blooming

 

photography by Adeline

what the world looks like when you’re 38 inches tall

dakota sky: afternoon walk

After so many gray days, it’s nice to see some blue again.

colors of fall

dakota sky: from the passenger’s seat

dakota sky: sunset on the river

dakota sky

I am a prairie girl.  I have lived most of my life on the open plains.  And I know a lot of people who claim the flat landscape of the Dakotas is boring, empty, and just, well, flat.  But the great thing about all that flatness is it really opens up the sky, it really lets you see what’s going on up there, out there.  The scenery changes dramatically depending on what kind of clouds, if any, are floating by or rolling in or blanketing the earth, causing shifts in light and shadow.  And the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever seen have happened right in my tiny hometown in northern South Dakota (ok, the sunsets on the beaches of Hawaii aren’t bad either!). 

I know these types of weather patterns happen everywhere, but here on the plains we are fortunate enough to have easy access to the sight of them on a large scale (I always wonder why Montana gets the distinction of being called “Big Sky Country”; I think it’s much more fitting here).  When we lived in St Louis, and during our travels to the Northeast Coast and to the South, I always felt a little clausterphobic, like all the buildings and trees and hills were closing in on me and I could never just see miles and miles of horizon around me.  So, since we’re finally back home in the real Big Sky Country, I’d like to do some posts devoted to the great Dakota Sky.   Anyway, I will be pointing my camera skyward for awhile, and if you’d like to see all of the results, you may find them here.   
~Sara~

pumpkin on a stick

Jake’s mom and his aunt came to visit and we had a lovely weekend.  The weather was warm and wonderful.  And our weekly trip to the farmers’ market yielded some interesting results:

Pumpkin on a Stick!

I had never seen anything like this before, and after doing some intensive research (i.e., Googling it) I found out that they are actually an ornamental eggplant.  But they sure do look like tiny pumpkins. They were kind of hard to photograph using my mediocre photography skills and our mediocre camera, so I took many, many more pictures of them than was necessary.  But I think you can get the idea.

So now this scene is making me ridiculously happy every time I walk into the kitchen.  Favorite curtains, tiny [eggplant] pumpkin sticks in a milk bottle, little [real] pumpkin on the windowsill.  Ah.  Happy Fall, everyone.
~Sara~

holding on

Summer’s not quite gone yet.  On our walk tonight we noticed plenty of flowers that are still holding on.
~Sara~

autumn: the first day

Even though the weather has been positively summerish, I’ve been seeing signs of it for a week or so now.  The trees are tired; they can’t hold on to their greenery much longer.  The grasses are drying and dying.  Sunsets are sooner; shadows are longer.  Then yesterday we woke up to a steel gray sky and a chilly wind, and we had to bundle up to play outside.  And I suppose today there really is no denying it: fall is here.

This does not upset me in the least.  Fall is, after all, my favorite season.  A time of crunchy leaves, crisp breezes, orange pumpkins, cozy sweaters, apple pies, hot cider, nutmeg and cinnamon, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and lots of birthdays (in this family, at least).  Who could resist all that?  Except this year I am digging my heels in a little bit, trying to hold on to the warm summer sunshine.  Because after four years of living in a significantly more-southerly clime, I’m a little nervous about my first Dakota winter back home.  I’m fully aware of just how precious and fleeting each of these wonderful warm days is (I’ve had many a childhood Halloween dampened by snow or blizzard), and visions of The Long Winter Ahead are prompting me to push my family out-of-doors whenever I get the chance.

Hold on just a little bit longer, please, sunshine.
~Sara