Category: Pineknot Farm and Lab

Christmas. True That.

The wind blew slightly and there was no snow but there could have been. The foggy, wet night was heavy, rising only enough to halo

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The Way Life Works

Prayer is a strange thing.  Really.  Imagine believing in the productive outcome of a form of communication that largely resides and is expressed solely in

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Letting Go

I’ve been cleaning out a lot of stuff.  Of course I have been saying that for a while now. But with me, because I am

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My Josh

  On this day in 1983, early on a Sunday morning, Silent Bob and I left for the hospital. I was 2 weeks past my

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Daniel Scahill

Daniel graduated from Wiesbaden High School in Wiesbaden, Germany. While in high school, he participated in Army JROTC, Cross Country, Soccer, Track and Field, and

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My Two Veterans

I give thanks to all of those that I know who have served with these two veteran sons of mine.  I am thinking about you,

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Honey

All summer long the girls in my hives have been working. They scrounged the country side for pollen and nectar.  Because not much bloomed in

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The Pool Guy

When Silent Bob and I bought the house I live in, it had been abandoned for over 2 years. Sitting higher up than all of

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Tender Mercies

If my Silent Bob were still here he would have gotten me a card.  It would have been pretty and sentimental and he would have

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Lily

Lily Connolly is a senior Political Science major and Military Studies minor from Santa Barbara, California. She will graduate and commission as an Adjutant General

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Be The Cam

Cams have been used in engineering from the 3rd century BC, in everything from music boxes to combustion engines.  Janet thinks of them as ‘oblong

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Forgiveness

I miss my husband. I do. You learn that when suffering tragedies and heartbreak, you have to make a choice to either fall into the

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Where Am I?

Thinking back, these last few weeks, I’ve been trying to remember what I have hoped for over the six decades I have lived. I am

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My Silent Bob

Robert R. Siefert, Jr. March 12, 1951 – January 31, 2020 On January 31, 2020 around 10 pm, my husband passed on to Paradise. If

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The Birds and the Bees

This is not about our family farm. Explicit content included. “What do you mean there are no sex education classes,” I asked, my voice escalating

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Olives and Sons

It was the summer of 2011 and Josh had just come off his second deployment and I had a conference in Greece. We made plans

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Dear Chick-Fil-A

Dear Chick-Fil-A I am sitting in the drive though at Walter’s Road and FM 1960 in Houston and I thought you might like some feedback!

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To Build a Fire

The family of four set around the fire. They were the only campers, having arrived past the weekend, so they had their pick of campsites.

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Thanksgiving

I can’t tell you if it was the fact that alcoholism dominated our family dynamics or if it was a legacy affect from dysfunction going

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My Josh. My Jake.

I missed them both terribly. I never thought, when they were young, to worry about them going off to war. It was a total of

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This Day’s Joy

Dealing with the hardships of life that sometimes make finding joy difficult, according to Jake in an AIM message with his mother on July 29th,

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October

October is the month that God is good to remind me that life doesn’t make sense without Him.  If you aren’t a believer, it’s okay

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Honey for Sale

We’ve harvested our honey.  We are selling a limited number of jars to locally interested parties. 9 ounces for 10 dollars. (Just under a pound)

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So.. Sew!!!!!

Mother insisted I take Home Economics a thousand years ago. (For those of you who might be too young, that was the class in high

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Where did Happy Monday go?

“How come you aren’t writing your Happy Monday’s anymore?” Neil says. We were at the end of our phone conversation. The question came a little bit

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Spanish Needle

“I don’t understand what the bees forage off of down here.” Neil is walking through the pasture, I’m keeping up with him wondering if I

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24/7 Janet-Care

My Mother and I love each other despite the fact that as adult women we have lived together for over 40 years. Shared genetics does

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Eu-Social?

“That buzzing-noise means something. If there’s a buzzing noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of

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Golden Bee Beauty

I’ve wanted honey bees out at the farm for months. To have honey bees is…  sexy.  Sexy in that politically correct kind of way… as in

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Familia

The little girl’s tight, golden curls sprung from her head in all directions. They bounced when the 4 year old talked so they were in

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Bake With Me

“I’m going to come down the last weekend of August, if that’s okay?” That was my brother’s son,  a young man busy understanding life. I’ve

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What’s In A Name

“When I was a young woman, the girls that put out got to ride in the convertibles.” Mother said this while she was having her

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August 11

Just like everyone else in the summer, I’ve done a bit of movie watching. Because I never know what the movie is about or how

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Louise

My brother called early this morning. That’s not so unusual, but I had been waiting for this particular call. “Janet, your Aunt Louise died at

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Doris Huddle Turns 84

In celebration of my mother’s birthday and for your information and education, Doris cooks Salmon, a meal guaranteed to love no matter your age.  

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Bee Update

Remember the hive I got a year ago from my brother? Well, in a year, this girl has done her job. Did you find her?

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Life in the Woods

We’d piled into various cars. There were too many of us. We were headed to overpasses and intersections known for sheltering the homeless of northwest

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True That

The older I got the more times Dad  would find a moment when we’d be talking… no, he’d be taking.. and he’d say “God showed

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Aint No Haints Here

“Why don’t  you stop at Arbor Gate and see if they have  one?” Mother suggested. The winter sun was streaming in the truck windshield. I

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Giving

Let’s call her ‘M’. I know M because about 8 years ago and for every two weeks since, M has come to my house to

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Dear Mr. Colbert

Dear Mr. Colbert, I know you are very busy getting ready for your late night talk show. But I would like to ask a favor.

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The Bees in August

What are the honey bees doing at the farm, you might ask. Well, I am very glad you did. Because I have wondered myself. It’s

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Go Greek

If you’ve been reading anything about me you know that just about 9 years ago I joined an unusual Sunday School in the church I

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Pear-fect

I like to cook. Currently, because I do very little in the way of artistic expression in any other media, cooking serves my soul and

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The Iron Off

I love being the mother of three boys. That’s not to say that if God had seen fit to give me girls that I wouldn’t

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Atom Ant

“No, Mother, you cannot take that piece of junk out of the trash.” I had moved the old wicker bookshelf from one room to another.

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Testimony

“It’s like there is a shadow over their place,” said Mother, looking at the truck and closed house of our neighbors to the north. “I

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Gene

I remember the first time I met Gene. It was a cold, wintery day at the farm. I had been researching the wooded area north

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Bees at the Farm

On Monday,  Neil called and said he was on his way down from Fort Worth. When he pulled into the driveway in Houston, I knew

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A Turtle in The Road

I’d just picked up Mother from her daily very local shopping trip. About four times each year she has bouts of car sickness. This was

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Better Call Saul

I’ve read the reviews on Better Call Saul. It’s a quirky, one hour long, mostly dark, part comedy television series that is a spin off

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Memorize Me

Since January, the teacher of a class I attend challenged all of the attenders to memorize the entire book of 1 John, two verses a

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The Year of the Phage

Phage, you might say. It’s an interesting story. Let me begin where I began. About ten years ago, I was trying to understand something called

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Bradley Cooper

I wasn’t a fan of Bradley Cooper in Hangover or Failure to Launch. I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing him in Silver Linings Playbook so

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Goodbye to All That

Not too long after my Jake went to Heaven, someone asked me if I had found out anything about him that surprised me. I said

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The Covers on My Bed

Sometimes you find just the right combination. Ever once in a while, completely independent of talent or conscious choice, something comes together perfectly. Like my

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Deaf and Dumb

Back in Arkansas, tn the middle of the woods, behind my childhood home and a little to the south, was a school for special ed

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Astronomy Thursday

Hubble is busy taking pictures. I ran across a post explaining about a particular photo that Hubble took.. I can’t write the magnificence of Hubble’s

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Katrina

Katrina was one of those kind of people. I first heard of her when I received a notice for a workshop that she was holding.

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Where I Am Supposed To Be

I’ll admit it. Since childhood I have suffered from brain chemistry that can provoke slips into depression and anxiety.  It’s very clear that some of

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Pretty Soon

I’ve been concocting. Not quite a witches brew, but someone did accuse me the other day of running a compound pharmacy. He was jealous. I

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Random

I had a new friend email this morning. She lives in another city. She is getting ready for trial and was relating a dream she

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A Brother’s Love

“I read a story today that reminded me of you,” said brother Neil. He’s talking to me on his iPhone as we do our almost

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Hey Jake!

Just a note from this side of Heaven on your birthday. To tell you I love you. I’m still trying to do something with your

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Barefoot

When I was young, the mark of summer was going without shoes. I loved those days. As cool nights gave way to hotter days, there

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Parsimony

I remember the first time I heard that word. Parsimony. It was about my second year of graduate school. It only took me two years

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Ants with Chips

We’ve been getting our tennis in right after the sun comes up. Its too hot otherwise. Four of us are out there, water bottles in

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Farm Babies

The birds are going crazy at the farm. They are mating. They are incubating. Cycling from mating, egg laying, to fledging. And then they start

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A Life Remembered

When I was four my sister died. Her little body, thin, her lungs structured with malformed sodium channels, she succumbed and went to heaven at

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A Little Art

Do you know who Charlie Harper is? He drew this: And this one too.. And this one, which makes me think of spring. He was

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A Little Music

Ever so often I’m in the mood for a little Leonard Cohen. His distinctive gravelly baritone rolls out of my earbuds, half zen, half folk,

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The MS 150

Decades ago, my oldest son, when he was a young teen, rode in the MS 150. I remember going with he and his Dad the

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Coffee

The woman stretched. She’d never put curtains on the windows, she liked to see the sky. She could tell that on the other side of

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Brian

I’ve talked about Brian. Here, and here. For a little boy who I saw only a couple of times a month, he was never far

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Spanish Class

I hate that I am not bilingual. I certainly have had opportunity. I have had in-laws whose native language was Spanish, I have worked for

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Merry Christmas

Every year at this time, every denomination that holds to Christmas tradition, has a play of some sort, a concert at least, centered around the

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Starling Swarm

We all stood still staring into the sky. The tennis game came to a halt, we were transfixed. “What is that?” said the tall blonde,

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V’ger

Back in the 60’s I crushed on Captain Kirk. My Dad, noticing, hated it and told me so. Many times. Preteen, armed with reproductive knowledge,

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Bat Delivery

Someone left this adorable, singing bat on my doorstep. I’m still smiling from just how freakin’ cute he is and how adorable the certain party

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You Have Me at Maps

I love maps. I love them more the older I get. It’s possible that’s because maps give perspective and wisdom comes from perspective that I

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Bee Love

Oak Hill street contained seventeen cracker box houses with ample backyards and rock or asphalt drives. The road itself rose slightly from its intersection off

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The Price of Television

I am completely enamored with today’s technology. Smart phones and tablets and GPS and internet radio, along with bluetooth, DSL and cell phones that work

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Dovie Makes Contact

It’s me again, Helen! After reading about you and your home in Texas, I thought I’d share about mine in northeast Arkansas, bordering the bootheel

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Damn Fire Ants

I think the fire ants are the worst they have ever been. They ate my okra plants this year. THEY ATE MY OKRA PLANTS. I

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Farm Magic

Mother and I and all the dogs went to the farm on our regular midweek trip. John, middle son and the teacher, came with us.

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A Weekend

It’s been spring break for most people. Some went out of town. Some tried to go out of town. Some stayed in town. Us? Well,

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A Tomato Spring

We’ve been working in the garden at the farm. The ground is all tilled, we could use a bit more water in the form of

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Stuart

The conference list of speakers had been set months ago. I was to talk on the last day. Thirty or so friends and colleagues of

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Dinner at 6

The long dining table had three leaves. There were seventeen chairs place around it’s perimeter,  leaving room for elbows and scooting in and out. Silent

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Pigeon Enlgish

by Stephen Kelman “Advise yourself.” This is a book that may break your heart, but you will enjoy every minute of it. When I read

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Eight Weeks to Eighty

  It was fall and Mother and I were sitting outside on the concrete picnic table. We have breakfast out there frequently. “Mother, you’ll be

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The Blind Assassin

by Margaret Atwood “Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” Suicide? Accident? What happened? This intriguing book

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Corduroy Mansions

by Alexander McCall Smith It is always good news when Alexander McCall Smith creates a new series. I am a big fan of this writer

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In Praise of Jerga

Sometimes I see things I really want. Take for instance the utility sink that my amiga had in her Mexican home, when I was visiting

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Mother’s Day Redux

“I think you need a brooder box for your birthday,” says brother Neil. I don’t want to raise anything else, I think to myself. “No”.

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Elementor #1

[slideshow] Welcome to Pineknot Farm and Lab where Readers Digest meets Ladies Home Journal meets Scientific American meets some weirder, non-new age version of Daily

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The TV Closet

My dad was adamant. Television rotted your brain. He never said it exactly like that, it was more like “it’s a boob tube, Janet. The

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December 15, 2008

I think in Howard’s mind and heart, we cemented our friendship the season we played lepers in the church Christmas program. That was more than

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Geese From Above

On Monday’s I’ve taken to visiting with my friend Howard. We sort of spend the day together waiting for the chemo to do its job

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Balance

I sat in the conference center; stiff chairs set in a steep incline, angled so that everyone could view the small stage and see the

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Again, Mexico, Again

I don’t quite know why, but Mexico speaks to my soul. It’s not because I speak the language; I limp along down there, struggling to

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Mexico Bound

I am on my way to Merida Mexico tonight. I had a lot of things to say, seems to be a lot on my mind,

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Hold My Hand

I watched fine sand grains fall away as I took a step onto the bank of Cypress Creek. This suburban, soggy, watershed has been a

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Meanness

I knew a young woman once. She had the most beautiful, brownish red, full bodied hair, which she wore long. It curled in just the

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Another October 20th

Hey my Jake,  Happy Monday up there in Heaven. I am writing you because today is the third anniversary of your getting there.  You know your

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Howard

Today, I don’t have any words. They are locked in my heart and won’t come out. I have some people on my heart that my

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Men in Trees, Really

The winds that came through Houston on the night Ike came ashore on the Galveston beaches were faster than I have ever driven a car.

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A Morning for Birds

Laying on my squeaking air mattress, I was wide awake, had been for at least an hour. And its THAT hour, that long hour before

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Walking Home

There was a woman who walked the streets of my neighborhood. I haven’t seen her in a while, but for almost two years, I saw

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Dirt Under My Feet

When I was young, one of the best pleasures for me was getting to go barefooted. Soon as I heard the June bugs and lightning

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Dad

I thought my dad was handsome. Maybe all daughters think that about their dads. I know that a good part of why I thought he

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Say Hello To Tony

I saw Tony Snow the first time on television when he was announcing that he was leaving his job as press secretary for President Bush.

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Another Tree Story

The pine tree stood at the edge of the pasture, once majestic and green with bark of brown and gray, but now ghostly white. Branches

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Pears on Branches

There are two pear trees that frame the path to the back door of the old house. When we first walked the property, before we

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Coming Home

At the height’s of Dad’s active alcoholism, Brother Pointer took him to Alcoholics’ Anonymous. I don’t know too much about that car ride for dad,

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Josh Deployed

I finally got to talk to Josh. The first time in 8 months, since he left, I got to hear his voice Saturday, a little

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Memorial Day 2008

Right after I had my third son I set about worrying about the responsibility of raising three men, keeping them out of danger and ensuring

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RM Vroom Vroom

It all started with excess appliances at the farm. It’s easy in this life to accumulate too much, it’s had too get rid of all

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Labors of Love

The first weekend of work on the floors of our old farmhouse began with out much discussion or thought. We just started massively ripping out

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A Brother Teaches

If you have read these Happy Monday’s the last two years, you have a sense of how much I love my brother. I asked God

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Chicken Janet

The first few weeks at the farm we realized we had inherited some farm animals. There were two cats skulking around, one huge, multicolored, and

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Squaring a Home

I heard a story about Jake from one of his friends. We were reminiscing and he was sharing.   He and Jake were out by his

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A Very Bad Thing

I did something awful. I didn’t mean to, but just the same, I did something of which I am deeply ashamed.   This weekend we were

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Grace Again

February 12, 2008 I drove Grace this past week. I think she remembered me from two years ago. Let me explain. Grace is Jake’s first

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Silent Bob Works

Howdy and Happy Monday!  I have been thinking about my husband. For 17 years he has left the house at 5:30 every morning to travel

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Christmas Ready

Howdy and Happy Monday to you! Hope you are having a better time at getting your Christmas shopping done than I am. I rarely go

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The Winds of Change

Gulf coast winters are almost all about mild, which means if you are the kind of person who likes to watch and poke a campfire

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Josh Deploys

Howdy and Happy Monday! I missed talking to you last week. I have a lot my heart wants to write, Mexico always refreshes my soul

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Elk Camp

My dad told me, “Janet, don’t ever judge how someone grieves”. He said it in a voice that was at once commanding but filled with

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Church and Courage

The last couple of times I have been in church, I have caught myself wondering whether or not we are getting bigger or smaller? Not

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Jake Remembered

Dear Jake,  Happy Monday up there in Heaven. I wanted to tell you about something, son. Remember the time you took me to Mulligans to

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Brother Neil

September 17, 2007 Today is my brother’s birthday. If you ever wonder if your prayers are answered, Neil is an example of one. When my

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Hats and Caps

For as long as I can remember, my dad wore a hat. He used it for his switchman’s railroad work and he wore it when

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Believing in God

My dad and I spent a lot of time together. I was dad’s first child and in spite of him desperately wanting a son, according

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Lake Nimrod

All this month my brother’s flights have allowed him weekly overnights in Houston. It’s been the rare treat to go down and pick him up

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A Time for Everything

Howdy and Happy Monday Well this week has seen the start of two families into marraiage contracts blessed by God and one dear friend’s mother

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July 4th, 2007

Howdy and Happy Monday!!  Mother’s day of 2005 Jake gave me a book about Abraham Lincoln, A Commitment to Honor, A Unique Portrait in His

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Father’s Day 2007

Howdy and Happy Monday! Today it’s just about Father’s Day! This Happy Monday is dedicated to all you  dads, gonna be dads and father of children.

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Memorial Day 2007

Well, Happy Monday Yal’ll, just barely. Today is a day to remember all those soldiers who have given their all. For me, its personal as

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Peckerwood Garden

I woke up Saturday morning with no particular plans. Spent a bit of quiet time, Bob brought me some coffee, and the phone started to

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Jake Today

  I missed last week, mosly because I was out of the country and there was no internet. My head cold today is preventing me

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Do Something

Jake’s been on my mind a lot this past week. That means I have been missing him, at night more than I think I can

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St. Patrick

Howdy! I want to tell you about a good day. Every once in a while, a day comes along, that if you had been God,

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Peace Like a River

March 12, 2007 I am thinking about fishing. Maybe it’s because Dad took me fishing on my birthday for many years or maybe it’s because

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Daffodils

March 5, 2007 Happy Monday!!  Those of us here in the South can feel spring in the air. Its right around the corner and the

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Moses and His Girl

Happy Monday and Howdy. I really missed sending you a good wish for the last week. But here we are back to it, the end

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Brick and Rock

I have a vague, dusty memory of my Dad and I as we rambled down a dirt road in his old Ford truck. I remember

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Man from U.N.C.L.E

Howdy!  (5th Happy Monday of 2007, rewritten Sept 21, 2019. When I was a young one of the shows I watched religiously was ‘The Man from

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3rd Happy Monday of 2007

Howdy! Happy Monday ya’ll!  Well…It’s only the third Happy Monday and it’s already turning out to be a bit more difficult than I imagined.  Its

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The Desert

When I go to the Mexican desert I go for a couple of reasons. Most of them are professional, it’s a place of remarkable biology

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do it!

for more, much more...

All the ideas, advice, and opinion six decades can provide… and maybe a little wisdom.

do it!

for more, much more...

All the ideas, advice, and opinion six decades can provide… and maybe a little wisdom.