Am I right or am I right, one neighbor asked the other as they walked the few blocks to vote in different primaries. Some people make a good

Two grackles, black birds shiny and iridescent, nest again this year high and deep in our tall spruce.

A minister’s son married a deacon’s daughter after a long courtship. It was difficult at times doing everything right

The call comes in to the police station. It’s a small town and the voice at the library says “He’s at it again.”

Grandma Gretchen’s in her rocker and she has something to say. She tells a visitor, a young man from the city, if he plans to write a book about life on a farm in the Fifties, he likely...

A bitter Christmas morning after a foot of snow last night. I shovel the sidewalk and make my way to the bird feeder. Before I can fill it, the wrens

A rainy Sunday and Pastor Smith is in his pulpit bellowing to the congregation, “I hope you understand

Millicent was the daughter who danced ballet and sang until she met Butchie on a rainy day. He was in coveralls and cowboy hat and fixed

Three times a day a train roars through a field a farm away booming like an Angus bull looking for companionship.

He doesn’t have to prove anything to me. The Holy Spirit, that is. I’ve always known He’s there, from childhood on, even if I ignored Him for many years. But like others growing older, ...

For some nervous wrecks a pill or two might help. For others

twenty-four houses on the same block everyone inside milling about one lost a job

The last visitor before I sleep is always the old priest puffing up the stairs to my door, a wine cask under each arm, a loaf of pumpernickel in his teet…