Poking around Routt County, Colorado (shown above) last week, my husband and I ran across this chalked message on the sidewalk of the beautiful public trail along the Yampa River: It reads, “What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about?” When I read it, I laughed aloud. And maybe that is an important […]
Even in the heat of August and in the midst of drought, a walk along the diminishing creek shares secret glories. This week, here in the Texas hill country, I saw ordinary little miracles. A green kingfisher winged above the creek at my eye-level as I stood on the bank. Turkey gobblers lolled in the […]
During the summer before sixth grade, I watered the tomatoes in my mother’s large garden next to the chicken house, reading a Hardy Boys mystery as I slouched in a lawn chair and waited to move the hose to the next plant. The plants were several feet high, staked and arranged in two long rows. […]
My paternal grandmother enticed squirrels close to her house: she tied a shallow tin can in the hackberry tree next to the side porch with a piece of baling wire, put a few shelled pecans in, and waited patiently inside the window, her .22 caliber rifle lying across her calico-aproned lap. No squirrels were going […]
One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the . . . marvelous structure of reality. — Albert Einstein A handsome dragonfly–a widow skimmer, I believe–is gracing my garden these days. It has been much too quick for me and my camera; dragonflies are such excellent fliers that aviation engineers research them hoping […]
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. –Ralph Waldo Emerson Among my perennials, several plants worry me each spring by not showing up on time. That is, they don’t show up when I think they should; I fret that they must have frozen during the winter and won’t be returning at all. So when […]
When I’m outside, my mind both calms and awakens. At least that’s the way I perceive it, and it seems I’m not alone. According to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, “Over one hundred studies . . . confirm that one of the main benefits of spending time in nature is stress […]
I’ve been musing lately about the mechanisms of the food chain. In our household we’ve been viewing the televised seven-part series North America on the Discovery channel, and I often find myself rooting for the prey when predators are featured in hot pursuit. This documentary is beautifully done, and, I must say, it’s refreshing to notice […]
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. –Loren Eiseley Here in the Texas hill country on this May Saturday morning, it’s been raining off and on for the past thirty hours or so. The forecast for the next few hours is for more thunderstorms, so I zipped outside just now […]
Prickly pear cactus blooms always remind me of my mother. They seem to flower here in the Texas hill country around Mother’s Day every year, and they’ve been coloring the landscape with their sunny faces this week: After I became an adult, when I would visit my mother–before she started the long Alzheimer’s decline toward […]
Studies in Color and Composition
Radical Retirement
A Glimpse into My Life & Passions
Joann Pensabene
Where observation and imagination meet nature in poetry.
pursuing a life of purpose
Writing our way to awareness
Living life outside the lines
A Story Circle Network blog for and by women
A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America
Practicing Wonder 