April 9, 2020 In a recent post, I wrote about our basement cleaning project. Since then we’ve begun throwing more stuff out, but we’re already wishing we hadn’t. I figured we’d at least have a little grace period, but apparently Murphy’s Law doesn’t mess around. Can you find what’s missing in the above photo? Neither can we. It’s the rubber sealing ring that is supposed to be in the lid. We found the pressure cooker a few days ago. We pitched a perfectly good ring a few weeks ago. I don’t know why the ring …

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 …

December 24, 2019 A couple weeks ago my wife had her kitchen set up to make desserts for our annual Bible study Christmas party. Our group has dubbed Bonnie the “Dessert Queen,” a title hard-earned over more than a decade of concocting culinary masterpieces. (She would not agree with that term.) You could say her desserts are just good for the heart, in a nonbiological way I mean. One of her choices this year was polar bear cookies. I offered to help and she said yes. It’s not often I am welcomed into the Queen’s …

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 …