Snow so far…

I have already shoveled the driveway and sidewalks twice, and the snow is still coming down in Ottawa, Kansas.

Sunday Snapshot: Golden Grasses, Winter Sun

Kansas photographer Stephan Anderson-Story, who shot many of the present-day photographs for Shadow on the Hill: The True Story of a 1925 Kansas Murder, told his interviewer in a short documentary that he liked taking pictures of Kansas in the winter.

“What I liked was when the grass in the Flint Hills would turn a really nice brown, and oranges, and reds. It always looked really nice with the sky, the contrasting colors.”

As Jim and I went for a drive last weekend, I saw what Stephan saw in the winter Kansas landscape and made Jim stop so that I could take a picture.

Shot as the sun was setting in eastern Franklin County. If you look carefully, you’ll see it’s sort of a self-portrait.

Sunday Snapshot: Winter Sunset

Warmer weather melted away some of the snow and ice these past few days, so Jim and I went for a drive.  As we explored State Line Road east of Louisburg, Kansas, we caught this breathtaking sunset.

A winter sunset east of Louisburg, Kansas, on State Line Road.

Snow at 2:29 a.m.

Winter solstice brought Ottawa, Kansas, its first meaningful ice and snow of the season. The glass-shard sound of sleet pelting our windows throughout the afternoon was slowly replaced by the sandy sound of snow in the late evening, but by one o’clock in the morning, our neighborhood was still.

Sunday Snapshot: New Year’s Eve Snow

Several hideous viruses have descended upon Kansas this winter, and I spent a good portion of the holidays nursing a flu-like bug. However, when I noticed the snow, I managed to surface from my feverish delirium just long enough to take a picture.

Snow falls in Ottawa, Kansas. The narrower strip of pavement with the street lights is the Prairie Spirit Trail, a rails to trails conversation.