Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Prairie Skies

As I write this post, a blizzard is raging in North Dakota. For the uninitiated, blizzards cause white-out conditions and drill flinty ice into your face when you venture outside.

In North Dakota, most conversations start and end with the weather, especially if you’re a farmer. Your livelihood depends on the sky.

And what a sky! People who focus on the ground always miss the show.

When I was a kid, my aunt would visit in the summer. We would run up the hill and take pictures of the sunset—at 10pm. Then we would watch the colors slowly dissolve. I think those colors kept her going through the gray Seattle winters.

I live in the city now. But when I pay attention, I can still see cloud shadows crossing the prairie.

1 comment:

athomethinkingwoman said...

When I was a girl, we would visit my great-uncle's farm in western North Dakota, about an hour from Minot. Late at night, when the sun finally disappeared, a blanket of stars would cover a navy blue velvet night sky from horizon to horizon. It is a magnificent, awe-inspiring sight that can only be seen on the Great Plains.

 
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Live Well Letters by Kristie Nelson-Neuhaus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.