Mammaw is on the right of the featured image above. She is snapping beans, no doubt to dry them and make her famous shucky beans. “Every gray hair she had looked like a corn silk” -Mom. Every couple weeks, I go out to the balcony, sit back with some red wine, watch the absolutely great…
I said last year that I didn’t want this blog to be a place where I posted really personal stuff, like health issues. I don’t have any serious issues, but part of my doctor’s plan in the last few months was to try various medications to counteract symptoms arising from heart palpitations–and all of them…
Have you ever lived in a place in which it rains every day for months on end? Maybe not all day, but most of the day? Maybe not every single day, but it feels like it? It’s kind of like that where I live. But I cannot complain because without that rain, and with our…
We keep getting warnings of weather advisories: snow, wind, that type of thing, but it has not happened too badly yet. Friday morning we awoke to our first snow this season, yet it was nothing but a ground dusting. I wanted to take a photo, but it was too dark that morning and by the…
In the midst of a golden-lit and cooling autumn, where trail hikes and short runs coincide with dreamy days, I am going to do an indoor exercise here, and share it with other writers in hopes they take part as well. This is a long exercise, will take some time and thought to answer the…
I listened to this talk the other day on the way home from work. I really like hearing author perspectives of their writing about the wild. In this talk, the two were in Toronto just a couple weeks ago. I have chatted with both at the main site (see “Selected Interviews” on the front page)…
The other day author Lidia Yuknavitch posted on Twitter, oh fall. come. It doesn’t take a great many words to summon a large expectation and dream, and I echo her thoughts in this post, at least how I read them. It is not here yet, only in my dreams. I’ve waddled through summer like a…
I follow nature writing in the news, and saw an article in The Spectator today about Amanda Craig’s recent novel The Lie of the Land. The author of the article, Lauren Freeman, starts out with: I’ve diagnosed myself with early onset cottage-itis. It’s not supposed to happen for another decade, but at 29 I dream…
One week from today I will be greeting my family in open arms, and most of us will see each other for the entire week, wherein, despite foot problems I am bound to go to Turkey Run and hike. We’ve also been talking about a possible Lake Michigan Dunes trip. And I’ve been trying to…
Sometimes I miss the desert. I recall raw days full of clarity, where clouds shadowed hills with bold shapes moving ever so slowly over the hot landscape below. I remember endless, big stars hanging in a black night and how the hot Santa Ana winds made everything feel so alive and moving. I remember stepping…
