My backyard in winter is not at all the same as it is in spring or summer, but it is far from being a barren, empty place. First, there are the winter birds. They know when sunflower seeds are in the feeder and they flock to snatch some of the oil-rich food before it is […]

Waiting for Old Man Winter
·Here I sit–waiting. And looking out of my window on the world. Everything is about the same color–gray. It isn’t, really, I guess–the leaves are brown, neighbor’s house is red brick and his car is black but, if you’ll forgive my saying so, everything looks blah and gray. Is the weatherman right or will he […]

The Meadow: Nature’s Canvas
·Autumn moves through the meadow, rearranging it in muted colors. As the sun shines on tall grasses, they gleam with the silver of seed tufts. Thistles, whose purple crowns swayed in the breeze only a few weeks ago, now wear cotton thatches. Goldenrod, touched by frost, bows its bronzed blooms. The meadow mirrors passing […]

What Do You Get When You Drop a Pumpkin?
·Question: What do you get when you drop a pumpkin? Answer: Squash No, that wasn’t an original with me, but I thought it was pretty clever. When the children were small, we’d take our pumpkins that had been sitting on the porch for a month and squash them against the back fence. This wasn’t […]

Morning Tiptoes In
·Early morning slips in on silent feet. It moves through drowsy trees, stirring a leaf here and there. Within the branches of a blue spruce, something stirs. A bird, perhaps? Darkness is slow to leave; the day is loathe to begin. At last, gathering the shadows around it like a cloak, the dawn glides away, yielding to the rising of […]