Falling Apart

Every living system encounters entropy, which is a gradual change marked by disorder and incremental collapse of the healthy state.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

The following is an excerpt from my book, “Accidental Rancher,” and documents my introduction to a western Dakota tradition: Lefse making. Lefse will always be special to our family because it is so special to my husband.

Medicare Advantage

TV is flooded these days with commercials encouraging everyone to sign up for Medicare Advantage(MA). What is MA and why are they doing this? First of all, a bit of history.

Family Traditions

Every Thanksgiving, my family hauls out box after box of Christmas decorations and assembles the artificial tree together. We don’t use real trees, as removing a new tree from nature for just a few weeks seems wasteful, so our tradition is not to do that.

Ambu

A friend of mine and I went to visit Theresa, her sister, who was a nurse in a big city hospital. In an era long before COVID, at the height of the HIV epidemic, Theresa was surrounded daily by death.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

December is date month on our ranch —as least as far as the sheep are concerned. After a few years of trials and a whole bunch of errors, we finally decided to try lambing during the month of May. December 1st the bucks went in with the ladies, and then we waited.

Practicing Gratitude

I love Thanksgiving. I love preparing the food all day and enjoying it while sitting around a table with some of the people I love most. And there is one holiday tradition that I have grown to adore. As we sit down to eat, we share one thing we feel grateful for this year.

Stray Thoughts When Alzheimer’s Comes

Teachers spend their lives filling their minds with facts and figures from all they have done. They may not know much about your field of study, but they can sure answer questions in detail about their own specialty areas.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

The plague of grasshoppers that descended on us last spring may have been a disaster for the vegetable and grain crops, but was a boon for at least one group here on the ranch–the chickens.

Little Pasture on the Prairie

Last week, I wrote lamenting the wintery weather we were experiencing, then added a brief caveat hoping that our luck would change and we’d have a warmer November.