by Carole Duff | Jul 30, 2018 | Faith, Nature |
Last Saturday afternoon, on my way down the mountain to fetch the mail, I noticed a black swallowtail (Papilionidae) sipping nectar from cardinal flowers blooming on the slope beside the upper driveway. The bright red trumpet-shaped blossoms of lobelia cardinalis,...
by Carole Duff | Jul 16, 2018 | Dogs & Other Creatures, Family, Local or Human Interest |
Heathcliff and Freya barked and whined in excitement. “As soon as you sit down, we’ll let the dogs out of our bedroom to greet you,” Keith and I said to our family houseguests. My daughter sat on the sofa, holding her thirteen-month-old daughter in her lap. Heathcliff...
by Carole Duff | Jul 9, 2018 | Faith, Nature, Writing and Reading |
Juxtaposition: the placement of two or more things side by side. This morning, along the meadow edge, I noticed a lone daylily in bloom, its buds somehow missed by the deer. What a blessing, I said to myself, and perhaps more blossoms to come if the deer don’t...
by Carole Duff | Jul 2, 2018 | Dogs & Other Creatures, Local or Human Interest, Writing and Reading |
Today is shower day for Heathcliff and Freya—and you know from this post that bathing is not their favorite activity. Here, drying on the deck, they might play bitey-face or snooze. If they hear a vehicle on the mountain road, their whines, yips, and barks alert us,...
by Carole Duff | Jun 25, 2018 | Dogs & Other Creatures, Nature |
Yesterday late in the afternoon, I heard another of those sickening thumps on one of the greenhouse windows in our dining room. After days of rain, the sun had come out, making it harder for birds to distinguish windows from forest. I looked on the deck near the dog...
by Carole Duff | Jun 18, 2018 | Faith, Family, Nature, Writing and Reading |
“Housekeeping is home’s daily chores of faith, hope, and love. It doesn’t hold out for what might never be. Instead, it wrings good from what is.” -Jen Pollock Michel I reach for a book, wipe dust off the top, pile it on the previous one, and reach for...