Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. —Rumi I want to tell you about running in the early morning, stepping away from the house and heading up the driveway, a quarter-mile long. To run outside in the early morning began as an idea and then became a commitment […]
Read more "The Stronger Pull"It is the end of a year. It was not an easy year. I look back on the year past and wince shielding my inner-eye from the pain of my mother’s illness and death, the blur of unexpected activity, long hours spent on the road traveling between Minnesota and Illinois: winter weather, freezing fog, snow […]
Read more "There Is A Field"Frost touched northwestern Minnesota early Thursday morning. Just like that, summer ended. We now watch the forecast closely, tarps at hand to cover late-ripening tomato and pepper plants. Beets and carrots are pulled; soups simmer in stock pots and slow cookers. Yellow squash is blanched and frozen. Spent plants are gathered and thrown atop the […]
Read more "Inevitable Change"A decent day is promised after two days of high winds, rain and cold temperatures. It’s hard to give up an early June weekend to inclement weather — hard on my mind; hard on my body; hard on my creativity. In the face of the cold and rain, though, I slept late Saturday morning, sleeping […]
Read more "Consider How the Lilies Grow"To look up — To explore — To pause — To see those around me — To embrace silence — To consider that which has been — That which is — And that which is to come — These are my New Year’s resolutions.
Read more "2018 New Year’s Resolution"I tell you this, ‘though I admit some shame in doing so. My heart hurts as I wander the woodlots surrounding the house. The aspen and slippery elm leaves I watched unfurl in the earliest spring have yellowed. They fall now with the slightest provocation. They fall at the merest suggestion of a breeze. They fall […]
Read more "To Dream"Monday through Friday my alarm clock goes off at 4:40 am. I stumble downstairs, turn on the coffee pot, and with my first cup of coffee, sit at my desk to contemplate the day. I log the weather forecast into my journal – morning temperature, projected high, cloud conditions, chance of precipitation, wind speed, sunrise, sunset – […]
Read more "To Wake Early"The first wheat was taken from the fields last Sunday, and now semi-trucks loaded with grain travel the county roads to the elevator in Hazel. Sandhill cranes grazed the shorn field south of our place Monday. I parked my bike on the shoulder of the road to photograph them in the early morning light. […]
Read more "You Might Ask"It is the height of summer. Days begin with an edge of cool but quickly heat up. “Too hot,” I say as I cross the yard to the garden. Too hot by 9:30 am to weed. Too hot to hoe. Too hot to pick beans. It is green bean season. We’ll harvest green beans every-other-day […]
Read more "Summer Update — Too Hot"It was a long time ago, perhaps thirty-five years, perhaps thirty-six. I was in the Twin Cities, single, living in a house in the Loring Park area of Minneapolis. It was an old sandstone home whose bedrooms were rented individually. Renters shared a common kitchen, bathroom and living room, but were otherwise unknown to each […]
Read more "A Long Time Ago"
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