Musing

I wish to share one more of those reflection photos before summer fades to fall.

It was a perfect evening that one, not calm, but still, so still. I knelt on the edge of the wetland for the better part of an hour, watching sheep pass behind me and not coming to drink, they also have a water trough to drink at and many will go there. My toes would sink enough to get wet and I’d readjust position. Yet it was dry enough on the pasture that dust was being kicked up by some playful lambs on a trail behind me.

Something about this girl just standing and gazing reminds me of the evening more than other photos taken at the same time.

This is how it is that I fall in love with nature time and again; that I know I am nature. It’s not lion’s and tiger’s and bear’s and saving them. It’s prairie land, it’s grazing animals, it’s birdsong and biting insects, it’s coyotes yipping. It’s me ‘wasting’ time on the edge of a wetland just being where I am.

If I could extend only one wish to humanity it would be that we be allowed to ‘waste’ more time just being where we are.

I marvel about being at this juncture of living on a large parcel of prairie land, being shepherdess to a flock of sheep; navigating alongside a mid sized pack of guardian dogs, with kelpie dogs as my sidekicks. I marvel at being a rarity by virtue of the fact that so few people experience such a life today when at one time so many people lived it.

There is a crazy amount of work to this life but it has an undercurrent of natural simplicity that is hard to match. At it’s core it is a simple lifestyle – the gift of grass based, natural agriculture.

Writing (and photographing) about it is an added bonus however, truth be told, I often forget this or down play it which is why this blog experienced a long lull recently as did the newsletter I used to write.

But the last several months have been littered with reminders about the value of offering what it is we feel we have to offer. Society is in a much different state today and it seems more necessary that we make connections through whatever interests people find to connect over. And hence, last month I did a thing that I really want to catch you up on.

I restarted the Crooked Fences newsletter.

The newsletter is an addition to this blog. When you subscribe you receive the newsletter in your inbox. Each issue contains an essay of musing and photogrpahs and at this point is scheduled for six issues per year. One thing I can promise you about it is that the writing will be honest, and the photographs will be worth your while.

My incentive for restarting the newsletter is similar to my incentive for trying again with this blog. My desire to be a voice for the prairie, for land, has deepened. Mother Nature has shone a great light upon the importance of living a life that is also profitable to the soul. And to do so we cannot go without healthy natural places and spending time in them. It is incumbent upon farmers and ranchers to be careful with Mother Nature and to respect her rather than just reaping the benefits that suit the ever moving bottom line. It is time to investigate and celebrate those internal nudges that have no way to be planned out by pencil and paper and include them in our decision making. Because both the nature out-there and the nature within-here need to become our first consideration rather than our afterthought.