Latest Posts

Dark Light

There comes a time in the epic saga of parenting when you have to decide whether you’ll introduce kids to darkness, so that something of the mysteries of having a human life could be their companion, or whether you’ll let the world do that for you, so that they could be challenged for years...

Fence

The last ice age surely had its way with our corner of the world. They say the ice sheet was a mile or more thick here, which is a mind boggling verticality. It is almost beyond imagining that anything could emerge from that frozen compression with the ability to grow, but it did. Within...

Fearing Knowing

One of the running prejudices that shows no sign of fatigue or going away in the corner of the world I know something about is the idea that all, or most, of our principal lunacies and strategies for self defeat live in our cities. Cities, full of operatic potential and wizardry, are our crazy...

The Drought

For years we've had beavers on the land, and so far the risen water and the beavers together have killed five acres of bottom land on our already small farm. I've broken the dam several times and found it rebuilt and stronger within a day. I've tried trapping them out winter and summer to...

Old Time

My daughter made the many mile drive to our farm to be with me on Father's Day, and I rewarded her by at one point talking about how I'm getting older. As is proper, she refused to have the conversation, which deepens my respect and admiration of her. Eventually we will have the conversation,...

Full, Dark

A few weeks ago I had a wretched autumn flu, meaning that kids have gone to school, swapped pathogens like playing cards and brought them home for all to enjoy. The fact that you've no school age kids at home doesn't save you. It didn't save me. Some well meaning neighbours...

Grace

If you've lived through a February in the northern part of the world, you've learned some valuable things. Thin layers beat one thick coat, for instance. Felted wool beats woven wool - that may not be science, but it seems true to me. And the shortest days of the year, the ones where...

Rising

Dying people die sometime before spring, if they can. Fierce and implacable, and demanding: spring has that face. The green surge, the endless evening light, the stupor of a curled, private sleep now broken by something strong in the air: all of this makes a claim on the living. It says: If you are...

A Home For The Dark

Like most of you, I grew up in a time and place that prized competence, progress, success, leisure time and anything that seemed full of light. During my lifetime older people have been forced by law to retire, young people unsure of themselves have been driven to mayhem or worse by intimidation and bullying...