There are years of archived reflections here. They should be a book of their own, but for now, this is their home. The essays follow me from the hollows of Indiana, to the Pacific Northwest. The stories follow much of my Wildlife Rehabber days of possums, skunks, to the tiniest frogs and most wondrous bugs. I’m easily entranced—and profoundly educated—by just about anything that moves.
Okay, the photos have nothing much to do with what follows, but what follows is long, and pictures will give you a place to breathe… “You are in the pipeline now,” my counselor Harry said as the dose of psychedelic mushrooms began to kick into my system. I was stretched out on a small bed…
I was going to title this little piece “We Are Jane,” but it felt too grandiose, and a bit pugnacious, as though I were daring anyone to argue the point. Most of us are not Jane Goodall. Her loss was a gut punch to me and to the world. Jane was an enormous sun, blazing…
The day after I returned home from the mental ward, I went to my house. No one was home, so I crept inside feeling afraid and ashamed, needing to see how the house and my animal family—Carter and Dinky the cat—had fared. I stepped into a mess of papers, empty plates, and clothes on the…
Walking with Carter was wonderful. Except for my need to be a good dog mother, I would not have pushed myself out into the forest. I’ll say this again: I was fading away from my life. But Carter and the forest teamed up to reminded me that awe was always afoot, and not far away…
He was a mistake. Four weeks after bringing him home, I realized the error. My then-husband and I were in our mid-sixties and more frail than any two people should be at that age. I really have no idea why we thought a new puppy would be a good idea, especially this mix of three herding…
As some of my readers know, I took a 17-day cruise to Alaska in May with my hubby Lee, and my brother Jay and sister-in-law Nancy. I wrote the following when I was on the cruise, and am finally getting around to sharing it after an ultra busy summer. Alaska remains embedded in my heart…
I have become quite the muller as of late. Ideas don’t sprout from my head fully fleshed until I do some serious mulling first. Rather, my mind collects an assortment of conundrums and possibilities, and tosses them into my brain where—like dish towels in a washing machine—the bits swirl and churn. Sometimes my mulling lasts…
Our BeeHaven garden is on a steep hillside. While I was once a goat in my younger days, easily navigating rough and rocky terrain, my goat legs have abandoned me in my senior years. Thus, it was no surprise that sometime earlier this summer, I tweaked my knee. It was not a horrid tweak, just…