Revisiting Musk Thistles as an Adult

As a kid, I dreaded the summers for a number of reasons - the biggest reason of all being that it was thistling season.  As pasture owners, we had to spend hours upon hours out in the hot summer evenings, digging up prickly angry musk thistles, weeds that seemed to pop up faster than we were able to dig them.  It was an incredibly disheartening task that seemed to have absolutely no end in sight.  

I'm around Lincoln this summer, so I'm able to help my parents with thistling this year.  It's amazing how much our pastures have actually cleaned up over the years, and even more amazing that I was so beaten down by the Musk Thistle that I didn't ever really stop to see the sheer transformational beauty of it.  Here are a few shots out of a few hundred that I took this past week, and I'm sure there will be more to come - because these thistles certainly won't be leaving our area for good any time soon.

The Moment After the Storm

My most and least favorite thing about Kansas is the weather - especially its thunderstorms.  They are such a powerful force that my stomach will always churn every time I see those dark clouds on the western horizon.  But these systems are too incredibly beautiful to not fall in love with.  Some of my most clear and humbling moments are right before and right after a thunderstorm hits, and sometimes I'm wise enough to grab my camera to attempt to capture the handful of minutes of unmanageable beauty.  Here are a few shots after a thunderstorm a couple weeks ago.  

My Sister's Family

I've been very lucky to be able to spend a good amount of time with my sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces over the past couple of weeks.  She asked me if I'd be able to take some pictures of all of them, and I was happy to do it.  I was a little nervous about taking some outdoor shots, since the wind in Kansas is unforgiving, but found a calm setting in the valley.  It was a short photo session, but I somehow ended up with way too many photos to sort through.  Such is life, when you have such a photogenic clan in front of your lens.