What A Wonderful Child It’s a sweet time of year at Bethel Church. I was the first to arrive on Sunday morning. It was just after dawn. I stepped into the quiet auditorium. A wreath was glowing on the brick wall east of the pulpit. A Christas tree stood on the west side. I plugged […]
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 67) Books, Poems, Words
The driveway was full out on Bittersweet Farm on Friday. We had a Thanksgiving meal with a big bunch of our family. The ground was covered with snow. It made things festive and created a holiday feel. When the families come over there are toddlers and babies and small children everywhere. Our hearts are filled […]
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 66) “Mitfordly”
Koselig It frosted hard out on Bittersweet Farm this week for the first time this fall. We’ve had a couple snows already. Thursday morning I drove over to Plymouth to speak for the Baptist Convention of Michigan Leadership Conference and the ground and branches were covered with a thin layer of snow. Still some of […]
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 65) Enough About Me
The road running west from Bittersweet Farm rises and falls through gentle woods and farmland toward the next crossroads. Tonight I walked toward the sunset in the company of Hazard. I drive through those hills every day but to walk them with a dog on a cool autumn evening at sunset is to experience them […]
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 64) Reading or Writing
Day off on Bittersweet. No appointments. None. The sky is gray but the woods around Bittersweet are wearing the bright yellow of late October. Oats and coffee this morning. Back to my writing desk. The house is quiet. Hope is at work. Lois is on an errand for a few hours. Hazard is curled up […]
Bittersweet Journal (Number 63) An Old Receipt
There are two fields that lie just north of our place. I call them the “near north field” and the “far north field.” Beyond them is a woods that shelters a pond. Beyond the woods the Falling Waters Trail crosses running east and west. Farmer Clark took the beans off the fields north of Bittersweet […]