A door closed on three months’ worth of warm balmy memories, from building another four raised beds for tomatoes and delicata squash to playing with Bumper in the thin grass of the old fasting site one sunny morning.

Without a word to each other, we picked up the drums’ rhythm and let loose right there beneath the towering silver maple with moves neither of us knew we had in us.

It’s just so hard to trust your current vantage point when threats are flung at you fast and thick from every direction.

Haikus of remembrance and hopefully, hope.

…for the first time in seven hours, I’m silent and heading toward stillness.

We hiked a few of the trails and then returned to the car to fetch our lunch, setting up our camp chairs under a stand of cottonwoods across from the parking lot, with a perfect view of the day’s arrivals and departures.

In both abundance and want, it’s important to be aware of what’s happening and how we’re feeling about it, no matter where we’re standing on this rotating planet.

If nothing else, our nieces and nephews would stumble across this collection someday and gain a deeper appreciation of their aunt and uncle’s active inner life.

Yes, I paid money for rocks that weren’t going to resurface our long driveway or dangle all polished and shiny at the end of a silver chain around my neck.

I live most of the time in wonder and curiosity, hungrily filling my plate with the knowledge of others who spend their days watching and making notes.

Sparky roosted in the old dairy barn built at the sloping end of the driveway, perching serenely on the apex of the roof, pointing his tiny crowned head south and crying out at sunset in plaintive hope for a mate.

To leave sizeable chunks of our daily routines and commitments behind and trust that they’ll be there when we need to call them up again and move on with our lives…

It’s not difficult to make a book by hand; it’s just a process with a few moving parts and the need for space to let the steps of the process sprawl and evolve naturally.

I plunged headfirst into a well of lethargy the likes of which I’ve never known.

The weather will be a primary framework determining how I arrange my day’s activities.

I’d challenge anyone to live here and not be pulled in all seven directions plus a few more, to tend to the unfinished business that is our land-based existence.

I’ve encountered quite a wide and colorful swath of human nature these past four decades and it shows no sign of slowing down.

Timing is everything if you want to see stuff around here.

Our home life back then had many moving parts and as children, we just presumed it was up to the taller humans in the room to take care of keeping those parts aligned, easy to find and working properly.

The minute we step outside, there’s a project in every direction, and each one is jockeying for that position at the top of the list.