South Dakota

Color At The Edge Of A Barren World

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

Tonight’s sunset wasn’t the boldest I have ever seen.
It didn’t streak across the sky in wild ribbons of fire or paint the clouds in colors that demand you stop everything just to feel alive. But after a week swallowed by grey, a week of barren fields and frozen winds and a world that looked like it had forgotten how to breathe, this small burst of color felt like a hand reaching out of the cold.

The kind of cold we had today doesn’t lend itself to beauty.
It bites through coats and gloves and makes your eyes water the second you step outside. It turns every inhale into a sting and makes even short walks feel like a punishment. The days have been long and heavy, the kind where the sky barely changes and everything feels muted or asleep.

That kind of winter wears on you.
It settles into the quiet places.
It makes you wonder if the sun remembers how to rise for you at all.

So when it finally pushed through tonight, just a thin line of orange pressed against the horizon, just enough pink and gold to soften the clouds, I felt something loosen inside me. Not joy. Not relief. More like a reminder. A small, almost trembling insistence that even the bleakest stretches eventually break.

There is something tender about sunsets like this.
The quiet ones.
The ones that don’t announce themselves.
The ones that look like they are offering whatever little light they have left, hoping it will be enough.

It hit me harder than I expected.
Maybe because everything has felt so dim lately.
Maybe because I am tired in the way winter makes you tired, tired in the way that comes from carrying invisible things for too long.
Maybe because every day has felt like it blends into the next, all of them silver and silent and cold.

But tonight, the sky remembered color.

It was not spectacular.
It was not loud.
But it was present.

And presence alone can feel like a miracle after so many days of nothing but grey. After so many hours of wind that cuts through you and fields that look lifeless and mornings that never fully brighten.

I stayed longer than I needed to, watching the last thin glow disappear behind the line of trees. The air stung my face. The cold settled deeper. But it felt worth it.

Because even if tomorrow returns to grey, even if the frozen world closes in again, at least I had this one moment. This one quiet offering of beauty. This one reminder that winter does not get the final word.

For a brief moment, color pushed through the cold.
For a brief moment, the world softened.
For a brief moment, I remembered that I am still here too.

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.