Home Country

We have a master gardener in our family. Two, actually. My wife, Catherine, and her identical twin, Eleanor. These women spent a whole year studying stuff like how to grow things that you’d like to have and how to avoid growing things that turn your stomach.

Home Country

Spring mornings are a lot like Christmas. Each day we get up and go out into the yard, or walk along the creek or visit the horses in the pasture. And each day, each morning, we find something new the sun has brought us.

Stray Thoughts: The Master’s hand (revisited)

I grew up as many of you in middle America did, attending church (often grudgingly) with my mother.Years of Sunday School, pulpit messages, songs, and confirmation classes did their thing, so I became a “normal” bible-believing Christian.Then I went to college and studied science.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

There is perhaps no greater sign of spring in these parts than the arrival of baby chicks to the local feed store. I say this because some years spring brings blizzards, some years dry wind and dust, some years the proverbial showers and resulting May flowers.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

I don’t remember which story about seed saving I heard first, but there are two that stick in my mind as the most memorable. One is about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the world’s largest secure seed bank, located deep inside a mountain in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic.

What the heart wants (is exercise)

Cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of death in the US as well as a very common cause of chronic illness and disability. Heart attacks, heart failure, and strokes result in about 2500 deaths per day in the US, according to the American Heart Association.

PRESSED BETWEEN THE PAGES: The stories inside a box

It’s a car! It’s a train! It’s a house! It’s super-box! Typical of the times, nothing was wasted, not even corrugated or cardboard containers.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

I enjoyed hearing from quite a few of you about my column a few weeks back concerning the “fog calendar,” and its predictive abilities!

PRESSED BETWEEN THE PAGES: Precious to paltry in two-plus centuries

Long ago when America was made up of colonies, president Washington patted his powdered wig and established the first U.S. Mint. Unfortunately, it was not a candy company, but part of the Treasury Department that made money.

Old age, only 10 years away

Every year I ask my students, “how old is old?” The answers vary, but the most honest response I’ve ever received came from a patient who said, “old is 10 years older than my age.” We all tend to push aging just out of reach, as though it belongs to someone else.