Practicing Gratitude

I love Thanksgiving. I love preparing the food all day and enjoying it while sitting around a table with some of the people I love most. And there is one holiday tradition that I have grown to adore. As we sit down to eat, we share one thing we feel grateful for this year.

Stray Thoughts When Alzheimer’s Comes

Teachers spend their lives filling their minds with facts and figures from all they have done. They may not know much about your field of study, but they can sure answer questions in detail about their own specialty areas.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

The plague of grasshoppers that descended on us last spring may have been a disaster for the vegetable and grain crops, but was a boon for at least one group here on the ranch–the chickens.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

Last week, I wrote lamenting the wintery weather we were experiencing, then added a brief caveat hoping that our luck would change and we’d have a warmer November.

This man I once met

I met a man once who was different. He spoke differently and acted in a way in which I had never seen before.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

Most of the trees in the windbreaks still had their leaves when winter abruptly arrived this week. The storm started as lashing rain then turned to sleet. The sun set and the wind came up.

Talk to a neighbor, feel better, save humanity

Don’t let all the bad news get you down. True, we’re facing lots of crises, some of which even carry a risk of human extinction (nuclear war, climate change, maybe even AI). But there is hope, and you can start experiencing it simply by chatting with your neighbors.

Stray Thoughts: First

Two dozen years later, she is the first one I think of when I wake up in the morning, the first one I want to share my day with, and the first one I look to for answers.

Get your eyes checked

If you ever played baseball, you may have been told to “keep your eye on the ball.” When batting, a baseball player is taught to watch the ball the entire time from when it leaves the pitcher’s hand to when, hopefully, their bat smacks the ball for a hit.

Stray Thoughts: The Auction

If you want to learn about human nature, attend an auction. The curious gather around to mull through the bits and pieces, the land-locked equivalent of jetsam and flotsam remaining of a business or personal life that has gone underwater.