There have been many things over the years for which I have been thankful — including (but not limited to) bags of chips or candy that are mostly gone before I open them; dark towels by the sink when the guys come in to eat, and — even though science tells us each time we sneeze, we lose brain cells — that our world still continues to function.

(Though sometimes I wonder if the world has experienced some type of “… say it, don’t spray it” epidemic somewhere along the line, based on the shape our world is in, and these outrageous findings.)

I’m even thankful for the long-ago year when our (then) high school boys said they could be in charge of preparing the Thanksgiving table mashed potatoes with the use of their potato gun … which would most often project potato bombs anywhere on the farm except into a clean kitchen sink.

But nothing prepared me for when I became thankful for the Midwestern sky.

As a young farm kid, our “town” cousins from New York (a boy and a girl) came to visit us in Iowa one summer. We rarely saw them. My parents weren’t travelers at that time, tied down by all that ties a large family to the farm. But as our cousins’ family was visiting other relatives in our great state, they stopped to spend a little time with us on the trail.

The girl was about the same age as my big sister and me. It was exciting for us, really — like having a brand-new friend. But there was something about her.

She looked up at the sky with cautious amazement and curiosity. She had never seen so many clouds, nor such an expanse of the sky as she saw from the vantage point of our farm yard. She looked up at it often as we played and got to know our cousin we rarely saw.

Then night came. It was dark. And the stars came out.

She could hardly believe the canvas she was seeing.

She told us the sky there made her afraid. Somehow exposed. “It’s so big,” she said.

I had never imagined the vision and thought of the sky making anyone afraid.

I didn’t know what her home in New York was like, so I guess I don’t remember what she said about the amount of sky she regularly saw from there. But it was obviously not like the sky she was seeing that day, standing under the stars in front of a barn on an Iowa farm.

I would love to know what she told her friends about it when she returned to New York and to school that fall. To her, the Iowa sky had to have been big news.

I’ve thought about that day now and then over the years, and how — like anything else — we take the sky for granted. We know it’s there, and it really is a grand expanse over our heads. Sometimes things fall out of it — rain, sleet, snow, bird poop … sometimes even airplanes. But whatever the sky holds, it never ceases to disappoint in the wonder that it is.

Sometimes our young children and I would lie on our backs on the lawn and try to find shapes and stories in the clouds. The sky gave us simple, affordable family time in those days.

And so as Thanksgiving approaches, this year I’ll choose to look up at the firmament and be grateful for all it brings us — for the memories it holds; sun to warm us and grow our crops and livestock, soft moonlight; stars to decorate the sky and give us something to wish upon; rain to give everything a drink; rolling thunder; clouds to provide sun and respite shade; space to use to visit those we love in other countries; and sunrises and sunsets that make beautiful photos and take our breath away.

The sunrises and sunsets might be breathtaking, but it relieves me to no end that they don’t cause us to lose brain cells … (unless the party is still going on at sunrise).

That being said, I may need to stop cooking with pepper (which makes me sneeze) before I forget how to cook altogether.

My husband may have already decided to act as coroner to pronounce my kitchen prowess DOA.

Crying shame, really. It was a good run … even with my Thanksgiving mashed potatoes.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net.