Planting Peas, and Spring Peepers
The ground was probably too wet to till the garden, but we did because it was time to plant peas. And this is the first Spring we have experienced on…
The Ground Beneath Our Feet
The ground beneath our feet keeps changing, keeps pace with the seasons, and now Spring is in the air. The return of birdsong in the morning; the call of a…
“The Mantis Shrimp” at the Jacoby Arts Center
The process of making art and creating design is interesting, especially at the end, when doubts and uncertainty can invade. I have completed many design projects that, I felt, were…
Five Puddles
In the Dominican Republic years ago, Paula and I slid down a series of "twenty-seven puddles" on a guided tour through the stone formations that a stream had created in…
Renovations #1: New Year’s Eve
We welcomed the New Year with cheese and crackers and turkey sausage and humus and apples and grapes and hard cider and juice, and we moved ahead with renovations. We…
Notes on the Winter Solstice 2012
The celestial pendulum swings back now, back toward more sunlight, longer days and shorter nights. More sunlight slowly creeps into the sky again. Next summer seems possible. I finished Christmas…
Mary Oliver, and The Real Poem
Glancing through sketch/notebooks, two days before the winter solstice — when the days start getting longer, longer, but so slowly at first — I found this excerpt from Mary Oliver's…
The Satisfaction of Removing Old Wiring
Crawled up into the attic today to remove some old wiring that had been tacked up and hanging in the "demolition" room for months. I am not an electrician, and…
I Wonder at the Details
Details matter. As the winter season comes on, greens dissolve into brown, gray, shades of tan, ocher, you name it. Vibrant color fades so quickly. And we are left with…
An Afternoon of Sketching with Sandhill Cranes Flying Over
On a recent afternoon, I walked to the back hill and set up a place for some watercolor-sketching. Got into the flow, just feeling the wind blowing, the sun slanting…
When You Truly Understand One Thing
William DeBuys, in The Walk, a chronicle of years spent walking the same path on his land in the Southwest, says that “a species of hope resides in the possibility…
Bones in the Woods
With the leaves off the trees now, we hike more easily through the woods, and bones are more noticeable: white marks among the brown leaves.
Staring at Things We Don’t Fully Understand
Jonah Lehrer writes in Imagine: How Creativity Works (p. 135): "Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the…
In the Spirit of an Amateur: “Traveling to Cloverdale”
I drive this stretch of highway 231 often as I travel back and forth to Charleston, Illinois, where I teach at Eastern Illinois University. It's a 10-mile stretch of…
Planning the Greenhouse #2
We're reducing the size of the possible greenhouse. Now it's about 8 feet wide or deep by 20 feet long and might incorporate the stump from the cedar tree we…
Redtail Hawk on a Gray November Morning
A mature redtail hawk flew over to investigate me on a gray November morning. She landed on the utility light pole and kept watching the grass in the pasture and…
We Can Live Any Way We Want
“We can live any way we want,” says Annie Dillard in her essay “Living like Weasels,” in Teaching A Stone To Talk. She explains that people take vows of all…