Flashback Friday ~ Good-bye Green

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Today I am lamentating over the seasonal mourning I experience each year when the world around me fades from lively shades of green to dull, depressing brown. (Exciting, I know...roll with me, here.) 

188 days ago, every landscape in my vision was green.  Green and alive and growing and lovely in it's own little way.  Now it's all brown.  The grass is brown, the fields are brown, the dusty dirt roads...well, they're always brown, the 12.5 trees in the county are leafless and the dust covered pines are a bit brown too.  Even my house is brown. (Why didn't I paint it yellow??? Why? Why? Why?)

See what I mean? That's me, running in my brown surroundings.  The orange sky has been enhanced with photoshop, because it makes me feel less sad about the brown.

Now, we wait for snow.  It only snowed one time last year. But, I have faith that more will fall this year. And, I will wait with hopeful anticipation, because it has to snow, or I will go CA-RAZY.

I'm an outdoorsy kind of girl.  I love to run, love to hike, love to take in every little drop of scenic beauty possible.  If you haven't already guessed, I don't live in the most scenic of places.  So, in the spring, when everything begins to wake up green, I try to embrace every tiny little bit of it.  

Last spring, the canola fields bloomed a beautiful yellow, and the pastures around our farm were speckled with rustic delights like cactus and yucca.  I was SO happy to break out of winter and into spring that I made the troops go on a hike with me.

We all trudged along a little slowly at first, getting to know the landscape.  Actually, we had to watch our every step so as not to step on one of these babies:

Techically, we don't live in the desert, but it seems to me that we're pretty damn dog-gone close.  Where else can you find cactus, yucca and rattle snakes but the desert?? Southwest Kansas perhaps?? Wanna visit?? NO?? What??

Before long, the boys struck out on their own, seeking adventure, hurdling the sage brush, looking for animal tracks, hopping fences...

I wouldn't exactly call it a dream hike, but in our own way we did discover a little loveliness in those pastures, as well as unexpected adventure, and a healthy dose of quality family time. 

Sometimes you have look for the beauty in the present, in the imperfections of life.  Because it's the memory of those beauties that helps you to find life in and survive the long brown days while you wait patiently for the snow to fall.