There Is A Season

Jim and I just celebrated 15 years of marriage.

The week before we got married

a hail storm wiped out all grass and leaves on a large stretch of prairie.

I chose to fight the season

and plant flowers.

A week later, grasshoppers ate every ounce of green.

It was 1996.

That winter we had the worst blizzards in decades.

Then the snow stopped.

The rain stopped.

My kids learned to sled on bare ground:  dead grass and cactus.

We began to dread the sight of clouds.

Clouds no longer meant rain.

Clouds meant lightning.

Lightning meant fire.

In 2006, our 10 year anniversary year,

my parents saw a century of pine trees burn up in one night

and then evacuated their home waiting until it was safe to come home.

 

Some in their community had no homes to return to.

  

A week later, my husband was called to a fire.

Clouds were brewing up

and my sister-in-law and I loaded up our 4 kids and sat on a hill top

to watch lighting and spot smoke.

All my life I had been taught to

get off hilltops and highspots in lightning storms.

Drought turns that on idea on its head.

Hair standing on end

radio antenna buzzing . . .

I don't recall how many strikes we saw,

how many spots of smoke rising.

The next spring it started to rain.

Seasons.

Hard to believe we have hay like this.

{Click above for last year's hay season.}

I have never seen the prairie look like this.

The wildflowers and the grass look like it must have

when the pioneers came in their covered wagons

in 5-10 feet tall grass.

I didn't really believe it.

I didn't believe that Harvey Dunn's painting

The Prairie Is My Garden

were based on a possible truth of the prairie

until now.

Seasons.

Drought was our season for 10 years.

Now, wildflowers paint the prairie

and grasses tower over my kids' heads.

 

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, it says,

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven . . .

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Also He has put eternity in their hearts,

except that no one can find out the work

that God does from beginning to end.

I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice,

and to do good in their lives,

and also that

every man

should eat and drink and enjoy

the good of all his labor --

it is the gift of God.

Copyright 2011 Jodene (Jodi) Shaw.



South Dakota Summer~Savoring Seasons

Savoring the Seasons.

Instead of fighting or dreading or resisting.

It takes a conscience shift in the mind to do it.

This season is haying season.

Fortunately this haying season is green.

Others have been brown.

This year:  plump, lush, green windrows.

Alfalfa blooms.

Grass.

The old cliche ~ "Make hay while the sun shines."

Is in full swing here in Meade County.

An old hay cutter overlooks my favorite hayfield.

To the east of my kitchen.

My kids love to sit in the seat.

And play in the old red tool box.

The kids ride along with their dad.

In today's swather.

It's a season of hope.

Hoping for enough rain.

Enough sun.

Enough dew.

Enough time.

Hope.

For rain at the right time.

For sun at the right time.

For dew at the right time.

For enough time at the right time.

For growing.

For cutting.

For curing.

For raking.

For baling.

For stacking.

Hope for the weavels

And the grasshoppers

To not eat everything before getting to that field...or all of them.

Hope for no breakdowns.

Or few breakdowns in equipment

And in spirit.

Or that the part you need for the breakdown will be in.

Hoping that you can get fixed and back in the field.

In the right time.

Hoping that when your spirit breaks down.

You get back up and out again.

Without too much fallout.

Hope for no hail to wipe out a field or the whole place.

Hoping that a storm won't come up in the night

And blow all of the windrows

So that they they have to be pulled out of the barbed wire fence and raked back up.

Or that they didn't blow away completely.

Hope for no tornadoes.

There is beauty to savor.

Here.

On the South Dakota prairie.

Under the summer sun.

It gets to be a long season.

Long hours.

Little sleep.

Solitude.

Lots of time for thoughts.

Weariness.

Monotony.

Savoring the season is a conscious effort.

A choice.  A focus.

At times it does come effortlessly.

But often it is a method of preserving sanity.

It is haying season.

Photos and text Copyright June 2010 Jodene (Jodi) Shaw.

"...hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance."  Romans 8:24-25 NKJV

{For me, jodi, my camera is the way to savor the season and preserve my sanity.  I have said before that sometimes my best photographs come at the times that my mind is at it's worst.  But picking up the camera and going out to find some beauty, calms my mind and spirit, and brings me back to God and His creation and even moves me to worship Him and hear from Him.  I don't always see and feel day-to-day what my camera shows.  But it is the camera that is my tool that helps me intentionally find something beautiful to enjoy.  To feast my eyes upon.  And that changes my heart and mind and focus.}