We have the one of the most beautiful springs we have ever had, probably the best. It has to be the best because it follows the worst, driest and hottest drought in local history. It redefined the term "scorcher"

As you can see below, wildflowers are everywhere and are continually changing the countryside; first pink then blue everywhere, then then yellow, now red. The prairie and our pastures seem like scenes from some idyllic travelogue, rather than the brown hills of home that we have seen the past few years.

It is a gift from God that we have a little more time to enjoy them, since we have no crop of our own to tend to this year. Losing our last two crops to the weather is a small price to pay for this kind of beauty. To walk among such resplendent and regal beauty is to lose all other reality in a sea of color and aroma that lifts your mind off its feet and lets it fly among the birds and insects, flitting from flower to cloud and back again, reveling in the sweet air and the symphony of their songs as they celebrate life by giving life.

It is hard to believe that only a few months ago, all here was dead, barren, dusty and 116 degrees. It was an eerie silence last summer without the birds or bugs and the wind whistled through bare trees and brown grass as if it were winter. It was the rent we had to pay for the prior years of green goodness. Mother Earth is a strange landlady and her price is high if you live in her boarding house and you have to take what she gives you, but the best she has to offer is worth whatever price you have to pay. Out here you learn to appreciate the cycles of nature and come to accept the difficult along with the easy. After all, this is the West, things are supposed to be tough out here every once in a while. The years of the bumper crops and the beauty more than make up for the years of drought and doubt. Some things are worth living for. Some things are worth dying for.

The beauty of our spring this year is so overwhelming I feel a need to try to capture some images of it to share with others. Not everyone can come out and see for themselves and we'd soon tire of so much company anyway, so I thought I would share our spring with you in pictures that are woefully inadequate to convey what we see, smell and hear or what we feel. When we walk out across the prairie, (Papa calls it pasture - I see pastures as greener and having fewer thorny things than grass), we try to stay on the cow trails because we feel guilty about trampling these beautiful things. After last year our appreciation for all life has increased a lot. Out here you can see the connectedness of all things so much better than you can in town where the concrete and steel obstruct one's vision as well as their view.