What Is This?

What Is This?

Rain is falling in NW Arkansas, but that isn’t all…hail peppered my deck and rattled against the house a few minutes ago. Lightning, thunder–what is this? Isn’t the official start of winter less than a week away? Doesn’t Christmas wait just around the corner? Could it be that autumn is having a hissy fit at […]

A Strange, Wonderful Sound

It took a while to recognize it. Sometime during the night, it must have started. It’s the sound of rain! Drumming on the roof, dancing off the deck, sluicing down the windows, rain! The street is a-glimmer; shimmers of lightning dance across wet pavement. Trees and flowers stand silently, lifting grateful arms to the dark […]

Idling Into Thursday

Idling Into Thursday

A person’s thoughts are never really idle–disconnected, maybe, scattered here and there. That’s what mine are this morning. I look out at my wet, soggy ground and wonder if I’ll have a chance to get the last of my herbs planted today. Yesterday was a wild weather day. Wind lashed the trees and rain poured […]

When the Storm Becomes Vicious

When the Storm Becomes Vicious

This time it was Dayton, Ohio, who received the fury of a turbulent storm. As I read about this, I thought how quickly and without warning people’s lives change; often, that change is forever. In a few moments time, a violent, twisting wind, or rising flood waters devastate lives and rearrange the future. Arkansas and […]

The Peggs Tornado

Since it is the 99  year anniversary of the Peggs tornado, and although I re-published it last year at this time, I do so again today. For a time, I wrote feature stories for The Tahlequah Daily Press. On May 5, 1985, The Press published an article I wrote about the tornado that destroyed Peggs, […]

Coffee and a Cloudy Day

The last day of April is forecast to go out with a fanfare–a roll of thunder and heavenly lighting–lightning, that is. Right now, the sky is simply cloudy. But, the coffee is especially good this morning. Is there something about rain being in the forecast that enhances the taste of coffee?  Robins are busy outside […]