I realized something just now. Call me dense for not realizing it before, but I know now why Disney was so crowded. Our entire state went to Florida after Christmas. Obviously there’s something about this state that draws people. As a child, my grandparents took me on long, wandering vacations all over the West, and…
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Seven 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 MoreToad Rescue
Okay, so it wasn’t a toad. It was probably a tree frog. It had been sitting on the outer sill of our upstairs window all day, its little toad chin pulsing, a brownish lump in the corner of the glass. Alex was out playing, so it wasn’t until evening, when Christian discovered it, that Alex…
Read MoreIn the Moonlight
Moonlight has a color all its own. We call it silver, white, blue, yellow…but none of those quite capture the essence of what we see. There’s nothing quite like the light of a full moon. All the words used in literature—ghostly, mysterious, pale, tricksy—come to mind when I look out over my back yard at…
Read MoreBlackberry Season
The summer we moved into this house (two years ago), I was working at the edge of the property, and I kept getting snagged on these huge thorn bushes. Finally I put on long sleeves and got the clippers, and I chopped them down three feet back into the rough. A few days later, my…
Read MoreTo Be
The smell of spring permeates the air—the sweetness of crabapple, the heady perfume of lilac—and redbud petals lie strewn across the path at the entry to the woods. Deep down the path, the tiny wildflowers they call “shooting star” cluster at the base of towering oak trees. Frogs and birds sing, click, peep, into the…
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Kathleen M. Basi 