April 4, 2020 Yesterday I started to get bored sitting around the house, where nothing much was happening. But early April has treated us to a mild day, so now I’m sitting on our front porch watching nothing much happening from here. Something in the breeze stirs up a memory, with all its accompanying emotions, that goes back to a day when something did happen out here. Something big, at least from my perspective. I recall it like it was only yesterday, though it was in fact a couple decades ago. It was an encounter …

March 28, 2020 The other day a friend asked how I was spending my time during the coronavirus lockdown. I admitted to wasting a lot of it in front of the various screens in the house. But it’s not been a total loss, I told him. I was also spending extra time in the Bible, doing some needed repairs around the house, and even cleaning out the basement. Rick chuckled. The kind of chuckle I’d get if I’d just said I’d given up eating cookies forever. What didn’t he believe? Not the Bible reading part; …

November 11, 2019 It was hard to miss the long line of hikers crossing the Little Miami River in Milford, Ohio on the sunny afternoon of October 20. Close observers might have even noticed a tear coursing its way down the cheek of a hiker or two. Those tears were most likely generated by a mixture of emotions. Joy in the completion of a five-year 1,400-plus-mile journey around the state of Ohio on the Buckeye Trail. And at the same time, possibly sadness that in a few hundred yards they would be finishing the trail …

by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 1, Part 2 October 17, 2019 A week and a half passed since our last time out on the trail. I had planned to hit those woods through East Fork State Park after a weekend off, but that Sunday night I began feeling sick. I thought it was something I ate; CW thought it might be from my previous week of pounding the roads in the heat. Whatever it was, I could barely move Monday. While I was flat on my back that day, I did some serious …