Sky's the Limit!

 Sunrise February 19. 2024

The sky is the infinite movie for me. I never get tired of looking at what's happening up there.

Singer K.D. Lang

There's a game called "Never have I ever." Evidently, it's popular among teens at slumber parties. Well, I crossed a "Never have I ever" thing off my list last Friday. The Northern Lights were visible on the Kansas plains. And, from looking at Facebook, we weren't alone. People posted awe-inspiring photos from across the nation from places that don't normally experience them.

In truth, they were barely visible to the naked eye. But point the cell phone camera to the skies and a whole kaleidoscope filled the screen. 

We weren't the only ones driving around in our pajamas Friday night. We had to turn our headlights back on when our neighbors turned down the same dark country road where we were viewing the free light show. And yes, we all admitted to wearing our PJs for the trip outside.

We tried again on Saturday night, but clouds had started to move in, blocking the view. I did see photos from our neighbor, Rebecca, who knows more about photography than I do. But Saturday night didn't provide a repeat of the glut of Facebook posts that Friday spawned.

I've always loved to watch the sky. My sisters and I sang a Joni Mitchell song, "Both Sides Now," for a 4-H Club Day long, long ago. That song often rolls around in my head, much like the clouds that shift in Kansas skies:

 

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way.

 Sunrise February 19. 2024

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's clouds' illusions, I recall

I really don't know clouds at all.

I've always liked clouds, but I think I became even more aware when Brent was little. Some people have backseat drivers. I had a backseat cloud watcher. 

Sunrise and my sunrise tree - February

Brent was always discovering some shape in the marshmallow fluff of clouds floating by. 

Clouds reflected in the Rattlesnake Creek, April 2024

When the kids were little, I "retired" from working full-time as a writer-editor at The Hutchinson News, but I wrote a column for them, "At Home with Kim," for several years. Here an excerpt of what I wrote when Brent was in kindergarten:  

 

It was one of those days when it looks like the angels are using the clouds for tumbling mats. Brent and I were driving home, and he started cloud-watching.

"Oh, look, Mommy! That one looks like a dinosaur. And that one looks like a puppy."

We found an eagle and a dragon and a cat among the whipped-cream clouds. I was thinking that even though our world changes, some things - like cloud watching - have been children's pastimes for years and years.

And then he said, "Oh, there a roller blade."

 

As a child, I saw dragons and rabbits, but not a single roller blade was suspended in my cotton-candy skies. Change is part of us - even daydreaming cloud watchers confirm that.

 

Though I no longer have cloud watchers in the backseat, I still love watching the clouds. Perhaps it is their ability to change quickly, shifting the scenery in an instant. I personally struggle with change, so I guess I admire it in other things. 

April 2024

Maybe it's OK to have your head in the clouds on occasion

I recently saw this post featuring an Ralph Waldo Emerson quote on a friend's Facebook feed:

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. Begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Maybe sunrises and sunsets are our celebration of a life colored by those attitudes - leaving behind the worries of the day and looking forward to the clear page provided by another new day.

It's worth a try.

Once upon a time, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.

Terry Tempest Williams

 

Summer Sky Gazing

 

 The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.  

 ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
Good old Ralph probably didn't know much about wheat harvest, but as we did our part to bring that "daily bread" into reality, I thought his quote was appropos. For the first week of harvest, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. 

And, admittedly, we got a lot done. Since the air was dry and there was no humidity, Randy was able to start cutting before noon each day.

However, the remainder of harvest certainly provided a prettier backdrop for photos. 

I find skies with clouds much more interesting. 

Taken through the semi truck window

I figure I can apply the same principle to my sky gazing. 

Those HGTV shows are always talking about "texture" making a room more beautiful - whether you're talking a sky over a field of waving wheat ...

 

 ... or after that crop has been harvested ...

 

... with your favorite golfer in the foreground while thunderheads billow behind him ...

 

... at the corner coming home ...

... or over the waters of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge at sunset.

 

 

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
True Poems flee –
~Emily Dickinson, c.1879

Looking south at sunset over the Little Salt Marsh

When we look up, it widens our horizons. 

We see what a little speck we are in the universe, 

so insignificant, 

and we all take ourselves so seriously, 

but in the sky, 

there are no boundaries. 

No differences of caste or religion or race. 

~Julia Gregson

Sunshine and Muddy Tennis Shoes

I'm thankful for sunshine and muddy tennis shoes.

 

Randy and I scouted some 2017 wheat fields Wednesday afternoon, our shoes squishing into rain-soaked ground. We received 1.80 inches of rain earlier this week. This was in addition to the 3.5 inches of rain that fell the week before.

It was the first moisture we'd gotten since the January ice storm, so I sure didn't mind a little mud on my tennis shoes!

The rain fell at an opportune time. Randy is showing where the wheat "joint" is. Jointing is the time frame where yield potential for the wheat plant is determined, so it's a benefit if it has adequate moisture and nutrients available to it. We had done what we could about the nutrients. We had the co-op top-dress the wheat fields with fertilizer. Mother Nature supplied the moisture!

A different perspective - from the ground up!

The cooler temperatures also helped slow down wheat growth, also a good thing. But after several days of rain, the sunshine provides some "heat units," also important for growth.

The rains also provided moisture for our alfalfa fields (above) and pastures. We'll be moving cattle to pasture at the beginning of May, so these spring showers will give the grasslands a boost.

Famously, "April showers bring May flowers." But it also brings its share of April blooms.

Spring reminds us to appreciate the little things as they come. One day, the hyacinth was exploding with purple boldness. Only days later, the blooms are shriveled and unremarkable. It would have been all too easy to miss them.

So I will delight in the redbud blooms ...

... and the pear tree blossoms ...

... and the purple tulips against rough rock ...

... and the flowering shrubs - the color of the bloom seemingly leeching into the leaves.

And I'll be thankful for all - muddy tennis shoes included. 

I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart.
And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.
So don’t be troubled or afraid. John 14:27

A Time to Think

Flowers grow out of dark moments.
 –Sister Mary Corita Kent, artist and educator

A Time to Act

Change your thoughts and change your life.

A Time to Pray

Dear God, help me always to see beyond my fears to the beauty of Your creation.

Devotional from Guideposts.

Our Daily Bread: Kansas Skies

Sunset on my way to a meeting in Stafford last evening, September 20, 2016

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. As a writer, I never seem to lack words and that quote has always stuck in my craw a bit, if truth is told. However, my former editors would likely say that I could be a little less effuse as they tried to pare down my words to fit under a headline.

However, while I don't often lack words, I sometimes lack time. Today, I'm sharing more pictures than words. I am blessed to witness many a sunrise and sunset from the County Line. I sometimes take the photos and don't end up sharing it via a blog or Facebook post.

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson had it right:

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

 ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the sky is daily bread, it's a never-ending banquet filled with variety. So here are some recent sky favorites, along with some quotes from other people. 

When we look up, it widens our horizons. 

We see what a little speck we are in the universe, 

so insignificant, 

and we all take ourselves so seriously, 

but in the sky, 

there are no boundaries. 

No differences of caste or religion or race. 

~Julia Gregson

 
The sky is that beautiful old parchment 

in which the sun and the moon keep their diary. 

~Alfred Kreymborg

[Haze:]
Sun-dust. —Thoreau

  [Twilight:]
Reach of primrose sky
With heaven's pale candles stored. —Jean Ingelow

[Dawn:]
Light a little trembling in the gray,
Above the folded hills. —Mrs. Browning

[The Morning Moon:]
The stars burned out in the pale blue air,
And the thin, white moon lay withering there. —Shelley

 [Sunset:]
The level sun, like ruddy ore,
Lay sinking in the barren skies. —Jean Ingelow

[Evening:]
White moonlight comes
And takes the inert landscape by surprise. —Unknown
~Hannah R. Hudson, "Word-Painting," Poems, 1874 

We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise 

if we have waited in the darkness.

 ~Author Unknown

I thank you God for this most amazing day, 

for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, 

and for the blue dream of sky 

and for everything which is natural,

 which is infinite, which is yes. 

~e.e. cummings 

There are no rules of architecture 

for a castle in the clouds.

- G.K. Chesterton

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, 

but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. 

~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Martin Luther

To see the summer sky

Is poetry, though never in a book it lie.

True poems flee.

Emily Dickinson, c.1879