Graceful Summer: A Day of Small Things
>> Friday, June 15, 2012 –
graceful summer,
Great Plains,
Nebraska,
quiet,
small moments,
Spring Creek Prairie
It’s blowing so hard dust swirls in a cloud across the gravel lot, raining grit on the windshield and coating the van. The sign says the nature center doesn’t open until noon, but the kids beg and plead and we’ve driven 25 minutes from town, the wracking wind bullying us across the yellow dotted line.
I say yes, let’s stay. The building itself may be closed,
but the prairie is always open.
Open. I stand on the rise, hair tangled across my eyes, and I shake my head, laughing, because it was exactly this – this wide open land, this vast space I called “nothingness” – that I’d dreaded so much. I didn’t cry when I first heard I’d be moving to Nebraska. I was simply quiet with a sick dread. I had deemed Nebraska among my top five worst places to live – third behind only North Dakota and Nevada. How would I survive life in a giant rectangular state filled with nothing but corn and cattle?
And now? Now I can’t get enough of these huge skies and low clouds, rippling grass, flash of gold wing, hot wind.
The boys skip, each with a bag of baby carrots in his hand. Noah spots scarlet on black, and a red-winged blackbird trills from the willow. Rowan crouches, tall grass itching his calves, to watch a caterpillar on a balance beam blade. I tip my head back far to glimpse a dipping, soaring, wheeling hawk, graceful daredevil of the plains.
We sit out of the wind on the wooden bridge, dangle our feet over a chartreuse marsh, spy on the still frog.
“Who despises the day of small things?”
Zechariah 4:10
Zechariah 4:10
{Pictures from Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, near Denton, Nebraska.}
What's your favorite way to spend a day of small things?
Welcome to Graceful Summer, a new link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We're sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer - will you share yours, too?
1. Write your post and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love - you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.
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Sounds like a wonderful day of simply enjoying each other's company and each other's joy in God's creation!
Our vacation in Florida, last week, was much like that. A series of storm fronts prevented us from doing several of the planned activities...so we simply adjusted.
Overall, I think it was one of the most relaxing vacations I can remember.
Lots of time simply enjoying the majesty of God's creation!
Thank you, Michelle!
Sometimes I'm convinced that God gave me little boys to slow me down just like this. Being out in nature is definitely a favorite way to spend a day of small things.
I was struck by the comparison of your blog header photo with the new one of the boys at the nature center. Prairie grasses, caterpillars and frogs aren't the only things growing! I, too, am thankful for the small things. They add up to be the biggest things of all.
Open.
That's what I wrote about too because I'm allowing summer to close me in. I need to open back up to God even in the midst of the chaos that is my summer. He is enough.
I love this new series, Michelle. It will be good for me to reflect each week on seeking those smaller, quieter moments and ENJOY, not feel stressed. Thanks, friend!
Do they[the entries] have to be "quiet"?
*snickers*
I love the phrasing of the "plains are always open." What a truth that is -- you can't fence it in even though "we" tried. When I went out West for the first time -- I was shocked at its vastness -- only the Plains can give you that sense of how big this country is -- it gave me chills to see it.
Willa Cather brought Nebraska alive for me -- her writing with such crispness about a place so foreign to her Virginia born self. Her prose etched it so well ---
*shivers*
My dad grew up in Missouri. When he got out of Westminster, he and a buddy drove from St. Joseph to Idaho Springs in one day -- he always talked about that country being "wordless." He couldn't quite convey its magnificence.
I thought about how that trip in 1940, before the interstate system, must have been like.
As usual, I digressed.
I might join this party if I'm not too loud.
:-)
That actually sounds like the perfect summer vacation to me, Joe.
Absolutely! I thank God for my boys all the time (and to think I had originally really wanted girls! Not only am I completely hair inept, but think of the bug opportunities I would have missed!).
I was shocked when I compared the two pictures, too -- and I live with them every day! And I love the way you put that: small things add up to the biggest things of all.
Yay, I'm so glad you linked up with this new community, Lisa -- i look forward to reading your post!!
I LOVE that description of the West: "wordless." So very true. On our drive Brad and I marveled over how unpopulated those vast areas are. I couldn't help but wonder what life is like for the ranch wife in the middle of 10,000 acres of cattle and land.
I adore Willa Cather, by the way. She has some descriptions of the Plains in My Antonia that take my breath away.
Come by sometime and link up, H -- I would love that!!
Love this, Michelle. And what a beautiful quiet place for a Friday rest. (Here, your place, I mean. :)
I had to check your list of five places, register some relief that South Dakota wasn't ahead of Nebraska. (Although, I'll admit that when I made my list of places I never wanted to live, I did not put South Dakota on it. It never crossed my mind that it might even come up. ;) And look.
Sheesh.
"I resist the urge to hurry..."
This just sounds lovely, Michelle.
I know what you mean. Florida is one of those places on my list of states I wouldn't want to live, but here I am. The beaches are soothing, the sound of the waves relaxing. Beautiful photos!
Ahhh...the open skies of the prairie . My husband is from North Dakota and it is the open. The open sky that you have discovered that he misses most. I've lived in TN along time. I didn't wnat to move to ND a long time ago. I would go more easily now (thought the winter would be hard to readjust). Oh, wait...lots of people are flocking to ND. I was thinking of the ND that he knew. ..anyways...the important thing you've shared is the discoery. THe quiet. The being together with children. These are my favorite moments of summer.
I miss my boys in summer. They were like yours -- outdoors. Curious. Amazed.
Sigh. What a wonderful beginning to your new project, Michelle. And I can't believe how those boys have grown, either.
Yeah. Nebraska wasn't even on my list. Never in a million years...
Now? Well now it's home. And that's something I never thought I'd say.
Is this the day you left a message inviting me to join you at the prairie? I got to my phone too late that day. Bummer.
This is beautiful, Michelle. I've been breaking a few bad habits of my own these days. It feels good.
God speaks to us in so many ways, if we take the time to listen! Love your photos and words.
Have a blessed weekend in Him,
Laurie
Yes, this is that day I invited you to join us! Another time for sure...we go to Spring Creek Prairie at least 3-4 times a year.
Thanks for inspiring me to make this a link-up community, Diana!
I wouldn't have any problem living in ND now that I know how beautiful the Great Plains are. My husband had two job interviews before we moved out here: one in Minot, ND and one in Nebraska. He chose Nebraska (which I considered barely the lesser of two evils!). But I'm sure ND would have been just fine too (although the winters are much more harsh up there).
Florida...boiling in the summer...but I think I sure wouldn't mind living there. The ocean makes up for all that heat and humidy - I miss the ocean in lovely land-locked Nebraska!
You seem pretty outdoorsy, David, so I'm not surprised your boys are cut from the same cloth.
Hugs to you, Laurie! And God's blessings, too!
Yeah, I think SD would have followed Nebraska...but I've certainly changed my tune on all that now (well, maybe not Nevada!). The Great Plains is home to me now. Never thought I'd feel that way.
The wonder in your boys inspires me to go wandering and wondering today. :)
Do it, Duane - you will not be sorry!
I'm just gonna sit here with you and enjoy.
By your pictures and descriptions Michelle, it sounds an awfully lot like Southwestern Minnesota where I grew up. Corn,wheat and bean fields with scattered rivers and forests. Now, I live in the Mississippi valley in Southeastern Minnesota among the bluffs and forests. There is no comparison to the plains where I grew up. My wife Anne came from North Dakota and we have to go back several times a year to get our fix of prairie life. I miss watching the wheat fields bending in the wind looking like a sea of grain. Thank you so much for bringing to mind my roots.
It is amazing how much wheat blowing the wind looks like ocean waves! I just noticed that on a recent trip across Nebraska and Wyoming - it was so beautiful.
My husband is from MN (the woodsy part), so he craves water, lakes and quiet woods. I do miss the water here in NE - there's not much of it, and most is man-made reservoirs -- but I never expected to find so much beauty in the plains.
Glad to have you sitting with me, Megan!
How beautiful. Love this link up idea. thank you!
Would love to have you link up a quiet summer moment sometime, Nikki - thanks for stopping by!
Your boys are getting so big.