Whatever happened to the grandmas that prepared their grandchildren to be soft but tough and kind but not taken advantage of? We need more of those women today – women like Grandma Hartman.

Winter around here just about drives me crazy, and by February, I’m long past being 99.99% done. Not to blame anyone, but the problem is the people I live with.

Summer memories warm cold winter days.

"And that is the difference between me and the men in my life. To them, fire is a solution. To me, fire – I should say specifically fire in their hands – is a threat."

Dave keeps a shoebox on his closet shelf. He uses it to put his odds and ends in, things he empties out of or puts back into his pockets whenever he changes. Every so once in a while, when I get a spring-cleaning burr under my saddle, I’ll muck out the closet – and with it, the shoebox.

I am coming to understand there are things in life I just can’t have. Yardsticks, for example. I can’t have yardsticks.

I employ an organizational method I call “creative layering.” An example of my technique can be seen on my bookshelves. Where the books are low-profile, I have them double shelved – or rather, I have two rows of books per shelf.

All in all, farm life just wouldn’t be as rich without the cousins of every generation.