Mid-April

Can it really almost be the middle of April! After a windy yesterday, this morning is calm and quiet. Not a leaf blowing on the trees and the sky is over-cast. It was slightly over-cast last night as Dawn and I drove out to see the beautiful, pink moon rise. We didn’t find the moon, […]

A Good Day to Hibernate

Animals who hibernate have the right idea about how to pass cold, cloudy, blah days of winter. A toad once lived in the terrarium in my kindergarten room. Someone found this particular toad one fall, captured the hapless little fellow and brought him to me. The children and I put dirt in a large glass […]

The Canebrake

Canebrake ABC’s Red ants, black ants marching all together, through a canebrake by the river in the lovely summer weather. Many-colored butterflies drift or dream or flit among tall stalks for the very fun of it. A caterpillar wriggles and a cricket creaks a song, surrounded by the river cane, thick and green and long. Dragonflies a-dazzle with […]

The Christmas Barn

The Christmas Barn The 200-year old barn sat empty and lonely. No longer did horses stamp their feet inside his walls; cows didn’t warm the stalls with their breath; no sheep snuggled against each other to sleep the night away.      The barn missed these animal friends. He missed the  chickens who used to gossip […]

The Barn That Stayed

One spring day many years ago, a farmer decided to build a fine log barn. First, he gathered large stones. He chipped and fitted them together for a firm foundation. The farmer cut many trees, chopped off limbs, and smoothed the trunks. Notch and groove, groove and notch, the logs rose straight and true atop […]

Neighborhood Owl

One of the things that’s so neat about this Arkansas town is that fields, pastures, and woods are just a block or two away, and oh, my goodness! I hope it stays that way. It seems that every time I look, another pasture has been gobbled up by “progress”. In just the time I’ve lived […]