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Appalachian Thursday – Haying Season
Thistle and I have been walking through a neighbor's pasture lately. There's a critter trail we take and I can't walk through the waist high grasses without thinking about my father telling us to stay out of the hayfield lest we mash down the grasses ahead of hay...
Is closure even a THING?
It's been three weeks since Dad died. I'm getting used to the idea. That's Dad grinning with me on my wedding day. But not really. Maybe that's the catch. I don't actually want to be less sad about losing my father. It feels right to me that I'll be sad not to have...
Appalachian Thursday – 17-Year Plague
As if 2020 hasn't been hard enough already. The east coast--specifically NC, WV, and VA (how did TN opt out?)--are due for the emergence of the 17-year cicada. Folks often call them locusts, but they're really Magicicada periodical cicadas. Wow--what a name! The...
Oh right–this happens EVERY year
Over the weekend I draped my peonies in an old sheet to keep them from getting nipped by frost. The last frost date for our part of the mountains is May 15 but we've had such a lovely spring that lots of folks jumped the gun with their spring planting. Sure enough,...
Farewell for now . . .
It's been a tough week, but also one filled with blessings. We had a small, family only service for my Dad at the farm in West Virginia. It was a terrible, wonderful day. A pastor Dad's known since high school delivered the service on the deck at the farm house. Then...
Appalachian Thursday – Saying Goodbye to Dad
If you follow my blog you know Monday was my anniversary. It was also the day my Dad died. He's the one who passed the storytelling gene on to me. So many of his stories are woven into my novels. Dad finding my first novel on the shelf at the Upshur County Public...
What Happened to That Wedding Gift?
Today is my 24th wedding anniversary. And thankfully we're not only still in love, we also still like each other enough to stand being quarantined together. Two decades plus somehow feels like both a lifetime and maybe two weeks. Time is slippery that way. Adding to...
Appalachian Thursday – COVID Characters
Lots of folks are coming up with creative ways to keep busy (and maybe distracted) during all of this self-quarantining time. Which got me to thinking about how some of my characters might handle being stuck at home. Turns out, several of them would fit right in these...
Meet Sarah
