Farmland

The Brutal Beauty of Winter

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

We’ve reached that part of winter where South Dakota stops pretending.

The forecast has settled into a long stretch of below zero temperatures, the kind of cold that doesn’t care how tough you think you are or how many layers you pile on. This cold is brutal. It cuts straight through coats and sweaters like they’re suggestions, not protection. The wind doesn’t knock. It slams into you, steals your breath, and leaves you staggering for half a second while it whips loose snow into tiny glass missiles that sting your face and hands.

Any exposed skin burns instantly. Not metaphorically. Actually burns. Raw and angry and aching within seconds.

The cold doesn’t stay outside either. It seeps through the windows, through the walls, through the cracks you didn’t know existed. It settles into every room like an unwelcome guest, making the idea of leaving a warm bed feel almost offensive. Even inside, there’s always a chill riding the air, a reminder that winter is very much in control.

This is the kind of cold that makes your whole body ache. Your nose runs, and before you can even wipe it, it freezes, an uncomfortable, ridiculous reality of arctic temperatures. If your gloves get wet, they stiffen and harden, crusted with frost, no longer flexible or warm, just cold armor against colder air. Everything feels sharper. Heavier. More exhausting.

And yet, somehow, this depth of cold brings beauty with it.

Winter sunsets feel more vivid, like the sky is making up for everything it’s taken away. Colors burn brighter and linger longer, purples bleeding into pinks and oranges in ways that feel almost unreal against the frozen landscape. The air is clearer, crisper, and the light carries farther.

Frost clings to trees and fences, delicate and quiet, turning ordinary branches into something almost sacred. Every twig is outlined in white, every field dusted and still. The world feels paused, held in place by ice and breath and silence.

On days like these, the sky sometimes gifts us sun dogs. They’re bright spots of light that appear on either side of the sun, caused by sunlight refracting through ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Basically, the cold is so intense that the air itself sparkles. Halos form. Light bends. The sky shows off.

I saw them on Saturday, soft and glowing, but the sky was thick with clouds and I couldn’t get a good photo. Still, just seeing them felt like a quiet reward for enduring this kind of cold. Like winter saying, I know this hurts, but look what I can do.

I hate this level of cold. I really do. I hate how it makes everything harder and slower and more painful, how it drains energy before the day even starts. But I love what winter creates. I love that even in the most unforgiving conditions, there’s still beauty pressing through, still light bending and colors burning and frost turning the world gentle.

Maybe that’s why it sticks with me.

Because winter doesn’t soften. It doesn’t apologize. But every once in a while, it lifts the veil just enough to remind us that even here, especially here, there is something worth noticing.

And I hope I see it again soon.

A Sky That Breathed

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

The northern lights came last night.

Not the way I always imagined. Not wild or brilliant or loud. Not the kind they write postcards about or chase across Icelandic skies. These came soft. Unannounced. Almost hesitant. Like maybe the sky forgot it was allowed to be beautiful here too.

It started with a haze—green stitched across the clouds like breath. A red glow spilling out near the edges. Faint. Fainter than the photos. But I could see them.

With my own eyes.
Not through glass or lens or screen.
Just me. And the sky. And the dark.
And a kind of light I didn’t know I needed.

I’ve wanted to see the northern lights for as long as I can remember. It’s been one of those “someday” things, tucked onto a dream list I rarely say out loud. I always pictured them bold—exploding across a frozen sky in a place far from here. I always thought I’d have to go chasing them. Far. Cold. Alone.

But they came here.
To this farm.
To this quiet stretch of November.
To this version of me I’m still learning how to carry.

And maybe they weren’t loud. Maybe they weren’t the grand, breathtaking show I always pictured.
But still—they came.
And I saw them.

And it moved something in me.

Because we’re six weeks from a new year.
And I don’t know how I feel about that yet.

There’s been so much ache this year. So many days where the silence got too loud. So many moments where I felt like I was watching the world move and burn and spin without me. I’ve been holding a lot. Letting go of more. Some things I’m still not ready to name.

But last night, just for a moment,
the sky reminded me that not everything is lost.

That even faint light still counts.
That beauty doesn’t have to be loud to be real.
That wonder can still find me, even here, even now.

I still want to see the Iceland lights someday.
The big ones. The unforgettable ones.
But maybe I needed this kind first.

The quiet kind.
The kind that shows up when you stop expecting it.
The kind that doesn’t fill the whole sky, but still fills you.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough for right now.

After The Rain

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

This was April.
Mud season in South Dakota.
The kind of spring that doesn’t arrive all at once. It shows up in pieces. A little green here, a little sun there. Then rain. Then snow again. Then more rain. The kind that smells like thawed dirt and wet air. The kind that makes you believe something new might still grow.

We wait for it all winter.
We wait through the deep freeze, the dark mornings, the quiet that settles into your chest. We hold out for the day when the ground softens. When you can walk across the field and feel it shift under your boots. When you can breathe a little easier, even if nothing has bloomed yet.

That was one of those days.
It had just rained, and the sky cracked open for a minute. A rainbow stretched itself across the farmland like a whisper. You had to look up to see it, but it was there.

That’s our Gator in the front. Mud-streaked, worn in, still running. And the John Deere behind it, a little older, still waiting to be needed. Out here, the work never really stops. The equipment doesn’t ask what season it is. It just keeps going.

Spring felt like a beginning.
We watched goat kids find their footing in the mud. We hoped the frost hadn’t killed the roots. We looked for the first wildflowers on the edges of the fence line. Life returned quietly. Slowly. But it returned.

And now, months later, we’re preparing for winter again.
The sun sets earlier. The mornings are colder. You can feel it coming.

We check the machinery.
We fix what needs fixing.
We stack feed.
We make lists.
We brace ourselves.

This is the rhythm.
Hope, followed by work. Life, followed by stillness. We wait. We begin. We prepare. We do it all again.

But I still remember that day in April.
The softness after the storm.
The rainbow over the field.
The reminder that no matter how long or harsh the winter is, spring will come again.

The land always circles back.
And so do we.