by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Sep 28, 2015 | bears, Nature, Thistle
I like to make plans. I like for things to fit neatly together–preferably in an attractive pattern. For example, over the weekend I bought fried chicken at a deli for a church event. I really, really, REALLY wanted to suggest to the clerk that he should put the...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Sep 24, 2015 | Appalachian, dogs, Nature, Thistle
Thistle and I often hike in the national forest near our house. I never know who we’ll run into up there–hikers, hunters, cyclists, foragers–there’s quite a variety of folks. Yesterday, though, was unique. We pulled into the gravel lot and I...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Sep 16, 2015 | Appalachian, Family, Miracles, Nature
The calf lot was just beyond the backyard, adjacent to the barn when I was growing up. This was the “nursery” for the milk cow, so it was often empty. Inside the fence there was a rock. What I thought of as a massive, huge, immense rock that lay flat and...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Sep 3, 2015 | Appalachian, Family, Nature
I spent last weekend back home in WV visiting my family. It’s that lovely, in-between time of year when summer is clearly fading and fall has yet to arrive. The hay field had been cut, so the deer tended to hang back near the edges and they weren’t the...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Aug 27, 2015 | Appalachian, Nature
By some miracle, the nights have turned off cool enough to sleep with the windows open. Even though it’s still AUGUST. This pleases me deeply. And it gets me to thinking about how fall is right around the corner. As I get out and take Thistle for walks, or write...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Jul 16, 2015 | Appalachian, dogs, Nature, Thistle
The black bear is the state animal of West Virginia, therefore I’m a fan. And yet, in all my 18 years of living on the family farm, I never saw one. There was a big, rolly-polly bear at the Game Farm who loved to drink soda through the bars of his cage, but he...
