Fall Activities

Welcome to Fall in western Kansas. We've been through a tough drought, but God is still blessing us with unexpected surprises. For instance, the trees up above have been absolutely gorgeous! We didn't think this would happen at all and it has been so amazing getting to enjoy the fabulous Fall colors.

Along with those gorgeous colors, we have gotten some wonderful rain. I didn't get any pictures of the rain, but I did notice something I've never noticed before. It was a bit depressing, but I still thought it was interesting. Throughout this drought, I have been comforted by knowing that we still had grass covering most areas. Well, when we finally got some good, hard rain, it opened my eyes to what was actually going on. In the above picture it might be hard to tell. But it is out in our pasture and the rain actually washed the grass into "waves." This means the grass didn't actually have a root system. The grass in these areas was only on the surface and it took a good rain  to make me understand how harshly areas of our pastures had been affected.

My sister and her children were visiting this past weekend from Minnesota. My mom thought it would be a great time to celebrate with all of the younger cousins from both sides of our family. I planted small decorative pumpkins last Spring and it was so much fun to see them bringing joy to the little ones this weekend. My mom, ever the art teacher, had everything all set up and the kids had a fun-filled morning decorating their pumpkins and just enjoying each other.

While they were having fun with the pumpkins, dad and I were moving our drills (used to plant our wheat crop for next year) home. It gave me an opportunity to snap some more pictures. The intent was to get photos of the wonderful fall colors. However, God once again blew my mind. I didn't realize how AMAZING the sky was until I started taking pictures.These photos don't do justice to the trees and their colors, but the sky is definitely worth taking a look at.

Here are the finished pumpkin products. They were just getting ready to take this photo when I returned. We have an abundance of things going on here. Some of them were blinded from facing into the sun, some were picking stickers out of their clothing because they had been running through areas they probably shouldn't have been in, others were talking, some were being goofy while younger ones were mimicking them being goofy...and some just didn't know what in the word was going on. I think that pretty much sums up our family ;-)

And somehow, one of the only ones that didn't paint still ended up with paint on them ;-)

I think everyone was pretty proud of how the day turned out and I think (after she recovers from this one) my mom should do this every year ;-) Enjoy the season and all of the beauty God has created around you!