Why Is the Sky Blue?

 

December 27, 2025 - Quivira National Wildlife Refuge - Little Salt Marsh

Once upon a time ... long, long ago, I was in charge of Kansas State Fair coverage for The Hutchinson News. I practically lived at the fairgrounds during its 10-day September run. In fact, I stayed one night in the 4-H Encampment Building for a story, also walking down to the livestock barn to visit with fair entrants who were snoozing overnight there with their cattle. So, I guess I did "live" at the fair that day and night.

The fair established an office for print journalists adjacent to the KWCH-TV studios. Of course, we print journalists were the ones behind the scenes. The TV anchors were schmoozing with their fans at the open air studio next door. 

I'd write my stories and send them electronically back to The News.  Then, I'd wander around the fairgrounds looking for other ideas. On one of those strolls through the Commercial Building, I had the idea of talking to the people who traveled from state fair to state fair, trying to sell knives, pots and pans, magazine subscriptions, windows or any number of consumer goods. 

 

A persistent encyclopedia "hawker" asked me an important question: "How will you answer your child's question, 'Why is the sky blue?' "

Besides being a newspaper reporter and editor, I was also a mom to a toddler at the time. So the question did make me think - then and throughout the years as both Jill and Brent asked their share of difficult questions.

Thankfully, I resisted the urge to pony up the big bucks for an enormous set of encyclopedias, which would have become an expensive set of paperweights and flower pressers in these days of push-button technology and information.  

Nowadays, when you type "Why are winter sunrises and sunsets more colorful?" you get an AI overview that condenses the answer:

Winter sunrises and sunsets are so colorful because the sun is lower in the sky, light travels through more of the atmosphere, scattering blues and leaving reds/oranges, and the air is often cleaner, drier and contains fewer particles (like humidity and haze) that would normally mute colors, allowing longer wavelengths to shine through move vividly. Cooler, drier air, combined with specific clouds, enhances these vibrant displays. 

And, if that's not enough to satisfy your curiosity, there are plenty of other articles to explore - all with a simple click on the links. 

No matter the science behind the colorful sky, there have been plenty of opportunities to enjoy the unique masterpieces of the Kansas sky in winter - even on unseasonably warm December nights like we found at Quivira on December 27. 

 

It's also a tradition for me to take a photo of the final sunset of a year. The photos below were from New Year's Eve 2025:

December 31, 2025

 

I do the same for the first sunrise of a new year. 

January 1, 2026

But it doesn't have to be New Year's Eve or New Year's Day for me to take the short drive away from my tree-lined farmstead to take in the beauty. 

January 7, 2026, sunrise, back at the sunrise tree

January 7, 2026

January 7, 2026

January 7, 2026

Every day and every sky is different and another opportunity to glory in God's masterpieces - His bookends to the day. 

Sunset, January 5, 2026

And for that, I am thankful - no matter the reasons why. 

Sunset, January 5, 2026

 

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

 ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Skipping Light at Quivira

 

On a cold winter evening, it was as if the heavens were "skipping light" instead of "skipping stones" across the surface of the ice at Little Salt Marsh at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.

After several days of Kansas being in the "deep freeze," ice covered much of the surface of the water. As the sun sank, I watched the scene subtly shift, moment by moment.

We were at the spillway at the Little Salt Marsh, and even though much of the surface was frozen, we could hear the rush of water as it pushed underneath the surface and into another pond.

I thought about working my way down the rocky shore to the water's edge. But I decided that a view from above was better than breaking a bone or my camera. The view was just fine where I was ... even spectacular ... as I watched the colors of the sunset mimicked - though muted - on the icy surface, like fabric left too long in the sun.

As we drove away from that location, I asked Randy to stop a few hundred yards away at a place where I knew I could easily make it to shore.

Friday, January 5, 2018 (this photo and all those above)

But, by that time, the sun had already set, so it was no longer sparkling like diamonds across the ice. Still, it was beautiful in a subtle, less flashy way.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

We went back the next day, but by sunset, the skies were overcast. Again, there was no light skipping across the icy surface, though the beauty was undeniable, all the same.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Sunday night, we decided to test the theory of "third time's the charm." It was.

January 7, 2018 - This photo and all those below

I kept thinking of the Rihanna song which has that line that says, "shine bright like a diamond."

Earlier in the day, Pastor Nate gave an Epiphany message at church. January 6 - Epiphany - marks the end of the Christmas season or Christmastide in Western churches. Epiphany Day marks the observance of the arrival of the wise men and celebrates that the Light of the World - Jesus Christ - came to the Earth to live among us.

During the service, Pastor Nate played a recording of his son, Philip, lyrically reading a piece by poet B. Kevin Smalls:

“Spoken Word” by B. Kevin Smalls

Seemingly, the darkness has been so thick
not quick to trust anything resembling light
Might be a trick...and tricks don't always
lead to a treat, so I retreat in the darkness
hoping, slightly, ever so lightly that
my deepest fears will submit to the changing
of dark gears leading to light years of praise
and adoration.

Then, the light is not found, seemingly,
in the measure of the day but the Way
the voice appeared...it was the light
and life to all people and there was
no equal to its clear and present
demand.  I can, I believed. I can rise
right along with the sun.

Darkness is for lying down, laying down, hanging
around, pretending to be asleep.  All the
while the light slowly creeps between the
cracks in the blinds...which are unsuccessful
in stopping the invitation...to liberation...

arise, shine, the light has come...
arise, shine the light has come…

I remembered the message as the sun sank below the horizon and all that was left were the call of coyotes and the sound of birds as they took cover for the night on refuge waterways.

The warmer day had started the melting process at the refuge, creating a sort of "freeway" of paths across the surface of the waterway. And I thought about how each of us comes from a different place and takes a different path as we work to carry the light of Christ into the world. 

Being in God's beautiful world was the perfect benediction ... and an epiphany.

More Transformations Than One of Those TLC Shows

You know those TLC or HGTV television shows when they show the before and after photos? On "Love and Or List It," an interior designer comes in and transforms someone's home from old and tired to snazzy and modern. (How do I sign up for that to happen to me? Not that I want to list my house, but I could sure use an interior designer to update some things around here.)

Or on "What Not To Wear," Stacy and Clinton toss the "subject's" old clothes and give them a thousand bucks to spend on new clothes. (I don't want to get rid of some of my favorite around-the-house clothes, so I think I'll leave the new duds to the television "victims," thank you very much.)

But transformations are interesting to watch. And we've had a front-row seat as summer's rains have transformed our drought-stricken countryside, including the Rattlesnake Creek pasture. (Click on the link to see the dramatic photos showing a dry creek in 2012 and beautiful, flowing water in 2013!)

Our neighbor, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, has had a similar "makeover." In April, Randy & I did a little sightseeing in our own backyard and visited Quivira one afternoon.

While we were there in April, I walked down to a burned tree stump in the marshlands in front of the observation tower and took this photo:

Last week, we went for a quick return visit. As you can see, the water level is now creeping toward that burned tree stump. I didn't get closer because I didn't want to get my feet wet and the mosquitoes were on full attack mode.

Here's the wider view of the same location. (The tree stump is just a spec just below center in the photo.) It's the only photo I took there because of said mosquitoes. I could tell you that the little specs flying around in the photo are mosquitoes. They felt as big as those birds, let me tell you.

Granted, the first photo was taken in April after a spring with a number of late freezes. Grasses were definitely behind the curve in greening up for spring. But it does show how much additional water is in the marshes after an unseasonably wet July and early August.

More water means more birds are stopping by the refuge.

 

 Some of our feathered friends were taking a dip in a flooded roadway.

It didn't exactly sound like the ocean, but there were crashing waves as water flowed through a spillway at the Little Salt Marsh.

Last summer, the marshlands near the roads were high and dry.

This is a photo comparison by staff at Quivira, posted to their Facebook page. The one on the left was the Big Salt Marsh on August 3, 2012. The one of the right is from August 6, 2013. We didn't drive up to the Big Salt Marsh, so I am using their comparison photos.

The transformation didn't happen in the space of an hour-long TV show. (Of course, neither do the actual transformations of homes or people's wardrobe). But it is a blessing to see the big changes in water levels ...

... and in the smallest blooms the plentiful rain has left behind. 

 trans-for-ma-tion
/ˌtransfərˈmāSHən/

Noun A thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. A metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal. Synonyms conversion - metamorphosis - change - alternation

Yep, I think that definition fits.