Chewing the Cud

  • To Be Better Than We Are

    “It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.” Wendell Berry The canyon was tuff.  Sometime ago, long before my memory or that of my parents, a volcano erupted and spread ash across this New Mexican landscape.  When the hottest of ash returns to land it welds itself to…

  • Tomorrow

    Should reincarnation include animals, then I hope for the duck. What life is so wonderful, as one who can swim, fly, and walk.

  • April

    When the sun warms and turns to April there is little reason to travel far from home.  Yet spring is the time of year when church, business, and non-profit meetings come out of the woodwork.  Created within each of us, I imagine, is a springgene of sorts kicking in an emotional calling to engage in…

  • Ditch Bank

      My experience of spring seldom has much to do with the vernal equinox.  Most years the landscape has warmed to spring well ahead of the equinox.  Others afterwards.  Seldom does the feel of landscape match the relationship between sun and earth.  Not so this year. The snow melt-off has begun.  Spring grass may be…

  • Home

    A light rain fell last evening.  Intermittent puddles line the bottom of the irrigation ditch.  The path alongside the ditch is damp and near muddy where vegetation has never taken hold in the alkali crusted soil.  As the alkali eases, small lime-green ground hugging plants keep mud from building up on boot soles.  The small…