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Unexpected Mothers
Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day, but mothers can take unexpected forms, proven by these incredible examples of surrogates across species. Earning first prize in my interspecies mother-of-the-year photo contest is a medium-sized dog with seven baby opossums clinging onto her back. After the mother opossum was killed, the dog owner bottle-fed the orphans. The dog […]
Mother Earth Observes
My eyes water. My throat feels scratchy. My lungs burn. People say I’m doomed; that I, Mother Earth, will never recover. I worry that they could be right. The wind stirs my grasses. I watch. A family heads out for a day at the park. I see how they’re enjoying spending time with me. Their […]
Daughter Turns Forty
My first-born child turned forty this spring. Was it truly 40 years ago that I sat in a stream of March sunlight in the living room awaiting her birth? The thrill of holding my daughter for the first time must be timeless since I still recall studying her fuzzy reddish-blonde hair, her full lips […]
Goodbye Long Winter: Hello Spring
When Derrick Mayoleth, blogger extraordinaire for Devil’s Lake State Park, reported that the great blue herons had returned, I knew spring had truly arrived. These amazing birds nest in a rookery close to the group camp parking lot on the south shore. It’s an ideal place to view them. My husband and I have met […]
Ireland: Bog Bodies to Pookas
When my daughters were college age, I arranged for the three of us to go on a trip together. We discussed where to go and chose a tour of Ireland which included seeing the beautiful landscape, visiting local pubs, learning about various Irish figures such as St. Patrick, and sampling their native beer, Guinness. Our […]
Josie the Cockapoo Heads to the Ocean
The suitcases are coming out! Mom Amy packed my doggy life vest and Dad Frank packed the kayak. That means that we’re going back to that place where Leftie the alligator lives. I can’t wait to see if she’s sunning in her usual spot. Best of all, I’ll get to retrieve sticks in the waves […]
Go ahead, Crawl Under a Table
My husband and I took our grandsons to the Shrine circus in Madison this past February. Benjamin, three years old, fell asleep on the way there. We had just gotten inside the huge coliseum when a 6-foot creature with fuzzy orange hair, a chalk-white face, big red nose, and floppy shoes strode toward him. Arm […]
The Poinsettia
I’m killing it. Slowly . . . hour by hour. The poinsettia sits on the floor of the basement utility room. Its once festive red petals, now wilted from lack of water and sunlight, torment me. Back in December, with the promise of the holidays, the plant’s cluster of tiny yellow flowers surrounded by bright […]