One night many years ago I was watching the sky and saw a remarkable thing. All the stars were twinkling except one. It looked like a...

A penguin was standing on the welcome mat when I opened my front door.  It was Halloween, and I had a fistful of miniature Snicker bars...

Before the coronavirus raised its ugly head and scared everyone away from the city, I lived there part-time while I taught at a local...

(How long is the Alcan Highway?  When was it built?  What does the British Commonwealth have to do with the Alcan?) If life is a journey,...

The tall guard at the Canadian-Alaskan border crossing asked me to take off my sunglasses so he could compare my physical appearance to...

Suddenly I’m keenly aware of how much it takes to keep me operative. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” my husband chides me. Dale’s...

“Oh mom, you are so competitive.  You know that right?” I shrugged.  She sounded like the mature adult next to my adolescent resistance....

“No you didn’t,” I took a sip of my hot coffee.  “You snored all night.” “That wasn’t a snore.  That was me grunting, trying to keep up...

Life gets real on the farm—meaning sometimes cruel.  Those of us who live more urbanely, shopping for hermetically sealed dairy, meat,...

Maybe my fondness for this book’s title has to do with the fact that I once was an easterner.  Like many transplants, I lived other...

We drove through the Duck Valley Indian Reservation on the Idaho-Nevada border this past week, and I thought about the many times my...

To those of you who ask why raise chickens, I say why not? Especially during the age of coronavirus, companion animals can be an...

“Could it be a meteor?  Maybe a little chunk of meteor rock fell from the sky into my back window,” I suggested. He looked at me...

I grew up in a little box of a house in an Indiana suburb.  There were houses on either side of us and one across the street.  As far as...

I remember the first time I really looked at the canyon and noticed it’s beauty. I was newly married and had just moved to a desert farm...

How does anyone like dogs?  They eat their own poo (well, some do) and like to roll around in dead fish or worse, my flower beds.  They...

“Mom, do you know anything about putting chains on tires?” She looked at me horrified—and I shrugged. It was an old habit, asking mom for...

If an Idahoan ran for president, would it be apparent he’s from Idaho? How would an Idahoan be viewed in the political spotlight? George...

“You have to understand . . . ,” he paused a second, both of us were breathing heavy from race-walking, “. . . I grew up in New York.”...

I’ve taken several road trips through the West since airplane travel is not my favorite form of terror. The upside of a flying phobia is...