Sun Soaked Skies

Every fall I miss my home state of Michigan. The vibrant oranges, reds, and fluorescent yellows of the trees, the crisp air and even crispier apples, the rolling hills, and the wild untamed forests speak home to me.

Over the last 19 years of life here, I've grown to respect and admire Iowa's own beauty during harvest. It's kinda like the people who live here: modest, solid, quietly displaying beauty, never needing to be the center of attention.

Harvest time this year is like none I've ever seen.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Not the changing, bright colors like Michigan.

No, here on the plains the trees turned brown and died like every other year. But the spectrum of native grasses sport as many shades of colors as the trees back home.

And the beauty in the skies is breathtaking.

In the morning, the golden sun rises over newly shorn fields highlighting the gentle rolls of the earth.

At dusk, as the dirt from the farmer's combines kick up, the display of color it causes on the horizon is amazing; reds, yellows, oranges, purples and pinks beyond imagination change each moment for a new picture to revel in and soak up.

And all day long, all month long...blue skies.

Clear, blue, cloudless skies day after day after beautiful day.
I just want to breathe it all in and tuck it away to treasure for the cold months looming in the near future.
Each day presents another vivid picture of the splendor of this world and the timeless majesty of it's Creator.

And even though all this beauty is born out of death and the end of a growing season and signals the coming of a long winter ahead, I hear Hope whispering to my heart and mind.

**photo: Just 20 miles south east of our home the landscape is vastly different. With beauty tucked around every bend in the gravel road, it's one of my favorite places...**