Slow Road Home: A Year Old Today
April 26, 2006, and there they were at last. Ann and I watched as the delivery truck lowered the burden at the back door, just as it began to rain. Then there it sat: a plastic-swaddled pallet of 28 cardboard…
Category The Writing Life
Earth Day 2007: How Many More?
The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, marked for me the dawn of environmental consciousness, and I was so hopeful. In southern Alabama, the channelization of streams by the Army Corps of Engineers and clear-cutting of southern forests by the…
In Search of Wildness
Emily Dickinson was right to see that a prairie consists of only one flower and a bee. When my world was small, a quarter acre vacant wooded lot was enough to make a wilderness. I grew up in the limits…
Spring
Yesterday, March 28: the first day of Spring on Goose Creek. The measure: not day length or temperature; not the blooming of Coltsfoot (come far too early this year) or pinking of the buds at the tips of trees along…
Sharing Some Good News
A few of you reading this have been following this dog and pony show since the early days (five years ago almost to the day). Suffice it to say that when this epic began, the destination was far from certain.…
The WHEREs We’re From
Spring. A time of new beginnings. A time to take nourishment from our roots to our winter-resting branches and grow a little taller–no matter how old we are. And for this purpose–to give you an idea of the soil you…
Giving Nature Back: To Our Children, Ourselves
…Abby had found the broken remnants of a tailless kite, and entertained herself (and us) for a delightful hour under the blue prairie sky. That afternoon I witnessed in a most striking way the contrast between the old-fashioned play of…
Day-after Debriefing
No matter how “successful” one my little book events is, there is a feeling of both relief and regret when it is past and not filling that spot on the calendar where it was for months. And I alway have…