At the time this essay is due to be posted I am on a religious pilgrimage that is retracing the footsteps of St Paul through Greece and Turkey. This is the fourth international pilgrimage that I have participated in. What
The Season of October October, perhaps more specifically, the first three weeks or so of October are a season unto themselves. The weather is unique. Early on some of the days can be quite warm. But rather than feeling oppressive
For the last five or six years I have finished the trout season in southwestern Wisconsin, in an area known as the driftless region. The glaciers that scoured out the Great Lakes and most of the rest of what
It started, as it usually does, subtly. The seed heads of the grasses lining the roads and in the fallow farm fields ripened and began to cast a tawny brown hue across the landscape. The long green stems that had
The honking of a skein of Goose on a late October day always raises a sense of urgency as they sing to Autumn melding into the coming of winter. And honking on a morning in late March wells up hope
A few weeks ago, I attended what was advertised as a Gordon MacQuarrie “pilgrimage”. I put pilgrimage in quotes because Gordon MacQuarrie was not an overtly religious man. He was an outdoor writer who passed away in 1956.
These past few weeks there has been is a good-size slash of deep purple on the backside of a section of split-rail fence in my backyard. My brother Tom would have described the color as ‘passionate purple’. The vocal color
Things that go bump, or maybe not, in the Night – 8/19/2022 Summer and camping went together in my family. In fact, camping was the only kind of summer vacation I ever knew in my childhood. If you would have
The Diddle Pole – 8/12/2022 I looked for it the other day, even though the August temperature was pushing 90 degrees. It was where it should be – in a bucket with other ice fishing gear, appropriately shoved in a
Downhill, hardly or “Peter Pan!” – August 5, 2022 When I was young, our family’s typical Sunday included a drive to Kaukauna to visit my maternal grandmother. My brother and I were usually expected to sit quietly on the couch
