Welcome to our home. Please, come in and stay awhile. I said, PLEASE COME IN AND STAY A WHILE. Come on, you guys, keep it down! This is our guest. There now. They do get a bit excited. They don’t mean anything by it. No, they don’t bite. They just deem your arrival worthy of announcement. Take off…
I love the way animals educate one another. A young puppy accompanied her owner on his interview with me as a general farm hand. How could he have known that I am the world’s biggest sucker for a puppy face? But I am, and Bear began accompanying her owner nearly every day he came to…
A small brown bird has been distracting me for days now. He spends an inordinate amount of time perched upon, over, under, or within the wooden bird feeder suspended just outside my window. The feeder is a common house-type design with a hinged roof for filling and glass sides to view the seed level. I…
I can’t whistle. Well, I can whistle. I can whistle an indistinguishable tune within a very limited musical range and at very low volume. But I can’t whistle to call attention – no Fido calls, no cat calls, no whistling cheers. So I have developed a sort of warbling yell and made use of a certain vocal…
She watches me. I tap on the window, and she watches me. I pound on the window, and she watches me. She’s not thin; she’s just developed an insatiable craving for the black sunflower I put out on a plate on top of the propane tank for the larger feeder birds. I suspect she’s been…
“Where do you see the women in your community?” asked the presenter of the workshop. My answer was not what she expected. I was attending the local Women’s Day Festival, an annual event of lectures and workshops geared toward exploring the roles, experiences, and perceptions of women. This year the program bore a heavy leaning…
When I moved to rural Minnesota eighteen years ago, there were a number of adjustments to be made. I had to redefine “neighbor,” “community,” “position,” “solitude.” In truth, the only constant from my upbringing in affluent suburban Chicago – the guiding force in my deliverance to the remote north – was, and is, my heartfelt…