-
WINTER PURSUITS
BORN TO BE MILD This cross-stitch project spoke to me, so I bought it and recently completed it. I was not born to be mild. I was, however, born to be Wild. The 1970s song was a bit of a joke for everyone in my family. Our surname resulted in many such jokes. I always…
-
A Christmas Story 2022
MY CHRISTMAS CACTUS STORY Several of my friends, acquaintances and family have posted photographs of their flowering Christmas cacti. I have no such pictures to share. My Christmas cactus is at least 25 years old; it was purchased at a Mother’s Day church fundraising tea in my home community a long time ago. It used…
-
Crossing over into November
After record-breaking high temperatures on November 2, we woke the next morning to more seasonal levels. The ground outside our back door is covered in leaves. The trees are bare. The sky is gray. It feels like November. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ B00-hoo. No costumed youngsters came to our door this year. With COVID restrictions mostly removed and…
-
Some things old, some things new
For years, my computer was bookmarked to the weather site for my home community. Checking the weather was part of my morning ritual. I still check the weather every morning, although whether it rains or shines has little impact on our livelihood these days. Even after leaving the farm, I would go to the bookmarked…
-
Feeling Fall
In the mornings, I like to sit outside with a cup of coffee. Lately, those early mornings have had a fall feel to them. The air has a crisp feel to it, a reminder that we approach the end of August and with it, the end of the summer. The day itself may bring heat…
-
Fiction, footprints and flowers
For the second time in three years, I have retired. I retired for the first time in June 2019. By March 2020, we were in pandemic mode. So, in October 2020 when I had an opportunity to temporarily return to my old job, I readily accepted. For the next eighteen months, I immersed myself in…
-
I Love to Read Month
A friend recently told me that she was going on a diet. Her psyche was weighed down these days, she said, so she was going to limit her reading to library books and the lifestyle section of the newspaper. Salad and dessert, she said. No main courses. I understand her rationale perfectly. Public School Curriculum…
-
What we did and did not do this Christmas
One day away from the New Year and I realize that not once did K or I eat a Christmas orange this holiday season. Nor did we purchase any to have available as snacks. There was a time when that would have been unthinkable. Back when I was a child and mandarin oranges came in…
-
Hope and the half-full glass
My husband and I are on opposite sides of the glass half-full/glass half-empty debate. I am a ‘glass half-full’ person; he says ‘glass half empty’. He denies, however, that this makes him a pessimist. “I am a realist,” he says. We debate about that issue, too. I think even realists can be optimistic. I am…
-
Little Things and Big Things
BIG THING: The summer students were back in the common area outside our condo this week, raking and sweeping debris, tidying the plant beds and pruning the trees After a few shots of rain, our grass shows green here and there instead of the consistent brown we have grown used to seeing all summer. We…
Rural Routes, Blog Version
Looking at the world with country eyes
Rural Routes, Blog Version 