patriotic model at the Nora Larabee Memorial Library's July First Friday event.

1st place in Commerce, Stafford Eco/Devo contest, Corn harvest

This sunflower photo was from corn harvest.  

I also entered a couple of my books in the computer-generated scrapbook division in Arts and Crafts. My fourth-quarter blog book from 2021 got 1st place. A book I did for Kinley and Brooke after our February ski trip got 3rd place in the same class. (The books arrived after the girls were here for harvest, so I am more excited about giving them their copies than I was about how it placed in the fair.) I think this is the 11th book I've done for the girls. I use my photos and write the stories in rhyme as a remembrance of outings.

We'll see how retiring from farming affects my photo taking and subsequent entries into the fair. There may be less wheat next year (though maybe not). But perhaps there will be more from places beyond The County Line.
 

Connecting from My Little Corner of the World

 

As I've said before, the creative person who wrote the Skyline High School Class of 1975's Prophesy for our 26 members predicted my future as a journalist at The New York Times

It didn't turn out that way. But I've certainly done my share of writing in the 46 years since I left good ol' Skyline High. (Oh my goodness! That math caused a bit of a GULP. It's been 46 YEARS! Yowzah!)

While my writing has been centered on the Kansas plains, it's still brought me some connections to far-off places. 

Earlier this summer, I got a request from Professor Helmut van Emden, Emeritus Professor of Horticulture, The University of Reading, School of Agriculture, Policy & Development, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Reading, RG6 6EU, UK & School of Biological Sciences.

His Google search for alfalfa harvest in the States netted a photo from a July 2016 Kim's County Line. In his email, he asked for permission to use it for an article he was writing for the journal, World Agriculture. If I agreed, he asked for a higher resolution photo and wanted to know how to credit my work.

I always appreciate when people ask permission. Sometimes, I'll see someone has "appropriated" one of my photos for their own Facebook page or some other use. I usually don't care, as long as they share attribution and don't imply it's their own image. Lots of times, that doesn't happen. 

But it's been fun to connect with people all over the world in small ways when people do take time to ask permission.

Back in 2019, I got an email asking for permission to use this owl photo. Here's her request:

Hi, 

Recently, I ran across your blog featuring a photo of an owl.  

I am currently writing an informational booklet for 5th graders in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.  The booklet features public domain photos to illustrate the 'science lesson' of the booklet.  

I've not run into a good public domain photo of a squinting owl, until I found your photo. 

I'm wondering if you'll allow me to use your photo in my booklet.??

The booklet is about 24 pages, published in Kenya.  There will be about 1,000 copies of the book printed, and then distributed among the schools of Missions of Hope International.  (http://mohiafrica.org/)  The books are not sold.  The printing costs are paid for by donations to the mission.  

Thank you for considering this.

LeeAnne Forman

 

  

That particular photo was from a 2011 blog post. I granted her permission, but I also asked her to tell me something about herself. Here's what she wrote back:

 

I am a teacher from Gresham, Oregon and about 15 years ago a friend of mine (who is a life-long missionary in Kenya) asked if I would come to teach the teachers in their little mission school in the slums.  The students live in the slums, as well as most of the teachers.  The teachers were simply high school grads and didn't know a thing about teaching.  So, I took my sister (who is also a teacher) and off we went.  

After three weeks of working with the 10 or 12 teachers, it was time for us to come home.  The teachers asked us what we would teach them NEXT year.  Ha!  We were thinking we were doing this only once.  The next year we took a few of our friends (and our husbands, too).  And so, ten years later, we passed our duties off to a Christian college here in Oregon.  They, now take a group of intern teachers and many of their professors to teach the Kenyan teachers how to teach other teachers.  (sort of a mini-teacher college.  

Over those ten years, several things happened.  God grew that little mission school into a 'going concern!  Check out the website.  More than 20 schools, spread over all of Kenya, 17,000 students!  Not just schools, but medical clinics, churches, tech school training.  Wowsa! 

Also, the USA teachers realized that it's hard to teach reading without any books.  There are books available in Kenya, but the quality of stories and such is not topnotch.  So, a few of us started writing and illustrating books.  Another friend of mine in Naivasha is a publisher.  I send the books to him, he edits and prints them, and delivers them to the main school (where they get distributed to the other schools).  It costs about $1.50 for each book and the funds are provided by donations from peole in the USA.  So far, we've done about 25 books.  We print about 1,000 copies per book.  Most of the books are for the K-2nd graders, but every so often I throw in a book for the older students.  That's the case with Eye Wonder, a science book about eyes.  

 I would never have known anything about it without this random photo request.

 

I got another email from Kenya, which prompted a few back-and-forth emails, but, unfortunately, no photos from a Kenyan farmer:

I was impressed by the farm, the progress on the land, the water and the cows to me seemed the best and blessed hands of a farm wife.

Your lovely and happy family, its such a blessing.

I am in Kenya but I have just taken 4 hours going through Kim's County Line. I am so impressed.

Thanks,

Abel Mwema

Also in 2016, I had a request from a United Methodist minister to use one of my daffodil photos for a Service of Remembrance at their church.

 

 

He wrote:

I am a United Methodist pastor in southern Wisconsin. My congregation is planning a service or remembrance for late April, in which we honor the memories of departed loved ones from the past year. Our theme is "Seeds of Promise" inspired by the hymn, "Hymn of Promise."

 

In searching for a possible visual image to use in our bulletin, Web announcement, etc., I came across this image on your blog.

 

I am asking for permission to use that image. It is by coincidence (or not?) that I notice that photo was posted in an entry recalling Maundy Thursday, which, of course, we are preparing for this very week.

 

Blessings to you,

Pastor Steve Scott

The United Methodist Church

Milton, Wisconsin

As a lifelong member of the denomination, I loved hearing from a UMC minister who also talked about one of my favorite hymns in the hymnal. I also illustrated the hymn in that blog post. 

 

Back in 2017, I heard from a farmer in Ireland, who had a question:

 

Hi Kim, 

I hope all is good in the USA and that your harvest is going good. 

I am emailing you from Ireland.  I came across your photos of your farm , they are really good. 

Me and my sister have been looking at crops and the problem of variable germination in say canola or corn due to cold wet weather / showers . 

We are trying to figure out is there anyway to help the seed at the start. 

I saw the photo of Randy filling the tank with nitrogen fertilizer to give the seeds the best possible start, and how you describe the plants like little soldiers

Have you ever experienced the problem of poor germination or have any neighbours you know experienced it ?  It moves around year to year depending on the weather and I see reports of farmers who say they sowed on say Thursday but got a weekend of cold weather and now the germination is poor. 

I think the farmers know they want warm weather but at the same time they are moving through the sowing window.

Any thoughts would be great.

Thank you,

Mark Marco O'Carroll

We exchanged an email or two. 

 

Sometimes, the request isn't from so far away. 

 

I've had people request prints after exhibiting at the Kansas State Fair. Requests included this one:

 

 And this one:

An email from Jeremy asked for permission to use a photo I took as a neighbor moved cattle past our house. 

He was putting together a new website for Stafford County. I don't think anything ever came of it, but it was still fun to see.

 

Another rural scene was used by a Texas writer. Last August, I wrote about it here.

In the email, Col. Edward (Eddie) Boxx asked if he could use one of my photos featuring longhorns and sunflowers. I took it in 2011 as the Kansas Cattle Drive came through our area in honor of Kansas' 150th birthday. (Click here for the blog post. Also here.)

 

He wrote an article for the Heritage Village Museum in Tyler County, Texas, about the Old Beef Trail, and he sent me a screen shot to show how the photo was used.

I have a couple of blog friends in Australia and others from across the U.S. It's great to connect with others from my little corner of the world.

A Different Perspective: Wheat Harvest from Above

NOTE OF THANKS:

All the drone photos and videos were taken June 18, 2020, by our neighbor Mark Pike. Thanks to Mark for this different look at our 2020 harvest! He gave me permission to use these on the blog today.

"I might need a drone," I told Randy.

My "need" was prompted by the photos and videos our neighbor, Mark Pike, shot by drone of us cutting wheat across from his house last Thursday evening.

I told Mark the same thing. He volunteered to let me come down and try his new toy "any time." But then, I started thinking about that.

He (and my kids) are of the video game generation. Joy sticks, electronics and such are second nature to them.

I, on the other hand, was my parents' "remote control" for the television back in the 1960s and '70s. There was no "clicker" to mindlessly glide through dozens of television stations. In fact, there were only three TV stations. It was a big deal when we added PBS as a 4th station beaming to our rural Pratt County farm home.

And I - or one of my other siblings - was the garage door opener. There was no clicking a button as you turned into the farm drive. It was child labor that heave-hoed the door up after a trip to town.

So I was imagining the damage I could do to Mark's new toy if I took him up on the offer to try it out ... and then promptly crashed it. Hmmmm - maybe not.

But the images were sure fun to see. Mark lamented that he'd tried - and failed - to capture the lightning that was flashing through the sky before a storm blew through. I lamented with him, telling him that it's not easy to achieve with still photography either - at least, by this amateur.

But his maiden journeys with the drone provided a different perspective than my dozens of photos taken on the ground the same night. (See Tuesday's blog, Beauty and the Beast, for those.)

Perspective - It's an interesting concept, isn't it? I've been reading a book this week called "The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness and the Men Who Could Be Me," by Bruce Feiler. A new NBC television show has been airing this summer called "Council of Dads," and I noticed in the credits that it was based on a book by Feiler. I signed up for it, and it was delivered on one of my trips to the Hutchinson Public Library parking lot.

In Feiler's real-life story, he chooses six of his friends who represent different parts of his life and could best speak to the different facets of his being. These friends were to fill the gaps for his young daughters in the event that Feiler would lose his battle with bone cancer. (The TV show has three men assembled for the same purpose, but it doesn't appear that the TV drama storyline has much in common with Feiler himself.)

One of the dad's in the book - the second Ben - says he would share this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke with the twin girls:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.

Live the questions ...

It seems kind of like looking at things from different perspectives - maybe comparing the drone's photo angles to those taken by still camera on the ground. We're both seeing and photographing the "same" thing, but the perspective changes.

My view of sunset changes if I'm looking ...

west ...

or south ...

or southeast.

I suppose it's because we are all colored by our experiences. We are affected by the direction in which we are looking and the direction from which we've come. Are we stuck looking at past slights and failures or do we look toward the future? What wins out? Is it the memories of the schoolyard taunts or is it the compliment for a job well done?

Perhaps it's a reminder to stop and think. Will we be colored by the positive? Or will the negative win the day? It truly is a matter of perspective, isn't it?

It's kind of like the parable of the six blind men with the elephant, who touch the beast in different places and come up with wildly different impressions because of what they "see."

It seems to me that our world could benefit from a look at different perspectives. No matter which side of the political aisle my friends claim, I would suggest there's some validity in at least listening to another's point of view ... whether it's politics, race or even whether someone plans to wear a mask in public or not.

I loved this quote from "The Council of Dads:"

Confidence comes from the questions. I would tell the girls to live their questions. Throw themselves passionately into the quest for new perspectives, just like their father, who would go anywhere in search of answers to his questions. ...

What I love about the Council of Dads is that if your girls are too young to hear your voice, you can surround them with voices that will, in the totality of symphony, create sounds of their father. No specific instrument does it. Sherwood's drum may be beating too loudly, or maybe Black's or Stier's will screw things up. But Linda (Feiler's wife) will conduct the orchestra in such a way that the girls will hear enough music for you to be always present.

Ben Sherwood from "The Council of Dads"

Who knew thinking about drones and still cameras might be deeper than whether to fork over some money for a new toy?

Maybe our world could heal - at least a little bit - if we all were passionately on the quest for new perspectives. Worth a try?

***

By the way, I highly recommend the book. It is beautifully written.

Drone videos are by Mark Pike, Stafford. (It's on my Vimeo Account, so it says Kim Fritzemeier)