Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Sunflowers and Buffalo Chips

**Update** Guess what my husband gave me for Valentines Day? Yep. A framed print of Sunflowers and Buffalo Chips. He loves me.


In honor of that gift, I'm reposting this: 


There is a picture I love called "Sunflowers and Buffalo Chips" by Gary Kapp.
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It's a pioneer mother standing in a field of sunflowers gathering buffalo chips to use as fuel so she can cook something to feed her family. I love how her girls ignore the buffalo poop chore and focus on picking sunflowers.

I also love how this painting is a perfect metaphor for real life. Sometimes it's sunflowers and everything is going great. We're happy and content in the beauty of life. And sometimes ... it's buffalo chips.

We just take the good with the bad and know that we need them both.

I gathered a lot of buffalo chips over the last year, hopefully enough to last a long time. So right now, I guess I'll just be thankful that I'm surrounded by sunflowers.



3 comments:

  1. My husband and I went on Trek last year, and at first, I turned my nose up at buffalo chips. But every time we'd stop to rest and I'd try to sit on the ground, stickers always seemed to find me. I noticed the kids sitting on buffalo chips and thought, "Ew!" But by the second day, I had a change of heart and tried it. Mind you, I made sure my particular chip was VERY dry. It was actually quite nice - especially the no more puncture wounds in delicate places part. And from down on the ground, I could really enjoy those wild sunflowers. I'll never think bad of buffalo chips again.

    And I love your analogy - and the fact that the girls were focusing on the flowers.

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  2. I just went to Antalope Island, and they've got plenty of buffalo chips (and biting gnats), yet somehow it's so beautiful. :)

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  3. The conference was awesome, wasn't it? I love linking up with other YA writers. Somehow you found my Protected blog...which I haven't visited for quite sometime. Come visit me at my current website-cindymhogan.blogspot.com. Glad you found me, so I could follow you.

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