Today is a day we wait for all year! Today is the day we will pick our apples! We’re a little late this year, by about a week, but the time has come. The weather is mild, partly sunny, and calm with a temperature in the low 70’s. By mid-morning, my husband had cleaned our…
September 11, 2001 You were in my arms, my baby boy, being rocked to sleep as a five day old needs: warm, sleepy, and safe in your loving human cradle. Daddy at work, a brother at school, and another young brother still asleep in a cozy crib, a routine morning for us in the heartland….
It is raining and generally miserable outside today, so I decided early that it would be a day to try and finish some projects. Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time making fabric face masks and preserving some of our vegetable harvest. But, I started a quilt at the beginning of the pandemic and it…
This summer was like any other summer with respect to my plans to raise more monarch butterflies. It’s a hobby that has kept me occupied for the last seventeen summers. Starting in 2002, raising monarchs has been part of each breeding season. In addition to creating habitat in our yards (2) and school yards (numerous),…
How do you feel when you walk through the woods? Do you feel anxious and scared or do you feel relaxed and inspired? The woods have long been a favorite place for me. In childhood, my sister and I built forts in the woods and fields behind our house. We joined our local neighborhood friends…
“Country roads take me home, to a place I belong.” (John Denver, 1974???) To a cabin by a small lake, where toads run and blue gill swim, going there is never wrong. “What are we doing in love?” (Kenny Rogers and Dottie West, 1981) Going to meet my love, my love who I’ve missed. Soon…
Yesterday, I did something I’ve not done in quite a while. I had a morning coffee date with a friend, socially distanced, of course. When I left the house to meet her and got into my car, I wasn’t sure I had locked the door. Since I was the only one home at the time,…
Today, the school year kicks off in our local communities here in the Coulee Region of Wisconsin. Most, not all, are entering this year on a virtual platform as opposed to in-person, classroom learning. While the majority of students were exposed to an online learning environment last spring, it was brief if you consider how…