Searching for a Balance

A record: one hundred forty five kids for Halloween, and we didn't run out. Of candy. And Dolly didn't run out either (outside, t...

We've got a cat coming into the library; he lives two houses away. He began by hanging around outside the front (electric) doors, greeti...

As a lifelong chocolate lover, even as a kid, I felt certain they must serve m&m's in Heaven (and hot dogs in Hell, since I have nev...

I was beginning to think the little painted rock thing was past, when after two weeks, a new flurry of them have appeared. Ter...

A lot of wind and rain yesterday, and leaves are starting to come down.

"The various emperors of the world can strip the Church of every resource, discredit it in every way, make it powerless to do the works...

We get our ground beef from someone we know who has a dairy farm, and the meat is rather lean - because they're dairy cows? I don...

If you've been reading here a while, you may remember Tootsie, previously Cindy, who used to live with us. Well, her people are currentl...

Sweetie looks like a Halloween cat in this photo, with the mostly orange swamp maple in the background. I look forward to the spectacle...

Sweetie sleeps with me every night. Way back I learned to keep a small container of her dry food nearby, because she will appear before me, ...

"Christianity is not an intellectual system , a packet of dogmas, a moralism; Christianity is rather an encounter, a love story; it is ...

It's funny that on the same plant, you have green peppers, and then these, so thoroughly orange.  Why? Anyway, they're always...

After watching a film version of Mansfield Park, I decided to read the book again. "A young woman, pretty, lively, with a harp as ele...

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes and roofs of villages, on woodland crests and their aerial neighborhoods of nests deserted, o...

Many things have been conspiring against my cooking up our apples, so they sit in a bag on the kitchen floor.  But today Sweetie disc...

"Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight. The evening had changed something for her. Life held a different meaning, a deeper purp...

"A person does not pray primarily to find himself, but to give himself, to enter into a plan of salvation that goes beyond himself ....

As much as I enjoy looking at the new picture books when they come into the library, it often seems they are written to show off the clevern...

"I thought you'd come today. Things that belong together are sure to come together. What a lot of trouble that would save some peop...

An eggplant stem? or a leprechaun's cap?

In an unfamiliar supermarket the other day, and this was on clearance. I didn't know you could even buy sprouted wheat flour! Thought...

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said", counseled Andre Gide , "but since no one was listening, everything ...

Could it be that our Dolly is secretly a little homebody? Or is it just the color scheme?

It's a thing, I guess. On Facebook, so I didn't know about it, since I'm not there. But people are taking smooth rocks and paint...

At the beginning of summer, my brother was given a vegetable plant. He put the medium-sized pot in the garden near the house amongst the oth...

"...Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How...

We're picking the apples now; they are quite small, but clear. The first batch of applesauce was bland - how strange! These apples made ...

Father, hear the prayer we offer: Not for ease that prayer shall be, But for strength that we may ever Live our lives courageously. ...

She sleeps with me every night; she was just on my lap as I was typing. Last night my brother referred to her as "the barnac...

I've discovered how delicious a garden tomato salad can be with a bit of crumbled blue cheese and vinaigrette.

I've been reading a new and very, very interesting book, The Inner Life of Cats , by Thomas McNamee. One chapter treats the feral cat is...