I have lived in Olds, Alberta for over three months now, and there is a lot of beauty here. On a clear day, I can look down 50th Street and see the Rockies, stark against the blue sky. I visited a friend's farm and we laid on the cold gravel lane for an hour because the sky was full of shooting stars and the Milky Way. One night, I even caught my first glimpse of the Northern lights near Red Deer. They were so far away that I couldn't see the colours, but the movement still entranced me. I think there is beauty to be found in every place, and there is definitely a lot to be found here in the West.
There's one thing in particular that I have been missing here, and that is the colour green. Does that seem odd? The thing about Alberta's fall, I have discovered, is that it is blue and brown. The blue is, of course, the big open sky. The brown is...everything else. Brown grass, brown hills, brown Aspen trees without their leaves, even the evergreens, which are technically green, somehow look brown. What I wouldn't give for a glimpse of bright, vibrant, green! My family sent me some pictures of the cover crops growing at home in Belmont, and I thought I might have to put on sunglasses! I forgot that green could be so, well, green.
It makes me appreciate the kind of weather we have at home. Sometimes the rain keeps my family from being able to combine when the fields are too wet, and that's challenging. But it's also that rain that gives us the crops we are harvesting and grass for my cattle to eat. At home, we have Carolinian forests filled with the green leaves of sassafras, tulip tree, maple, oak, walnut, butternut, ironwood, etc. Some of these trees aren't found anywhere else in Canada. I miss this diversity. It is a challenge in Alberta to find any deciduous tree other than an Aspen.
It has been cold here lately, temperatures usually in the negatives, and I think a lot of people are daydreaming of a beach in Mexico. I am dreaming of green pastures home at Dawn Farm. I'm imagining the first glimmer of green in the spring, when you think it can't possibly get greener, and then you are proven wrong every day after that. I'm imagining my cattle munching on soft green grass; my turkeys wading through grass so tall they can't see over it; the sight of green corn fields with forests behind them, green against the sky; grass so green that it represents the true definition of the word.
So, yes, I currently live next door to the Rocky Mountains - a place of renowned beauty where many people dream of being! Yes, it is absolutely stunning here. But is it any more beautiful than any other place? Is it more beautiful than Belmont? I don't think so. I'll say it again - I think there is beauty to be found in every place. I will enjoy the Alberta Rocky Mountain beauty as long as I am here, and I will very much enjoy the green beauty of Belmont when I come home.
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