Blog
The Memoir and Its Cover
A week before I returned to our house in Portugal, USPS brought me the box I’d been eagerly awaiting for weeks. Not a large box, but big enough to hold several Advance Reading Copies of my book-- Expecting the World --a memoir of the thirty years I worked for the...
Wild Fire – Epilogue
It’s been over a year now since the Obenchain fire ripped through my son’s property in Eagle Point, Oregon. A year since the fire took down his shop, the chicken coop, the water pump, the power lines. A year since a couple of very kind strangers arrived with two...
Wild Fire – Part Two
A year ago-- three days after Adam and his wife Deanna were evacuated from their home, the Obenchain fire was only 40% contained. Adam called me again: “Mom, we’ve been watching the news. Eagle Point’s been decimated. Don't worry. We’re safe in Sam’s Valley,...
Wild Fire – Part One
A year ago today, my son Adam called: “Don’t worry, Mom. We're all packed and ready to go.” I was baffled. "Go? Go where?" “We gotta get out of the way of what's coming over the mountain, Mom. It’s getting way too hot here. And the smoke’s horrible. Even worse...
The Red Barn – Part 4
I learned quickly that Ben and Hana Yoder's decision to buy 100 acres of land and a red barn was one thing, but to live the dream of owning their own farm was something else altogether. I didn't grow up on a farm, but it was already clear to me how much work was...
The Red Barn – Part 3
I was almost giddy with the prospect of turning our quiet farm into a real farm complete with cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs and produce. The day after I texted Hana Yoder that we’d found a farm for them, she and Ben knocked on our door. We walked them around our...
The Red Barn – Part 2
At about the same time that Cory Twigg and his crew were in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania painting our new barn red, I learned of a farm dinner being held at Savage River Farm in Garrett County Maryland – about an hour away. I loved Farm-to-Table food, reserved a spot for...
The Red Barn – Part 1
After ten months in Portugal, it’s taken me about four weeks to settle in to my American life. Although everything I wrote in my last post still applies, it’s hard to move back and forth between two homes, the month we’ve been back reminds me how much I love our...
Leaving Portugal for Pennsylvania . . . For Now
We’re leaving Portugal tomorrow. After ten months here, we’re on our way back to our Pennsylvania farm. When people ask me how I feel about leaving, I tell them it’s hard to say. In December 2019, Terry and I bought a little house here, where we planned to spend April...
Farewell, Stephen Dunn
Last night we lost a great poet and a great man. Stephen Dunn.Unlike most poets, Stephen was well-known and widely admired by brilliant people, many of whom will write eloquent eulogies in his honor. I’ll not claim that eloquence for myself, but I will share...