It was the coldest night of season and I awoke at 5:30 this morning and turned on the TV to watch “Balalaika” with Nelson Eddy, from under a warm down comforter and snuggled among my doggies.   A point of clarification, Nelson Eddy is in the movie, not in my bed. I grew up with the Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald musicals, and Balalaika (costar is Ilona Massey) was always one of my favorites, and my mom’s, because it...

Impermanence is the stuff of life, which by its very definition is change.  Nature reminds us of this each time we transition from one season into the other.  We readily accept the golden aspen leaves of autumn, the apple blossoms in spring, the crisp frosty mornings of winter, yet fight change in the most common everyday, sometimes insignificant areas of our life.  But it still happens, just as life does. Animals seem to be so much more...

  In the late afternoon summer days of August when the sunflowers pop their heads out of the draws and ditches, and the fields gleam yellow with wild buttercups, I can feel my Nicky and see with my heart the joy he felt when he would run leaping through the fields. Some say that dogs are made of the same “stuff”, “ether”, “energy” as angels, and no other dog in my life exemplified it so much as my Nicky. Always happy, loving...

  I put a lot of time and effort into trying to grow beautiful Old Garden roses.  Last year’s drought was a real challenge and fortunately most of the bushes rallied back this year with a little extra nourishing. But a little less spectacular are these little wildflowers, or “weeds” that grow along my driveway and all over the fields every August.  Even in the scarcity of water last year, they were here, and...