Chewing the Cud

  • Redemptive Normal

    “I can’t wait to get back to normal.”  Earnestly said.  We’ve all said it in one way or another this last year.   Four of us stood in the pasture.  A late winter breeze caused each of us to raise our coat collar.  We’d gathered to talk about landscape practices, the need of land care, and our struggle to maintain…

  • Twelfth Day

    White breath emerged from our masks.  On the fifth morning of Christmas a friend stopped by to load a ton of hay for his horses and cattle.  As sunlight filtered through the overcast sky we warmed to the work. Backed to the haystack, the pickup’s tailgate left just enough space to load the lower bales…

  • Gift

    A friend gave us a handful of cuzinni seeds a few years ago.  Being a “Seeder,” the only one I know, he cannot help himself when it comes to seeds.  Whether walking a sidewalk or the countryside, he revels in the partaking of seeds freely given by plants.  When he tells a story of finding…

  • Troubles

    kelly clark fotography They set fire and burned a Mi’kmaq lobster pound in Middle West Pubnico to the ground.  I had no idea Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq are having significant troubles with commercial fishers until Crow Eddy, Disciple Mi’kmaq artist, friend, and Co-Moderator of the Center for Indigenous Ministries, told me.  This was disturbing in at…

  • Nickname

    Autumn arrives quietly with shortening days and cooler weather.  Her arrival is easy to miss in the time of harvest.  There is no knock on the front door.  She enters through the back door, quietly as if it is her own, and settles down in the kitchen and waits to see if you notice.  If not for glancing the…