It’s been an intense fall. An intense year, really, but particularly an intense fall in my world. We had no rain to speak for a couple months this summer, and so I didn’t expect much in the way of fall color, but it got crazy cold all at once. The one and only benefit of…
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The Weekend In Gratitude
You know how you take the weekends and you cram them full of stuff, expecting to accomplish a ton, only to end the weekend in frustration because virtually nothing got done? This should have been one of those weekends…but it wasn’t. There was Beauty and the Beast on our friends’ front lawn, with popcorn and a…
Read MoreSeven Quick Takes Friday
…hosted by #1. A first word. Well…let’s call it a proto-word. For a chromosomally-gifted 2 3/4-year-old, that is a big deal! We were reading Jeanne Cotter’s Child of the Moon. For weeks, I’ve been trying to get her say “mmm” while pointing to the moon. She’s a very stubborn little lady; she knows exactly what…
Read MoreCrowning the Year
Fall color is peaking this week, here in mid-Missouri. And this year, that means something extra. There is nothing bad that doesn’t carry with it some good, as Caroline Ingalls said. In this case, the cold and rain that delayed planting, stunted crop growth, and now threatens to make harvest drag on through Advent—all these…
Read MoreThe Work of His Hands
It is fall, and in the mornings now we run in the dark. I am beginning to see pinpoints of sky among the sycamore trees, and that wonderful smell of leaves giving themselves back to the dust from which they came is just starting to make its presence known…only a subtle whiff, as yet, but…
Read MoreSweet Corn Days
Today has been one of those hot Missouri summer days when any outdoor activity, even walking through the woods, makes your body pour sweat out of every pore. Days like this, when I was a kid, we were up at six to work in the garden, bringing in the produce. Then, when it got hot, Grandma Sander…
Read MoreField Trip
There is no machine cooler than the combine. I’ve known that since I was a very little girl, and I’m delighted that Alex is now old enough to agree with me. Ever since wheat harvest ended (in mid-July), he has been asking when Grandpa would get the combine out so he could take another ride.…
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Kathleen M. Basi 