Thankful Thursday ~ Skies for Days

So, I haven't done a Thankful Thursday post in several weeks. Maybe even a month. Not because I'm ungrateful, but just busy. I guess I should be thankful to have been so busy! I mean, it sure beats the alternative...

We are still in the midst of harvest around here. We're about half-way done. We have all our winter wheat cut, which you can read about here: Winter Wheat Harvest 2015, and we have the barley from Tom and Carol's farm cut. Our barley is still just not quite ripe, but we're hoping to cut it probably over the weekend. Then it will be on to spring wheat. Our crops are not great this year, and it's easy to be down about it, but there are always reasons to feel thankful for what we do have and for what is going well.

Like... THE SKY!

You guys, seriously. Montana has THE BEST skies of anywhere I have lived. There is DEFINITELY  a reason why we are the Big Sky State. The sky here is HUGE and so often filled with fantastic cloud features. Sunrises and sunsets frequently amaze. I try to take photos on my phone and I'm always disappointed that my camera just doesn't capture the brilliance of the sky.

 I took the above photo on a recent bike ride with Harvey through some of our farmland. My favorite type of clouds-- the puffy shape clouds. The thing is, you can only really call it the Big Sky State out here on the prairie where you can actually SEE the sky! Don't get me wrong, I love the mountains, too, but you're all closed in up there and you just get little triangles and windows of sky. Out here, you get the whole shebang. Another reason to be thankful for prairie living!

This next one was near sunset...

Sky almost filled with clouds, but backlit by an evening sun, so that the edges just looked glowing. Love it. Reminded me instantly of the clouds paintings by Georgia O'Keefe, like this one:

Image Source: www.artic.edu
Sky Above Clouds IV, by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1965

Living here can be very inspirational to creative people, and to anyone. Just look around and appreciate the beauty that surrounds you. You can start by looking to the sky!

As somewhat of a sidebar: In my mind, I have a list of what I call Crazy Ideas. The theme of the list is sort of businesses or "offerings" that bring people here, whether encouraging tourism, rural economy, small-town shopping and staying, or what have you. The Crazy Idea list could be a topic for a blog post all on its own, but one of the ideas on the Crazy Idea list is some sort of artist-in-residence home or workshop that would be out here on the prairie. People could come and stay for a period of time and do whatever art they do. I think there's plenty of inspiration. I wonder what Georgia O'Keeffe would have done with a month or two out here? ;)

Anyway, the skies around here really can't be beat. Something about a long day during harvest that's capped off by an outstanding cloudscape... perfection. :)

I took the above photo just a few nights ago. We've been having quite a bit of smoke from in the air from fires in the Mountain West. Smokey air is not idea, but it creates beautiful sunsets. Like this one. The entire sky was cotton-candy pink and just glowing. See? Find the positive. Silver linings and beautiful sunsets.

Do you have any great sky photos from Montana or wherever you live? What inspires you?  If so, let me know and I would be happy to post them in another Thankful Thursday post! You can email me or tag me in Facebook or on Instagram. :)

Have a great week, everyone!