In case you haven’t heard, today is Earth Day 2010.  The first organized Earth Day celebration was forty years ago on April 22, 1970.  I was in elementary school then, and really don’t remember hearing about it.  The politics of conservation weren’t much on my mind back then.  I was more concerned about kittens, spelling tests, [...]

I’m back from a rare weekend spent away from family and the farm, and with one more full night of sleep, I might be recovered.  Each April, I journey north for a weekend writer’s retreat, and it is one of the highlights of my spring.  As much as I love my life here on the farm, sometimes I crave the [...]

Two small, spring-fed creeks flow past the fencelines onto our farm, then merge into one not far from the house.  The upper branch drains a larger area and sometimes floods out of its banks, but its spring isn’t as strong.  It rarely flows steadily once summer heat sets in.  It is, however, the more interesting of the two [...]

Mother Nature played quite a prank on us Saturday, which was the Vernal Equinox aka the first day of spring.   We got nine, or ten, or twelve inches of snow, depending on who in the neighborhood you asked and how many spots they measured before averaging the results to guess at the total snowfall.  It [...]

While I was looking through the digital photos on my hard drive, I came across a couple of photos I took on the way home from my son’s wedding.

I’d say it’s a Southern thing, but I know a few people in the Midwest who’d put the National Bird Dog Museum under the must-see column on their vacation lists [...]

Sometimes I have to get away from the house . . . the office . . .  and the phone . . . and email . . . the internet . . . and the overflowing inbox and long to-do list .   Sometimes I need more room to breathe.  To think.  To slow down the frantic [...]

The passage of the seasons seems more dramatic in certain places.  One such place lies some ten miles up the road from the farm.  There, steps lead down the steep slope to a cliff’s edge.    I stop there often and follow the cliff path down to a stone bench set into the wall.  From there,  [...]

The office cat loves snowy weather.  She sits at the window for hours, though not because she wants to play outside.  She’s there for the influx of wild birds drawn to the feeders.   Granted, the birds come other days, too, but just a few, now and then.  When snow blankets their world, hiding much of [...]

When the winter wind chases me indoors, and the sky outside the window remains gray and gloomy, I need to daydream.  Memories of lambs frolicking  under sunny skies won’t stop today’s shivers, but at least I can smile through them.   So today I’ll think about my farmcollie Freckles and his devoted caretaking, and I’ll think [...]

Yesterday I eased the pickup down the driveway. The feed bins were empty, and I could put off the trip to the feed store no longer. Here’s what I found at the end of the driveway — bare mud on the road. What a beautiful sight! I like mud.