Not many people know about Mill Creek Mountain (at least, we didn't think they did, but I’ll get to that). I wouldn’t know it myself were it not for Don and Bo Sosebee, for Vesta Baptist Church in the valley below it, and for Jared, who took me there. Jared and I took a drive … Continue reading On Behalf of Mill Creek Mountain
A few days ago, I dug my sourdough starter out from the back of the basement fridge, lifted off the tea towel, and found it was black and hard as stone. I said, Of course. This would be the year my starter died. My biologist friend had told me just last week that it’s quite … Continue reading The Year My Sourdough Starter (Nearly) Died
They showed a map on TV the other night that over her lifetime, U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky has nearly swum the circumference of the earth. She may as well have swum to Paris for the Olympics, I thought. But I wondered if all her training had felt that way---if, with each stroke, she felt herself … Continue reading Two Good Legs
For Joel & NatalieA Blessing for Their House May you live like you’re young in this house that’s older than you,old as the trees,old like the bell steeple on Main Street,and the railroad that runs with the river west to the town where Dad was born. May you not erase the aging lines of this place, which … Continue reading Remember
This may sound strange, but these days, I pray often for honeybees. Jared is a beekeeper and a businessman, so much of his success lies in the hives tucked in the corner of his property—in their brood, their comb, and the flow of their nectar in spring. When I said “yes” to dating him, I … Continue reading Bless These Hives
A True Story from Home April is young, and I’m in my garden as often as I can be. Today, I have company. My nephew, Bennett, is kneeling in the zucchini patch beside a Red Ryder wheelbarrow. He asked if he could help, so he’s weeding the clover that crept up in early March, tossing … Continue reading A Garden in Babylon
A True Story from Home To me, Mrs. Olave Thurston was the lady in my grandpa’s stories---as if she was another Ma Ingalls or Miss Rumphius. When we ate chicken for dinner, Papa would tell how Mrs. Thurston raised, butchered, and boiled her own. When spring came and I cut fresh flowers for the table, … Continue reading Gravestone Flowers
Autumn came, at first, like a man too fierce to get old, huffing and fuming like his leaf blower, hurrying hot wind, unsettled as a hurricane in the trees until, one afternoon, the last leaf fell, was raked, put away, and he settled into something long, cold, and sweeter.
The kingdom of heaven is as near as the hand at the end of your arm. So turn the dough, stitch the wound, change the sheets, play the notes, stack the wood, sow the seeds and straighten the rocks along the wilderness road.
I don't know if my great-great Grandma Howard was a round woman, or if she was as twiglike as my great-grandma Wanda, or if she had my grandma Karen’s smile, or my dad’s love of German chocolate cake. I only know what Dad remembers, and that is her cinnamon rolls. They were doughy to their … Continue reading It’s Recipes We Remember
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