All I Know
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. These words were in my mind as I woke this morning looking out our bedroom window over paddock with horses blurred in fog and raised sun haloed, beams dissipated by water droplets floating. Autumn. My favorite season—one of many reasons I […]
Legs and Muck
She stands in the drenched paddock after the thunderstorm, fork in hands, picking horse manure. We get a lot of production here on the farm. They say an average horse drops nine tons a year. Do the math. We have four average horses. We get lots of time to think while we’re mucking stalls and picking […]
Golden Day
Today’s the day. Your golden birthday. Twenty years old on September 20th. Officially, you are no longer a teenager. And you look like a man with your hairy legs, lean and muscled body from running, and face that Dad and I still have to remind you to shave—at least on Sunday mornings. Twenty years old. […]
Time Goes By
Autumn’s crisp is in the air. I can see my breath barely as I step onto the wood planked porch watching you walk down our winding gravel drive to the bus. Your shoulders have broadened and so have your horizons. You’ve left homeschool for high school. With bigger books, with bigger words, you have moved on […]
The Harvester Tree
I have never written a poem. There is my disclaimer. But I can’t get the image of a particular tree in Alaska out of my mind. And so I wrote words—words that tumbled out of my mind and onto a page. Perhaps you might find some meaning, some hope, from these few words spilled, even if […]
Opening Clams
I was enamored by the many sea otters I saw up close while in Alaska. They swim effortlessly, diving sleekly into ocean water depths in pursuit of shelled creatures—mussels and clams. Once they capture a closed shell, they bring it to the surface, turn onto their backs, open the shell, and float nonchalantly while enjoying […]
Baring the Soul
I have decided to blog only two days per week for a while—Tuesdays and Thursdays—as I will be investing heart and time in another writing project since returning from Alaska. If you haven’t already subscribed to my blog and would like to receive notifications of each new post in your email, simply scroll down to the bottom of […]
Bear and Fish, Fear and Trust
The bush plane descends and the pilot directs our attention to the ground through the right windows. “Those black dots down there are bears,” Glen tells the three of us traveling to Geographic Harbor, a remote spot on the coast of Alaska. We learn that people come from all around the globe to this exact […]