“Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter,” the Beatles sang, and while my winter wasn’t so lonely, it felt unduly long and...

In the last week, the temperatures have risen well over 70 degrees, what we expect in April and not in late December, but my dubious joy...

Beyond the lower temperatures and chigger count, there’s something else that truly distinguishes this time of year: the changing of the...

Here’s a post about my new podcast, “Tell Me Your Truest Story.” Please listen to the podcast here. For me, it’s always been the trees...

Suddenly, I’m searching for sweaters, cursing the lack of mittens with me for a walk, and shiver-driving around town for the interminable...

Each day I crave a clear view of a clear sky, but fog, snow, sleet, rain, freezing rain, and variety packs of all this percipitation at...

This has been a summer of porch-sitting, and as eye recovery and associated surprises and lessons continue their roaring hum, I’ve done...

When I saw the video, I was amazed at how calm and calming the humans and, to some extent, the snake were in doing what it took for the...

Emily Dickinson writes, “I started early — Took my dog.” In my case, I started late and took my croissant, and unlike Dickinson, I wasn’t looking for mermaids in the basement of the ocean or fleeing from the silver-tongued tide. Nope, I was savoring one flowering tree after another, that and buttery layers of flakey wonder. Each spring, I hit the pause button on my life at some moment, and if I’m smart, many moments, and head out into the neighborhoods to worship at the flee

Daylight Savings Time, beside being a kick that keeps kicking our sleeping patterns for a while, heralds a kind of lightening up,...

As life has repeatedly, February is the longest month. Maybe it’s the overwrought repetition of cold, ice, and snow after months of...

I started teaching when I was 26. It was English 101 at the University of Kansas, a gig I figured would help me get through graduate...

With temperatures rising to summertime and good rains falling last week, everything is speeding into growth around this house. The hostas...

I felt that call of the garden as soon as Ken and I stepped out for our evening walk around the edges of the fields. “Let’s just stay...

I love magnolia trees. Let me be more honest: I really and deeply love magnolia blossoms, and it’s one of my recurring nightmares to miss...

I love the prevernal season perhaps best of all: that space between the start of spring and before the leafing out of the big, green...

The starlings grabbed my attention while I was pacing the living room on a phone call. They poured diagonally down to the lawn, fanning...

One of my and maybe your ongoing problems with fall as well as spring — especially in these regions where we have four distinct seasons —...

Photo by Stephen Locke, used with permission The kids were already in the front seats when I arrived at the Coffey County Library branch...

Snow, do you forsake the forsythia? This land’s Osage Indians, like many tribal people, named each month for its ecological context,...